The Articles of Confederation

54문장 0% 스페인어 번역 0명 참여 출처 : 칸아카데미
번역 0%

The Articles of Confederation발음듣기

[Instructor] Hey, this is Kim and I'm here with Leah Khan Academy's US Government and Politics Fellow.발음듣기

Welcome Leah.발음듣기

[Leah] How's it going?발음듣기

[Kim] Alright, so we're talking about the Articles of Confederation which I think many people don't realize was the first constitution of the United States before the one that we have now since 1789.발음듣기

So could you take us through a little bit what the Articles of Confederation were and the context in which we first brought them on as a governmental system?발음듣기

[Leah] Sure, so I think the most important thing to understand about the Articles of Confederation.발음듣기

And why we would talk about this is because one of the biggest debates that we have in our history is about the balance of power between the federal government and state governments.발음듣기

When the Articles of Confederation were first created it was in the middle of the American Revolution.발음듣기

They were created in 1777, and so the question becomes well, how can we run a government that looks as different from monarchy as possible?발음듣기

[Kim] Right, so they're trying to run away from the past that they're getting away from in the Revolutionary War and trying to create a separate government that doesn't have any of those abuses that they are rebelling against.발음듣기

[Leah] If they're running away from a monarchy what they're running towards is what we would call limited government.발음듣기

[Kim] OK.발음듣기

[Leah] So their central government which is synonymous with a federal government the central government is actually really, really, really small.발음듣기

[Kim] OK.발음듣기

[Leah] They don't have an executive branch.발음듣기

They only have Congress.발음듣기

They don't even have a judicial branch.발음듣기

So Congress is made up of all 13 states.발음듣기

Every state had one representative.발음듣기

[Kim] OK.발음듣기

[Leah] In order to change the Articles of Confederation if they wanted to pass an amendment they had to get unanimous consent from all 13 states.발음듣기

[Kim] OK, so they're trying to make sure that all of the states are represented equally.발음듣기

But that also sounds like it would have a lot of hurdles to overcome when it comes to getting consensus.발음듣기

[Leah] Yeah, for laws, you had to get nine out of 13 states to actually pass a law.발음듣기

So if you can imagine, if you're in a room of 13 people and you all have to agree on one pizza topping for the rest of your lives. (Kim laughs)발음듣기

It would be almost impossible, right?발음듣기

[Kim] Wow, OK, alright, so it sounds like there are some problems with the Articles of Confederation but did they do anything good for us in this early period?발음듣기

[Leah] Yeah, so the biggest thing is that it unites all 13 colonies who are now states under one government.발음듣기

[Kim] OK.발음듣기

[Leah] This government is able to pass a really favorable treaty with Britain and end the Revolutionary War in 1783, the Treaty of Paris.발음듣기

[Kim] OK, so this is kind of the government that gets us through the revolutionary war and is with us when we first start in the 1780s.발음듣기

[Leah] Yeah, and one another specific law that they pass is the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.발음듣기

And this Northwest Ordinance kinda tells us how we are going to expand as we move west.발음듣기

And what are we going to do with that land and that's a really important idea when we're moving forward with our country.발음듣기

The only problem is with the Articles of Confederation is there is a lot of things that we still have to figure out as we're growing, there's a lot of growing pains.발음듣기

[Kim] So what led the early government of the United States to realize that they wanted to abandon these Articles of Confederation in favor of a different constitution?발음듣기

[Leah] So the inciting incident is Shays' Rebellion.발음듣기

It happens in Massachusetts, and it's a group of farmers led by this guy named Daniel Shays.발음듣기

What's happening is that we had just gotten out of the Revolutionary War.발음듣기

And a lot of the people who had fought in the Revolutionary War still hadn't gotten payment for their duty.발음듣기

They also were experiencing really high state taxes so Daniel Shays and these farmers are very upset, obviously in their wanting their money.발음듣기

And so they started rebelling but the problem is, with the way that the central government that was built, first, Congress had no ability to levy or collect taxes.발음듣기

If they couldn't collect taxes they had no ability to actually pay back their farmers.발음듣기

Along with that, they didn't have any money to create a military, so each state had their own militia.발음듣기

But the United States as a whole as a country did not have a military to suppress this rebellion.발음듣기

So on both ends, we are in a really bad situation politically.발음듣기

[Kim] Wow, so, there's this moment where you find armed rebellion against the United States for a lack of money.발음듣기

And the US government finds that it can't raise money and it can't raise an army to put down this rebellion.발음듣기

[Leah] Exactly, and so there is this fear immediately.발음듣기

And what we see is a lot of the founding fathers that we know and really respect today like George Washington and Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.발음듣기

They get together and they say this is a problem we need to change what we have and this leads to the Constitutional Convention in which we draft our second constitution.발음듣기

[Kim] Right, yeah, so in 1787, the leaders of the United States get together and say alright, the Articles of Confederation aren't working.발음듣기

We're gonna need a stronger central government even though we were trying to get away from the monarchy and now let's think of something that's going to work a little bit better for us.발음듣기

Top