Why did the writers of the Articles of Confederation think a lack of a federal executive and judiciary under the document was a strength of the Articles?
Why did the writers of the Articles of Confederation think a lack of a federal executive and judiciary under the document was a strength of the Articles?
They wanted the states to each have their own president.
They wanted to copy the British style of government.
They wanted to count enslaved people as three-fifths of a person.
They did not want a strong central government.
The writers of the Articles of Confederation thought a lack of a federal executive and judiciary was a strength because:
They did not want a strong central government.
The experiences of the American colonies under British rule had instilled a deep wariness of a powerful central authority, particularly the sort of monarchical and aristocratic systems that they had fought against during the American Revolution. The colonists were concerned about the potential for a central government to become tyrannical and infringe upon the rights and liberties they valued.
Therefore, when they drafted the Articles of Confederation, the emphasis was on state sovereignty and a loose union of independent states. The Articles provided for a very limited central government with a unicameral legislature (the Congress of the Confederation) and essentially no executive or judicial branches on the federal level. This reflected the founding generation's preference for local governance and their fear of centralized power.
The other answer choices are incorrect in the context of the intentions behind the Articles of Confederation:
- The states did not each have their own president in the sense of a separate executive leader with significant powers. While states had their own governments, the idea was not to have 13 independent "presidents" but rather to have strong state legislatures and governors within a loose confederation.
- The intention was not specifically to copy the British style of government. After rebelling against the British monarchy and parliamentary sovereignty, the drafters of the Articles sought to create a political system that was quite different in terms of its distribution of power.
- The issue of counting enslaved people as three-fifths of a person was addressed later in the Three-Fifths Compromise, which was part of the debates during the drafting of the United States Constitution in 1787, well after the Articles of Confederation were drafted (in 1777) and ratified (in 1781). This compromise was about the apportionment of representatives in Congress, not an aspect of the Articles of Confederation.