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Confederation Dbq

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In 1787, the Constitution of the United States was just written on September 17th. During this time, the common man was still under the power of the Articles of Confederation, a weak document that loosely connected the 13 former colonies. Although the Articles didn’t give the United States of America the strong centralized power that it needed, opposers to the new Constitution would argue that the Constitution took away the rights of the common man and gave that power, that the individual once had, to the federal government. Although this statement is correct, the federal government’s newly given power was used to protect the fundamental rights and liberties of its citizens and create a powerful government in the hopes that it would benefit …show more content…

Under the Articles, taxation was targeted at the average American, farmers. While the wealthy merchants, politicians, and lawyers were making the most money but didn’t invest all their money into farmland, unlike the farmers, who had all their money tied up on the land they owned. This caused dispute because the farmers, who owned more land but had less money, were getting heavier taxes than the elite, who had more money but didn’t invest it in their land. Another point that proves the fact that men were less equal in 1787 than in the future was because of slaves rights. Although slaves rights were barely existing, the Constitution recognized the abolitionists in saying that Congress would have the ability to abolish slavery in the future. This was clearly a step up from the government's idea of slavery in 1787, which was that slaves were a money making property and shouldn’t be recognized as anything more. Slaves and the common farmer were not even eligible for the liberties of the wealthy educated man, they were treated unfairly and unequally. Clearly, in 1787, American equality was very dismal in comparison to the coming years as the Constitution was

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