AMERICAN PROMISE, VALUE EDITION: a history of the united states
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The eight land-claiming states were ready to sign the Articles of Confederation in 1777. Three states without claims — Rhode 565 Island, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey — eventually capitulated and signed, “not from a Conviction of the Equality and Justness of it,” said a New Jersey delegate, “but merely from an absolute Necessity there was of complying to save the Continent.” But Delaware and Maryland held out, insisting on a national domain policy. In 1779, the states finally compromised
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paying down the large war debt, making peace with the Indians, and creating a plan for western settlement.
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the sale of western lands offered the most promising solution to the nation’s fiscal pressures, but Native American power in the territory northwest of the Ohio River made American settlement impossible
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From 1784 to 1786, the congress struggled mightily with these three issues