United States Government Change From Articles of Confederation to the Constitutional Government
The constitution of the US is a document that was drafted to amend various clauses posed by the confederate articles. In their motive, the confederate articles were put together to play a constitutional role in governing the 13 colonies. However, while the Articles served the interests of the British Empire, one of the overarching issues on the background was the problem of slavery, its effect on the society and its overall representation of a tyrant governing entity. As a result, the constitution was drafted to amend various clauses of the Confederate Articles on the dignity of humans, the inconceivable social problem of slavery, and the overall lack of human rights (LaCroix, 15). Additionally, the Civil War and the associate concerns of the nation were directed towards regaining human rights. Therefore, the shift from Confederate Articles to Constitutional Governance is a reflection of American’s struggle to win the Civil War, to end slavery, and to separate from the British rule.
Reviewing Civil War leads almost unconsciously to think of slavery, an incomprehensible institution in our society, condemnable, detestable and uncomfortable. The slave was neither more nor less than a human being owned by another, had no legal or political representation, had no rights and only one duty: to obey (LaCroix, 20). At the beginning of the civil war about four million black slaves lived in the slave states of the United States. Their main work was agrarian work; men, women and children were engaged in the cultivation of cotton that the South exported, and this constituted the central base of the economy. Meanwhile, to the north, free blacks were a minority that did not enjoy the freedoms that one might suppose.
During the war hundreds of thousands of former black slaves served in the armies of the Union, while, faced with the gradual defeat of the Confederation, it was asked whether to arm the slaves or not. In the end, the South surrendered before this happened since it would have been to betray the very foundations of slavery, that black is not equal in nature to white, so it could not be a better soldier (Wilson p. 848).
In addition, when the existence of slavery was questioned for the first time, Thomas Jefferson wrote that he considered it the death knell of the Union. In effect, the premises of the founding fathers were obscure and augured an uncertain future. That they would have preferred a dissolution of the Union before a civil war was clear, which their successors did not share. On the one hand the South felt attacked by an enemy invader who wanted to dominate them (Chet p. 1000). As a result, slavery was not the cause of secession, but the reason for its failure, since in many other countries slavery had been abolished with a plan and a higher objective, trying not to overly alter the structure of the society.
Based on the observed weight of slavery and the overall negative effects on social lives, the Confederate Articles could not meet the needs of the Americans since it only served the interests of the tyrant over those of the subjects. The constitution, as a result, was founded on the premise that it would generally protect the social interests of the population. Additionally, the oppressive nature of the British Empire had also deprived the people of their natural human rights and led to significant negative effects such as the Civil War.
Chet, Guy. "We Have Not a Government: The Articles of Confederation and the Road to the Constitution." (2019): 1000-1001.
LaCroix, Alison L. "Continuity in Secession: The Case of the Confederate Constitution." U of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper 512 (2015).
Wilson, Harold S. "Michael Brem Bonner. Confederate Political Economy: Creating and Managing a Southern Corporatist Nation." (2017): 848-849.
