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While the Articles had its token accomplishments, it of course, as with alot of things in life, had a downside. While the Articles of Confederation had a few successes, it had many failures.
Probably the worst failure was the national governments lack of funding. The government created by the Articles was not granted the power to levy and collect taxes from the citizens. Congress depended soley on money given to it by the states. If a state felt it didn't want to give Congress money, it simply didn't have to.
Another weakness under the articles was Congresses inability to regulate trade among states or with foreign nations. This created so called, "economic wars," between the states and made it difficult to trade with other countries.
A third weakness was Congresses inability to enforce the Articles. They had no power to force individuals or states to obey its laws or abide by the Articles. Congress could only suggest and advise the states. Congress also had no ability to solve state disputes. Congress was never granted a national court system through the powers of the Articles, therfore only states could enforce and interpret laws passed by Congress.
Congress had the power the power to pass laws but hardly ever did, mostly do to lack of representation of the states at congressional meetings. The consent of at least nine of thirteen states were required to pass laws proposed in Congress. Most of the time, at the meetings, only about nine to ten delegates were present. Another problem causing almost no laws to be agreed upon were sectional differences. That is, for example, the northern states could possibly see great advantages to passing a certain bill while states in the south could see it as threatening to them. Whenever a disagreement like that arose, the law was almost instantly dropped.
Another weakness was that the congress required ALL 13 states consent to ammend the Articles themselves. This meant that Congress couldn't grant itself more power through ammending the Articles.
The states policy making was handled through committees setup inside of Congress. That is, state appointed groups within Congress, handled all business affairs such as land claims. The many state committees uncoordinated work conflicted with each other quite often.
