Why USA 1.0 failed

TL;DR

The first American government collapsed because it gave states all the power and left Congress unable to tax, enforce laws, or stop interstate chaos.

Key Points

• 1.The Articles of Confederation (1777–1789) created 13 fully sovereign states loosely bound in what they literally called "a firm league of friendship," with no real central authority
• 2.Congress under the Articles couldn't collect taxes — it could only beg states for money, and states routinely refused, leaving the national government broke and powerless
• 3.States imposed tariffs on each other, fought over river navigation rights (Maryland vs. Virginia over the Potomac), and operated completely separate currencies and trade rules
• 4.Britain refused to leave American soil after the Revolution, occupying forts like Niagara and Detroit, because there was no federal army to force them out
• 5.Shays' Rebellion (1786) — Massachusetts farmers stormed the government over war-debt taxes — exposed that the Confederation had no military to restore order
• 6.James Madison studied every democracy in history, concluded the system needed to be scrapped entirely, and drafted the Virginia Plan as the basis for a new Constitution
• 7.Only 5 of 13 states showed up to the Annapolis Convention called to fix the crisis; Madison recruited George Washington's fame to ensure the 1787 Philadelphia Convention was taken seriously
• 8.The resulting Constitution solved three lessons: create a government with real power, split that power into three branches (legislative, executive, judicial) plus states, and deliberately limit direct democracy to prevent mob rule