The United States had changed. Unfortunately, its form of government had not. The Articles of Confederation had proved remarkably effective for the exigencies of the Revolutionary War. But they were completely inadequate for the much bigger challenge of winning the peace. Simply put, the Articles of Confederation were too loose and too weak to provide the foundations for a new country taking its place among the international community of nations.
The Articles of Confederation embodied the "Spirit of '76," the decentralized radical republican system of government beloved of Thomas Jefferson. The American colonists had just successfully fought against what they regarded as a tyranny. This fear of tyrannical government trampling over inalienable rights strongly influenced their fear of centralized administration. It was inevitable, then, that any subsequent system of government would involve the widest possible disbursement of power. Under the Articles, the United States became a confederacy...
(The entire section contains 2 answers and 840 words.)
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