Today, we take some things for granted. We can travel from one state to another, any store in any state will accept our money, and a pound of sugar in California weighs the same as one in Colorado.

Under the Articles of Confederation, merchants had a difficult time selling their goods across state lines. Each state had its own type of currency, taxes, and even laws about selling goods. Often state laws conflicted, making it nearly impossible to do business with someone in another state. These issues caused many problems like inflation where states' money became useless. When the Constitution was formed the founding fathers gave the federal government the power to regulate trade between the states. Improving this trading between the states was necessary to keep America's economy alive. The constitution formed a common market between the states. This means the states imposing few or no taxes on trade between one another and they imposed a common tax on trade with other countries.