The Articles of Confederation were salvageable

Thank you BennyW for your opening statements. Introduction: On March 1, 1781 the Articles of Confederation went into effect. On May 14 1787, the 13 states sent delegates to the Grand Convention in Philadelphia. It's original intent, revise the Articles of Confederation. On May 25, 1787, the members basically agreed to scrap the Articles of Confederation to create a new Constitution saying it was more of a treaty between sovereign states than an actually constitution. The Articles of Confederation This alone should show the readers that the Articles of Confederation could not be salvageable. Even the original writers did not agree. Their opinion on the matter weighs much more than anything we, as debaters, can say. The Virginia Plan was then introduced. The Virginia Plan was the starting point for the current constitution we have today. It was quickly voted upon by all the members of the Convention, and it was found that the larger states favored the Virginia Plan while smaller states favored the New Jersey Plan. Combining principles from the two plans, they reached a starting point for the United States Constitution. Here is while I shall begin. The Unanimous Vote Problem: All amendments to the Articles of Confederation required a unanimous vote to amend. Obviously my opponent has not studied history, because if he had he would have realized that "In May 1786, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina proposed that Congress revise the Articles of Confederation. Recommended changes included granting Congress power over foreign and domestic commerce, and providing means for Congress to collect money from state treasuries. Unanimous approval was necessary to make the alterations, however, and Congress failed to reach a consensus." (1) Congress attempted to do what you propose here, but, they failed. Congress could not fix the Articles of Confederation. So, they compromised and scrapped them. History shows your proposals to change the Articles of Confederation could never occur simply because of this problem. They could not change the Articles, it was tried, and it failed. Shay's Rebellion I thank my opponent for bringing this up, this was actually one of the biggest factors in scraping the Articles of Confederation because simply because of fear. Shay's Rebellion almost collapsed the Massachusetts government. My opponent states "There is no reason however why the states couldn't get together to stop a rebellion in a way that a centralized government couldn't." The problem with this is, the other states did not help Massachusetts at the time. They had to fend for themselves (2). Under the Constitution, Rebellions were quickly and easily put down, take a look at the Whiskey Rebellion, for example, Washington put down the rebellion quite easily because he could raise an army of 15,000 men quite easily. (3) My opponent goes on stating " After all where did the centralized governments resources come from if not from the states?" Yes, the central government gets its resources from the states, but, you need something there to bind the states together as a country. The Constitution created a country. The Articles of Confederation created just that a loose Confederation. The rest of my opponents case: I do not see how stating "They should have kept the restrictions on a large Federal Government" is relevant. The country was failing under the Articles. Britain even joked that it should send 13 diplomats to the United States to deal with them. "Had Thomas Jefferson been at the convention rather than in France, he may very well have pushed to save the articles because he opposed a centralized federal Government." But, you cannot prove this. Jefferson himself states "here are very good articles in it: and very bad." (4). Furthermore, you cannot prove what he may have done. Anyway even after the Consitution there were still two camps, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. They favored strong and weak central governments respectively. Jefferson was not totally against the Constitution. Just parts of it. My opponent then cites Switzerland, but, what Switzerland does is of no consequence to the United States. I mean the Articles were failing in the United States. "The Constitution created a larger federal government though nothing in comparison to what we have today. The 10thAmendment did help the states to maintain much of their powers but it was clear that there now was a centralized government rather than simply an agreement of free states." My opponent never states why this is a bad thing. Problems my opponent did not address: Each state had one vote in Congress regardless of size. This would be akin to California getting the exact same representation as Oregon. Even though California's population is exponentially larger. Congress could not tax. No revenue, no government. Congress could not regulate commerce. No executive branch to carry out acts Congress passed. No national court system. Laws required 9/13 states to pass in Congress. 1.http://en.wikipedia.org... 2.http://en.wikipedia.org... 3.http://en.wikipedia.org... 4.http://www.monticello.org...