Both the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation were created in order to enforce an independent and democratic style of self-government. Under the Articles of Confederation, independent states received a lot of power, while a weak central government was maintained. The Constitution on the other hand, allowed for a stronger central government by allotting power to forces rather than independent states. The notable differences between the Constitution and the previous Articles of Confederation included representation, organization of the military and a standing army, and national taxation.

A major difference in the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution was representation. Under the Confederation, states retained their individual authority and only gained more official power. Under the Constitution however, a stronger central government was established. The Confederation served to represent the individual needs of the ruling elites in separate colonies, while the Constitution united the colonies and represented them as a whole. However, the delegate system established under the Confederation allowed only for the necessities of individual ruling classes to be met. Because each colony comprised of different economic backgrounds, rules of one state were not of benefit to another colony. Therefore, there were no universal rules and each state was responsible for their own laws. In the Bill of Rights under the Constitution, addressed the issue on representation by assigning a number of representatives per state corresponding to the population of the state. This was a better-established permanent government system that addressed the majority of the population rather than the individual interests of each colony’s ruling elite.

Military organization and how it was dealt with differed greatly under the Constitution and Articles of Confederation. First of all, the decision on whether or not to draft was left up to the determination of the state in the Articles of Confederation. Because of this, congress didn’t have any real national power to enlist a draft. Each state had its own interests to protect therefore they had their own armies. There was no unity and because of this, it would be virtually impossible to fight for one single cause under the Confederation. Military Organization underwent tremendous upgrading under the Constitution. The Bill of Rights made improvements by taking military power away from the individual states and assigning it to a central authorized government. The issue of military control now became a government issue rather than a local state one.

National taxation was also expressed differently in the Articles of Confederation than in the Constitution. Under the Confederation, it was established that Congress, made up of one representative from each state, had the power to request stated to pay taxes, but didn’t have actually power in enforcing the taxes. In taxation just like in military control and representation, it is made clear that the power and enforcement of the central government was limited and simply symbolic. This however, proved to be detrimental to the people of the nation. The lack of a national system of taxation contributed to financial troubles. Under the Constitution, these problems were fixed by the creation of a stronger central power. Congress, now under the Constitution, had the power to levy taxes and enforce them.

There were two different governments created under the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation even though both their purpose was to create democratic independent societies. The Articles of Confederation created a weak central government and granted significant power to individual states. The Constitution however, based on the impracticality of the Confederation, created a government with a stable strong central government, still allowing states to maintain some power. Nonetheless, under the Constitution, the power of the states was drastically decreased. The major differences in the centralized and decentralized government systems can be seen through representation, military organization and taxation.