Introduction
The United States Constitution is one of the revolutionary systems of governance that exist in the contemporary world. The primary purpose of the document was to establish societal efficiency that had declined over the years due to slavery, blatant discrimination, and political instability among other letdowns of the ancient governments. Indeed, the document has significantly shaped the social, political, and economic landscapes of the present-day United States.
Nonetheless, the acceptance of the document passed through rigorous debates that slowed down the ratification process. The enactment of the Articles of Confederation took place in the early 1780s in an attempt to create a democratic system of governance for the United States. However, the ratification of the United States Constitution severally failed to materialize as per the expectations due to the existence of independent states that exercised sovereign powers over their jurisdictions.
Consequently, the idea of exercising federalism over the state power raised a plethora of questions amongst the supporters and opponents of the constitution. The effects of power abuse still in the minds of the federalists and the antifederalists, both groups had a hard time to come into terms with the intended ratification and implementation of the United States Constitution. This essay seeks to provide a clear explanation of why I would have backed the implementation of the ‘Plan of the New Federal Government’ in a bid to rationalize equality amongst the United States of America.
Why I Accept the United States Constitution
Multifarious drawbacks that featured in the Articles of the Confederation led to interstate conflicts (Ginsberg et al. 203). According to the authors, each American State had only a single chance of voting in the Congress in spite of its demographic and political representation in the central administration. This situation was a major drawback that demanded for deliberation on the number of votes that were to be possessed by each of the American States.
Ideally, this particular clause was impracticable since the American States differed in terms of both geographic and demographic sizes (Ginsberg et al. 209). This representation of the states created an unfair means of resource allocation that disadvantaged large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina among others. Astoundingly, the members of the smaller states also opposed the implementation of the Articles of Confederation in response to this weakness. These situations led to the emergence of federalist and antifederalist groups who triggered interstate conflicts.
However, Section 8 of Article 1 of the new United States Constitution addresses the aforementioned issue through the legislative branch of the federal government. Taylor reveals that the Article provides all eligible citizens with the right to vote for the Congress in their respective states by means of the ballot (357). For this reason, the new United States Constitution defends the representation of the citizens of all the 13 American States in the central administration. In my opinion, the Articles of Confederation should have represented all the states in ratios that would have created equality amongst them. Consequently, there was a need to accept the implementation of the ‘Plan of the New Federal Government’.
Secondly, the Articles of Confederation allowed the states to establish independent monetary systems. Each autonomous state used its currency as a representation of sovereignty. This situation weakened the economy owing to hindrance of trade amongst the sovereign states (Renz 81). Some of the states such as New York and Virginia did not only have unwelcoming exchange rates but also imposed inexorable duties on imported goods that passed through their ports to other states.
These monetary defects significantly hindered democracy amongst the states. Additionally, the formation of sovereign states affected their engagement with Britain. As a result, British ports withdrew the handling of imported goods for the self-governing states. However, Article 1 Section 8 of the new United States Constitution has corrected the abovementioned defects. The federal government bears all the powers to make judgments on monetary aspects such as taxes, duties, excises, and regulation of exchange rates not only amongst the United American States but also globally.
In support of the new United States Constitution, Section 8 of Article 1 sought to promote the welfare of all the 13 states of America with respect to all matters that pertain to currency (Taylor 357). The unification of the currency system and enactment of associated rules and regulations has played a crucial role to uplift the economic status of the United States of America.
Furthermore, the governance that functioned under the Articles of Confederation weakened the Congress. The Congress was deprived of its powers to control matters that pertained to tax, foreign regulation, and interstate commerce. According to Bowers, this situation led to insubstantiality of the central administration since the sovereign states had superior powers to control activities within their jurisdictions (99).
As a result, the states failed to operate efficiently due unequal distribution of power amongst the states. Additionally, limitation of power to the Congress had a significant influence on interstate commerce. Taylor posits that some of the states misused their supremacy over the central government to exercise their will on matters that pertained to commerce (357).The neighboring states were treated as foreign nations. As a result, neighbor nations encountered inequitable taxations, expensive license requirements, and unrelenting port protocols among other interstate conflicts (Bowers 112).
In my opinion, these situations created a trade war amongst the competing states because the congress lacked powers to exercise direct control over individuals or the states. Consequently, there was a need for amendment of the Articles of Confederation to reinforce the tax, foreign regulation, and interstate commerce clauses that had led to abuse of state power. Under the new United States Constitution, Section 8 of Article 1 clearly outlines the laws that govern today’s amalgamation of interstate commerce across all the 13 states of America.
Conclusion
This essay has presented the problems of the Articles of Confederation that paved way for abuse of state power. As evidenced in the above discussion, the Federalists eventually accomplished their principal goal of implementing the new United States Constitution to unify the 13 states of America. Amidst the refusal of the document by the antifederalists, ratification and institution of the document in the United States of America played a crucial role of establishing a powerful central government that extended its mandate to the Legislative, the Judicial, and the Executive arms of government.
For my part, I would have strongly supported the passage of the United States Constitution owing to the benefits that it had over the ancient Articles of Confederation. Thus, ratification and implementation of the ‘Plan of the New Federal Government’ account for the unification of today’s interstate commerce, tax control, and regulation of the US Dollar among other achievements that have shaped the social, political, religious, and economic landscapes of the United States of America.
Works Cited
Bowers, Michael. The Sagebrush State: Nevada’s History, Government, and Politics. Nevada, United States: University of Nevada Press, 2013. Print.
Ginsberg, Benjamin, Theodore Lowi, Margaret Weir, Caroline Tolbert, and Robert Spitzer. We the People: An Introduction to American Politics. United States: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
Renz, Jeffrey. “What Spending Clause? (or the President’s Paramour): 1 An Examination Of The Views Of Hamilton, Madison, and Story on Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution.” The John Marshall Law Review 33.1(1999): 81. Print.
Taylor, Paul. “The Federalist Papers, the Commerce Clause, and Federal Tort Reform.” University Law Review 45.1(2012): 357. Print.