Final answer:
Under the Articles of Confederation, the states held all the power. The national government was subordinate, largely due to the conscious decision to limit centralized authoritative power.
Step-by-step explanation:
Under the Articles of Confederation (AOC), all the power was held by the states. This was because the AOC was drafted in a way to limit the power of a centralized authoritarian government, creating instead a confederation where the individual states held sovereignty and had decentralized authority. This meant the states could govern their own affairs, collect their own taxes, and even had the ability to appoint their own Congressional representatives. The national (federal) government, in contrast, was subordinate and often lacked the power to effectively administer across the states.
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