The first "decision-making" system in the United States was created by the Articles of Confederation, our nation's first attempt at a national government. The Articles of Confederation did not work very well for a number of reasons. One of the glaring weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation is that it did not promote a head of state or chief executive. The absence of a President, which was instituted by the Constitution that succeeded the Articles,...
The first "decision-making" system in the United States was created by the Articles of Confederation, our nation's first attempt at a national government. The Articles of Confederation did not work very well for a number of reasons. One of the glaring weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation is that it did not promote a head of state or chief executive. The absence of a President, which was instituted by the Constitution that succeeded the Articles, caused a number of problems. First, it was hard to establish diplomatic relationships with other countries without a head of state. Countries that wished to deal with the United States essentially did not know who to contact. Also, the President and his cabinet are the enforcement mechanism for laws that are created by the legislature. Without an efficient form of enforcement, laws are not worth the paper that they are printed on.
Another problem of the Articles of Confederation was the nature of the legislature. Each state was given only one vote, regardless of the population of the state. The tricky part is that for a law to be passed, nine of those states needed to agree. For this reason, it was very difficult to pass laws and resulted in a very inefficient system of lawmaking. This also meant that many laws could be dismissed by a coalition of small states which could cancel the rule of the majority, a foundation by which all democracies are founded on.
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