The "free riding" of the greatest importance here was over the massive debts incurred in fighting the Revolutionary War. Some of that was incurred by the Continental Congress, but some of it was also incurred by the individual states. Some states borrowed heavily and were slow to repay ( like Massachusetts) some borrowed less and , soon after 1781, were managing to pay down their debts ( like Virginia). The Continental Congress had little power to tax, and by 1786 it hadn't repaid foreign loans, and especially hadn't repaid the money it had raised by issuing the famous Continental Currency. Anyone who had been paid in "the Continental" couldn't redeem it for hard money, or "specie". So, the "free-riding" was a matter of who was having to pay their loans, who was not, and who was owed.

In Massachusetts there was especially an imbalance. The Boston merchants found themselves unable to do business with their trading partners in Europe because there was so much outstanding American debt already there. Those trading partners began to demand hard money up front. The merchants, in control of the Massachusetts government, attempted to extract hard money from the state population by simply requiring that debts- including state taxes- be paid in hard currency. This was a disaster for farmers: with little hard currency in circulation, they had been doing business with personal notes ( like IOU's) and by carrying debts and credits on their books. Suddenly, if they could not find hard currency to pay their taxes, their farms could be sold at the courthouse to anyone who could. And, with hard currency in such short supply, the market price of their farm in hard currency could be extremely low. Western Massachusetts had had already a long period of being at odds with the east, and there was a revolt, and armed farmers simply shut down the courts that were taking their farms. The Congress could not raise soldiers ( it hadn't paid them for the Revolution) and surrounding states merely contented themselves with looking to suppress any of their own rebels that might appear. Massachusetts acted alone. With a show of militia force the revolt disbanded, and most of the rebels were let off easy. But in the next elections, the law that sparked the revolt and the authors of it were removed.

The Revolution had not displaced the elite Americans who ran it, but those elites were perfectly aware of the danger that, if people were willing to take up arms and revolt against the tyrannical government of England, they might do it against tyrannical governments at home, and Shay's Rebellion very much got their attention. This fear of rampant mob-rule was a significant reason for the constitutional convention in 1787.

The constitutional convention might have only slightly altered the Articles to grant the Congress more power of taxation, but instead it threw them out and created a federal government that was much stronger. Exactly how much Shay's Rebellion was the reason for the triumph of the Federalists has been debated, but it was certainly a part. It's possible that the same horse trading among Madison and Hamilton and others in the 1790's, that worked out the repayment of both state and national war debts , could have happened under an altered Articles of Confederation. But we will never know.

Hey there,

Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.

If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!