What Were The Consequences Of Shay's Rebellion

The idea that colonists should have fair rights was revolutionized in the Articles of Confederation. When the first colonies were settled, the monarchy of Great Britain gave charters to groups of people to set up their own government with their own rights. After the French and Indian War, the British government had war debt. As a result, the British taxed the colonists ignoring the rights chartered to them. The British abolished self-government and took control of all the colonies. Making a colonist pay a tax for a valid reason is fine, but only when the colonist’s rights would not be violated. The Articles of Confederation was influenced by insuring each citizen's rights. All the white property owning, tax paying men could vote their state officials. In the Northwest Ordinance,the federal government allowed states to be created when 60,000 free men settled in the territory. After the territory had enough occupants, the government kept their promise by allowing the territory to become a state. Although the state had much more power, people could still fight back. For example, during the depression, the Shay’s Rebellion was a dispute between indebted farmers and the state court. However, the state courts had to pass laws to regulate such rebellions. They abolished a fair trial and grouped gatherings. They deprived some of the colonists of their basic rights. Bad ideas implemented by the British government in the American Revolution may have changed at first, but as the government matured, unfair laws were passed. By viewing the situation of the Shay’s Rebellion, the revolutionary period did not just influence the Articles of Confederation in good

(5) In Massachusetts, Daniel Shay led many farmers who were in debt to the courthouse to protest. Many of these farmers had fought in the war and when they came back they were in debt from all the taxes. This was later known as Shay’s Rebellion and since these farmers were in almost every state, state officials were afraid that this uprising would spread. Because of Shay’s Rebellion, the officials wanted to preclude further rebellion from occurring throughout the states. For if it did up rise, they knew their government would look even more unstable from other countries point of view. George Washington’s repartee was that their enemies would be happy to see that they were not able to govern themselves.

There were many rebellions in the United States history, some peaceful and some violent. Shays' Rebellion in 1786 and the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 are examples of two brutal rebellions that led to death of many innocent people. Rebellions can develop due to many conditions including unfair laws, unfair treatment, and a disagreement over a sensitive topic. The Shays' Rebellion showed the Articles of Confederation was too weak, while the Whiskey Rebellion proved the Constitution to be a strong framework of government.

The actions of the members of the Shay’s Rebellion were justified because state officials took their land, to pay their own debt. Shay’s Rebellion was a fight against government control. The country after the Revolutionary War was severely damaged especially in the trade market. The British cut off trades in the West Indies market crippling the economy. Due to the poor economy the farmers had difficulty selling their products and being able to pay the money requested to the government to pay off their war debts. This enabled the states to take the farmers’ land to pay the state's debts. Shay’s Rebellion, although dangerous the rebellion wanted to force the government to making their own money and create new policies in order to pay off the

Condon shows us the “rebels” and he points out the way other revolutions happen within England and different American Colonies. He keeps pointing out that the resistance, lead by a very symbolic leader Daniel Shay, always gets referred to as the "regulation," while as the people fighting in the resistance refer to themselves as the "regulators." Daniel shay was one of the main leaders and roles played in the rebellion. “Captain Shays cut an impressive figure in his Continental Army uniform. His dignified air of command and his confident knowledge of military protocols lent credence and respectability to the ranks marching on the courthouse.” [2] The people fighting for the resistance “regulators” are fighting for their debt to be relived, have paper currency as the new form for currency, laws that are not as cruel to anybody, not have debtors gain interest they owe to their wealthy loaners, having a constitution that will be more helping towards the citizens rather than attacking them, the capital to be more continently located to benefit them, rid the Common Pleas Court, having court fees lowered or completely removed. “The court closures of the previous several weeks had all targeted the civil Court of Common

Recently, something has been going on, Shays’ Rebellion. To those who don’t know what it is, it is a series of protests against tax collections and judgments for debt. Named after and led by Daniel Shays, these protests have been going on for a while. About two months, to be exact. All about the states, from New Hampshire to South Carolina, farmers were taking up arms in protest. However, in Massachusetts, the rebellion was the most serious, because farmers were threatened with the loss of their farms due to high taxes, bad harvests, and economic depression. As the recession deepened, communities throughout Massachusetts petitioned the State legislature for fiscal relief. Thousands marched to shut down courts they believed betrayed the principles

8. Shay’s Rebellion- farmers in the central part of Massachusetts with the leader Daniel Shays seized the armory in Springfield, Massachusetts before the state militia put down the rebellion and executed several of the conspirators. Exposed the weakness of the American government under the old “articles of confederation” added urgency to the meeting in Philadelphia to replace articles with constitution. A bunch of farmers put a threat on government. See whiskey Rebellion 1794, the government was stronger with the constitution.

Similarly, in Shay’s Rebellion, Yeoman farmers in Massachusetts, according to Abigail Adams’ letter to Thomas Jefferson, “were crying out for a paper currency, some for an equal distribution of property” (Doc G). Shay’s Rebellion symbolizes the economic troubles that the poor had to deal with.

Daniel Shays’ participated in wars early on in his life, but eventually settled in Pelham, Massachusetts, and owned about 250 acres of farmland. Continued financial difficulties from the war led Shays to sell over half the farmland, and later being sued for unpaid debts and had much difficulty in meeting his obligations. A prodigious amount of farmers in Massachusetts during this time were going through similar financial hardships; because of the Massachusetts legislature attempting to pay off its state’s war debts, they used hard taxation policies, causing situations to become worse. People petitioned for better relief and reforms but none came, the legislature in Massachusetts ignoring the fact that their citizens are petitioning and sending them resolutions to fix this problem. This led to the rebellion of the farmers against the government: Shays’ Rebellion.

Many farmers were angered, but had faith in their new government. According to William Manning, who lived during the Rebellion, “…the people were driven to the greatest extremity. Many counties took to conventions remonstrances, and petitions to a court where they were not half represented” (Manning). For four years, counties from all over the state sent polite petitions to the government stating that the rural economy was in atrocious shape and asking for the government to give them some relief, all of which the government ignored (Smith). As the Massachusetts government continued to ignore their petitions, many farmers started to see similarities between how they were being treated by their new government and how the had been treated by Great Britain. Finally after four years in 1786, when the legislature ignored the petitions once again people in communities like Pelham had been patient long enough. They felt it was time for action and turned to the method that had worked just a few short years ago.

There were many important events that led to the rebellion against the king in 1776. The struggle between England, or British, and the thirteen colonies took place over several years during the middle of the 18th century. The British passed acts that were unfair against the colonies. The unfair acts included the Quartering Act, Townshend Act, and the Proclamation Act. This is why colonists should rebel.

Also, there was no proper form of government before the constitution. There were the Articles of Confederation, which did not work very much at all. They had no power in the central government and had little way of protecting the country and no way of getting income to the central government. These showed that the colonists really didn’t know what they were doing at first, they were so busy getting rid of everything British that they didn’t realize that some of the things that the British do work quite well. These Articles and the debt lead to a large problem, Shay’s Rebellion. Due to the lack of money and the lack of government there was no way to pay the soldiers that fought in the war back. A group of soldiers banded together to rebel and wreak havoc over the country. The rebellion showed that the people were frustrated and wanted their government to do something about their problems, but the government couldn’t do anything because they didn’t know what they were doing and they really couldn’t do

a defiance by account holder agriculturists in western Massachusetts, drove by Revolutionary War Captain Daniel Shays, against Boston banks. it started in 1786 and endured a large portion of a year, undermining the monetary interests of the business world class and adding to the destruction of the

Admittedly, one significant continuity in violent protest in America from 1763 to 1791 was that the rebellions were always led by ordinary people to change government to benefit themselves. In the beginning of the period beginning in 1763, the first rebellion occurred in America, The March of the Paxton Boys. The Paxton Boy were Scots-Irish frontiersmen who created a small group in 1763 to retaliate against the the native attacks on the western frontier of Virginia and Pennsylvania that originated from the Pontiac’s Rebellion. They retaliated because the lack of the ability of the British Army and states militias to defend the colonist from the natives. Also Shays’ Rebellion was led by common people. Daniel Shays was a Revolutionary War Veteran and led four thousand poor yeomen farmers from western Massachusetts. Many of the Shaysite were also often Revolutionary War veterans which were not paid of their army stipends. Because of this, and the fact the economy was in a recession,

I believe Jefferson would likely support modern day protests because of his letter about Shay’s rebellion and the evidence found from the Declaration of Independence. For example, in his letter about Shay’s rebellion, an example of the text is, “And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let the people take arms. The remedy is to present them with the facts, pardon and pacify them.” According to the text, it shows that in order to know if the country’s rules are working, they must be notified by their people. This shows that Jefferson believes that the people should protest to show their perspective on the laws set upon them. To add on, another