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Considering the American Experience
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19623 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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10 / 1991 |
2,603 Words |
| Author
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Claude E. Barfield
Claude E. Barfield directs the Europe 1992 Project at the
American Enterprise Institute and formerly led a research
project on the United States and Europe in the 1990s. |
Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former president of France, often compares the situation in Europe today with that of the United States during the period of the Articles of Confederation between 1781 and 1787. President Giscard, citing striking economic, political, and diplomatic similarities, argues that, as in the United States during the 1780s, a series of trends and forces will impel Europe to write a new constitution that drastically alters the political balance of power and moves the European Community toward a more centrally directed federal government.
Certainly, there are parallels between the conditions faced by Americans in the 1780s and the Europeans in the 1980s. In the United States of the 1780s, much of the heady euphoria engendered by the triumph over Great Britain dissipated as the magnitude of the economic and political difficulties of melding together 13 diverse colonies, spread over 2,000 miles of coast, into the semblance of one nation became evident. Economic conditions deteriorated rapidly. The new nation found itself cut off from its old trade relations with the British Empire, and internal commerce was increasingly hampered by trade wars among the states. Revenues were unavailable to pay off the foreign debt or the veterans of the Continental army, which in many communities formed a strong force for seething discontent with the current state of affairs.
Meanwhile, erstwhile friends and foes--Great Britain, France, and Spain--were intriguing with the Indians in U.S. territories and stood ready to step in, should the American experiment in republican government begin to founder.
By the mid-1780s, many American political leaders had become convinced that the government created by the Articles of Confederation was incapable of meeting the challenges posed by internal economic woes and external threats to the new nation. This set of conditions and emerging consensus, thus, formed the backdrop to the convening of the Constitutional Convention in 1789.
The Articles vs. the Constitution
The Articles of Confederation, the original U.S. constitution, strongly reflected the experience of the colonies in the revolt against Great Britain. Thus, they were characterized by a deep distrust of central authority, state sovereignty, and real power lodged in the legislative branch. Adopted in 1781, the articles created confederacy of states, with ARTICLE 2 bluntly stating that "each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and
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