Like all historians and anyone who has studied the short period between the end of the Revolutionary War and the ratification of the Constitution, there was total chaos. That chaos can be attributed to the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation were like the law book of the United States of America. The articles, however, were very weak. They were to be replaced by a much better entity which, we now know, was the Constitution of the United States. The Articles of Confederation had to be replaced due to their inability to control trade, taxation, and the disunity of their decision making. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The greatest weakness of the Articles of Confederation was their inability to control interstate, international, and interstate commerce. Trade is probably the most important thing for the survival of a country. Controlling trade is essential for a country to survive. The Articles of Confederation could not do that. How could the country survive? The federal government could say they ban all items from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but the states, usually this is the New England state of Rhode Island, could say no and the items could do nothing about it. This also applied to interstate commerce. If a vessel crossed too far down the Potomac River or Delaware River, you could be taxed for entering a different state. It was a horrible system in which states competed with each other for dominance and to get out of debt by damaging each other's economies with tariffs and taxes. In truth, the inability to control commerce within and without the nation made the Articles of Confederation a bad system that needed to be replaced. Another reason why the Articles of Confederation were a truly horrible system was their inability to tax the people of the country. United States of America. The Articles of Confederation could not tax people or states. They could only ask for donations and only about 25% of their requests were met, meaning they only got about 25% of what they needed. It was a horrible system as they couldn't move forward. We were indebted mainly to France, but also to other countries. Since we were only making about 25% of what we needed, we couldn't even pay the interest on the loan, which was horrible. We were sinking deeper and deeper into debt and France got angry and blocked us from her ports in the West Indies, crippling our economy even more than it was already failing us from the treatment meted out to us by the Spanish Empire and especially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Spain . Ireland. Clearly, the Articles of Confederation's failure to tax destroyed the nation and continued to make things worse. Finally, another big reason why the Articles of Confederation needed to be replaced was due to their decision-making process. First, how the Congress was organized. Each state got one vote. It would be fine if all states were the same size, but they're not. In that form of government the six hundred and eighty thousand inhabitants of Virginia had the same amount of power as the sixty-eight thousand of Rhode Island. This is just unfair to all those people. Virginia and New York had the same amount of power as Rhode Island and Delaware. Next, to create a new law or amend an existing one, Congress needed complete agreement. All thirteen.