The+U.S.+Constitution

The weak Articles of Confederation were written during the blood thirsty American Revolution. The new country wanted a weak government, so they made the frail Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation provided for a weak national government, which gave Congress no power to tax or regulate commerce among the states. Which meant that the new nation could not have a Continental Army. The people needed money and a powerful army, but they were in huge debt. Articles of Confederation didn't provide for a common currency.

The plan of government that replaced the weak Articles of Confederation was known as the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution developed a stronger form of government, because unlike the Articles of Confederation, it gave government the right to tax people and it also gave government more power. The structure of the new national government was based on James Madison's "Virginia Plan," which called for three different branches of government. These Branches were the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, and Judicial Branch.

The branches all did varying things. The Legislative Branch makes the laws and it is also known as Congress. Congress has two houses the House of Representatives and Senate. Each state gets two senators. The states representatives or representative depends on the states population. James Madison the Father of Constitution authored the Bill of rights. The first ten amendments on the U.S. Constitution are called the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights guaranteed individual rights. The Executive Branch carries out the laws. The Judicial Branch determines if laws are Constitutional. The Articles of Confederation didn't give government the right to tax us, so our government didn't have any money. Another reason that the goverment didn't have any money,because the goverment printed paper money thinking that it was worth anything, but there wasn't anything to back it up (like gold).

The Articles of Confederation gave the government no power. The federal system divides governmental powers between national government and state governments.The two basic principles of our national government under the U.S Constitution are the separation of powers and checks and balances meaning that all three branches have power and checks and balances and they help balance each other out. Each Branch can check the power of the other Branches, which keeps any one Branch from gaining too much power.