FREE ESSAY ON US CONFEDERATION

US CONFEDERATION

The Articles of confederation were ratified in 1781 and became the first constitution if
the United States of America. It provided a strong national government to make all states
a single nation. The articles created a firm league of friendship, the articles had a
national congress which consisted of two to seven delegates. The delegates were from each
state and were in charge of foreign relations declaring war, peace, army and navy
matters, issues, directives and to pass laws. The only problem was they could not enforce
them. 
The articles denied congress the power of taxation a serious oversight in time of war.
The national government could obtain funds only by asking states for contributions called
requisitions, but if a state failed to cooperate which many did, congress went about
everything with no financial support. 
Two good bits of legislation came out of the loose knit confederation. The first was the
land ordinance of 1785. It set up the way land was owned by the federal government. That
in which was basically the territory won from Britain that wasn't claimed by one of the
states, and could be divided and sold. It called for townships to be divided into one
square mile, or 640 acres, and sold at a public auction. Part of the revenue went to the
establishment of public schools. 
The second was called the Northwest ordinance, in 1787. It stated that as new states were
admitted to the country, they would be equal in every way to the original thirteen. It
also banned slavery in the new territories, although this was later to be changed. Both
laws were good starts to stabilizing the new country. But ongoing troubles in trying to
regulate commerce between the states and in trying to raise money for the federal
government still plagued the nation, especially since every state had its own currency
and assigned it its own value. All in all, I feel that the articles of confederation was
made to give the people more of an authority over the government and it was an attempt to
let the people make their own rules, different from Britain. 


  
    
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Douglas
Frederick Douglas Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland, near Hillsborough.
He doesn't know for sure of his age, he has seen no proof and his master will not inform
him. Most masters prefer for their slaves to stay ignorant. He believes that he was
around twenty-seven and twenty-eight when he began writing his narrative - he overheard
his master say he was about seventeen years of age during 1835. His mother, Harriet
Bailey, was separated from him when he was an infant and she died when he was seven years
old. Frederick's father was a white man who could have been his master but he never found
out. Education was of utmost importance in his life. He received his first lesson while
living with Mr. and Mrs. Auld. Sophia Auld, Frederick's mistress, was very humane to him
and spent time teaching him the A, B, C's. After he mastered this, she assisted him in
spelling three and four letter words. At this point in his lesson Mr. Auld encountered
what his wife was doing for Frederick and forbid her to continue. He believed that if you
give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell and continuing with learning would spoil the
best nigger in the world. The masters felt that an ignorant slave formed a choice slave
and any beneficial learning would damage the slave and therefore be futile to his master.
His next step on the road to success was during his seven years living with Master Hugh's
family. Frederick would make friends with as many white boys as he possibly could on the
street. His new friends would be transformed into teachers. When he could, Frederick
carried bread on him as a means of trade to the famished kids for knowledge. He would
also carry a book anytime he had an errand to run. The errand would be completed quickly,
allowing extra study time. When Frederick was working in Durgin and Bailey's ship-yard he
would notice timber marked with various letters. He soon discovered how the letters
matched the type of wood and the names of these letters. Any boy he met that could write
he would challenge them to a writing contest. Frederick would use the letters he recently
learned and told the child to challenge that.