Philadelphia, PA

February 3, 1787

Dear Members of Congress,

There are many issues with the Articles of Confederation and I believe they need to be amended to build a very strong nation. Congress can not carry out the laws. Each state is printing its own money; Congress cannot get money by taxing people. This is creating a very weak government. Here are some problems that need to be changed.

It is difficult to get nine out of thirteen states to agree on the same issue, so Congress is having trouble passing laws. Even if the laws are passed, they are not being carried out. Congress does not have the power to force states to follow laws. There should be an office that can carry out the laws and enforce the laws.

A possible solution is to have a branch of government to carry out the laws and a branch of government to make sure they are enforced.

Each state has produced a different kind of currency. If they don’t stop printing the currency of their own, then people will get confused. To solve this problem you could make one kind of value for each dollar bill. There were thirteen different currencies. We need more different denominations of money.

In addition, Congress can not get any money from taxes. People from other states say that they don’t have to pay the taxes. People from other states should pay the taxes because we do not have any money at all. We have to force people from other states to pay the taxes.

Therefore, the Articles of Confederation should be changed. You have to rewrite the Articles of Confederation. These problems are very bad. The states have too much power for themselves. If we do not make these changes, think of what the future would look like. If we do make these changes, then we can live United together in one country. I hope you had understood the problems in these 13 states.

Sincerely,

General George Washington
(Casandra)