exporters demanded cash until the Revolutionary debts had been settled.
That this cash would return to the States was unlikely if one judged
from the first year of the peace, during which the United States
purchased 1,700,000 pounds worth of goods in England and sent in return
only 700,000 worth. In order to secure some kind of money to conduct
business, seven of the States began to issue paper money. The troubles
arising from a depreciated paper during the Revolution were neither
ignored nor forgotten; but no other method presented itself. Congress
had power to issue only "bills on the credit of the United States,"
which were not likely to be more acceptable than other kinds of paper.

The hopelessness of managing a bankrupt nation, no doubt, was largely
responsible for the deterioration which the membership of Congress
suffered. Names prominent at the inception of the rebellion had
disappeared from the rolls, and mediocrity ruled. The members personally
experienced the financial stringency in the failure of their State
Legislatures to pay their salaries. Many were dependent upon the
patriotic purse of Haym Salomon, "a Jew broker of Philadelphia," as
Madison termed him. There should have been a higher standard of
membership in the Confederation Congress than in later times, because
it comprised not only the usual legislative functions of the nation,
but the executive and judicial as well. The machinery itself was largely
to blame. Like many of the devices, that governing the Congress was
too strongly set against centralisation to allow free play of the
parts. No delegate, for instance, was allowed to serve more than three
years out of any six lest his influence grow too great or he become
unduly attached to the central power. It frequently happened that good
men were thus cast out of service just when their experience made them
valuable. Certain States forbade a man to serve two consecutive terms
in Congress. Madison was debarred by such a provision in 1784.