If revenues would have permitted it, some members of Congress would have voted to maintain a small standing army in the summer of 1787, rather than to repeal the special requisition outright. Crises like Shays' Rebellion could occur again, particularly with American settlers moving westward into Indian territory. With a small standing army, the federal government could demonstrate its energy and react more effectively to military necessities. But without the perpetual consent of nine state delegations or a means of financing a force, the federal government could not defend the West.

The Nationalists used the nation's poor response to Shays' Rebellion to illustrate the defects of the union and to push for institutional reform. They observed that states withheld requisitions according to the particulars of each request and realized that requisitions in their original form would work only partially. Reliance on requisitions prevented Congress from raising the men and money it needed to provide public goods for the states. By the summer of 1787, the federal government had no funds to protect American shipping from the Barbary states, it could not dislodge the British from their garrisons along the Canadian border, and it could not breach the Spanish blockade of the Mississippi – let alone suppress a domestic insurrection. Each problem affected the United States and threatened its interests.