Early Dollar Question

Do the clouds mean of stand for anything?

The clouds just represent the firmament of Heaven. Perhaps without them, the stars would just appear to be decorative features, common in heraldry (and called "mullets"). With the heavens represented, it's made clear that these are meant to be true stars, and call up a common metaphor of early America, that our thirteen new states are like the stars in a new constellation in the sky. This image was rendered in words on the "Nova Constellatio" copper coin.

In Heraldry Mullets are five pointed, six pointed figures are stars.

Heraldic mullets are nowhere established to be five-pointed, and are not infrequently rendered with six points in one depicted coat of arms, and five in another.

Perhaps I miss understood the reading I had done on Heraldry so I've done some searching and it appears that a Mullet refers to a star with straight sides. Any number of points may be used but if the number is not specified it is assumed to be a five pointed figure. Unless you are dealing with French Heraldry where the assumed number is six.

Mullet. (fr. molette): this bearing is generally taken to represent the rowel of a spur, and in modern French heraldry is called molette d'éperon. In old French blazon it is sometimes termed rouwell, q.v. It might, however, when not pierced be taken to represent a star, it appears originally to have been interchangeable with the estoile. It usually has five points, and this number is always to be understood when no other is mentioned. In French heraldry the normal number of points is six.

Estoile, or star, (fr. étoile): is as a rule represented of six points and wavy. Estoiles sometimes occur with a greater number of points, as eight, or sixteen. When the rays are represented straight this has been probably by accident, as the figure would then more properly be described as a mullet of so many points, but there has, no doubt, been some confusion between the estoile and mullet, the latter with English heralds being of five points, and with French heralds of six. See Mullet.

Source A Glossary of Terms used in Heraldry by James Parker.

So a five pointed star would be blazoned as a "Mullet", while a six pointed pointed star would be blazoned as "A Mullet of six points".