Jonathan Thibodeau Government under the Articles of confederation could not deal effectively with many issues that arose during the 1780's. Despite it's many weaknesses, the new government accomplished a great deal. The western lands became the prize and treasure of the new government. Since the Articles of Confederation could only request financial support form the states instead of demanding taxes, these western lands replaced taxes. The so called "public domain" or unsettled land were larger than all the established states put together. Therefore, by selling the land, the weak new government received money that it couldn't find in any other way. Instead of using this vast area like the European did with the thirteen colonies we made an "Empire for Liberty." The Empire was built by adding new states. This was an extremely unique idea among people during the time. The charting of the vast western public domain was one way the government under the Articles of Confederation was praiseworthy. It was the greatest single achievement in domestic policy for the Confederation Under the Articles of Confederation each state was given the power to regulate their own currency. Each state issued it's own money. As a result nobody knew exactly how much a New York dollar was worth compared to a one from New Jersey or Virginia. The more money there was in circulation, the less a dollar was worth. Finally, there was just a financial collapse and a paper money was considered worthless. For five long years the colonies experienced the worst business depression. This inefficiency to deal with the regulation of currency not only caused one of the worst depressions the colonists had ever seen but also set the groundwork for a major rebellion called Shay's Rebellion. People were so angry that their paper money had become worthless because of the initial problem of each state creating it's own currency, that a rebellion was organized by Daniel Shay to make ...
