Question:
After obtaining its independence, the newly freed American states decided to create a new government. In fact, they wrote a constitution named “the Articles of Confederation.” However, this first form of government did not really work in our country.
Therefore, the framers of the constitution decided to write a new document. In order to have a better understanding of our current government and constitution it is essential to know why our government emerged, the document that established rules in our first government, the type of government that we first had and its failure, our new government and constitution. Please finish your essay by comparing and contrasting the articles of confederation with the U.S. Constitution.
Address the following concepts in your essay:
a) Define social contract (1 point)
b) Define constitution (1 point)
c) Define confederation (1 point)
d) Provide two characteristics of the articles of confederation (1 point)
e) Discuss one thing that Continental Congress could do and one that Congress could not do under the articles of confederation (1 point)
f) Provide at least two reasons about why the document (articles of confederation) failed (1 point)
g) Discuss Shay’s rebellion (1 point)
h) Define Representative and Direct democracy (2 points)
i) Define Majestic Vagueness (1 point)
j) Define the concept of Separation of powers and list the branches (1 point)
k) Define the concept of checks and balances (1 point)
l) Checks and balances (provide one way in which each branch checks on each other) (3 points)
m) Compare and contrast the articles of confederation with the U.S. constitution (4 points -2 similarities and 2 differences)
n) The assignment is written in an essay form, it is grammatically correct and sources are cited correctly (1 point)
Total points: 20
