The Influence of Shay's Rebellion Essay

In the book “Shays’ Rebellion: Authority and Distress in Post-revolutionary America”, Sean Condon shows us his outlook on how he saw post-revolutionary America to be within the late 1770’s and 1780’s. This book was released in 2015 by John Hopkins University Press, and was also made in a continuing book series by Peter Charles Hoffer and Willamjames Hull Hofer called Witness to History. The story takes us "Throughout the late summer and fall of 1786, farmers in central and western Massachusetts organized themselves into armed groups to protest against established authority and aggressive creditors. Calling themselves "regulators" or the "voice of the people.”” [1] Condon succeeds by prosing an appealing idea in an upfront style that shapes

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

The reasoning for the rebellion was that a lot of the farmers in our country, specifically those located in Massachusetts, had decided that they were not being treated fairly. Most everyone who joined on Shay’s side were poor farmers who could not afford to pay their taxes. Therefore, they were angered by their personal debts. These

The men to whom the state owed money had great influence in legislator because many of them were either a part of it or had relatives who were. This caused the legislator to rule in favor of higher taxes to quickly pay back war debts with little consideration for farmers who were already struggling to pay back personal debt. Many farmers were forced to sell land, animals and machinery to pay back their debts which made greatly reduced their profits. Many other farmers were taken to court for debts they could not pay back and some were thrown in to debtors prisons. Originally farmers tried to work through the legislator asking for them to lower taxes and to print more paper money but the legislator met again and again each time ignoring the farmer’s requests. In 1782, Samuel Ely, a preacher gathered farmers together in Western Massachusetts and targeted the court house he was arrested but the spark was ignited. Steep inflation and a depression continued to make things economically hard for farmers and more and more were facing court penalties for being unable to pay debts. In 1786 a countywide convention was held to organize their grievances against the Massachusetts

But the articles denied Congress the power to collect taxes, regulate interstate commerce and enforce laws. Because of this, the central government had to request donations from the states to finance its operations and raise armed forces. The states attempted to limit the power of the national government because they feared that it would become a monarchy. In an effort to limit the power of the national government, Congress created one without enough power to govern effectively, which led to serious national and international problems.

When the United States declared itself a sovereign nation, the Articles of Confederation were drafted to serve as the nations first Constitution.Under these Articles, the states held most of the power; but due to an almost absent centralized government, colonists were ill-equipped to deal with such practices as regulating trade both between states and internationally, levying taxes, solving inter-state disputes, negotiating with foreign nations, and most importantly enforcing laws under the current notion of "Congress". Realizing that there were several deficiencies in the current system of self-government, the states appointed delegates to ratify the situation and come up with a way to attain the aforementioned practices they needed to

The Articles deprived the federal government of several governmental powers essential to the operation of a freestanding republic. One immense issue stemming from the Articles was the national government’s inability to impose taxes on the states directly, which Americans believed to disturb state liberty and sovereignty (Document A). This restriction of power had its roots in the imperial days of Great Britain as one of the primary issues of the American Revolution, England’s taxation of the colonies without the proper representation of the colonists in Parliament. The fear of the new American government taking advantage of its power and imposing internal taxes on the states resulted in this law. Unfortunately, the framers did not think of the consequence, the incapability of the federal government to fund its finances or pay back its numerous debts. They were instead forced to rely predominantly on state donations, which proved to an extremely ineffective way to pay for government expenses. Not only could the government not pay for its expenditures, it

To illustrate, Shay’s Rebellion was nothing like a small argument, if fact it was a riot. Shay’s Rebellion was an event were farmers who are mostly veterans were “fighting for their rights” and their complaints were from the taxes the government charges them. Their belief was that they shouldn’t pay taxes and some took the decision to not pay them. Of course the government acted and so they put farmers who did not pay their taxes in jail. The farmers took these decisions too seriously and their reactions were unacceptable. Although farmers believed that the government was unfair in Shay’s Rebellion, nevertheless farmers in this time were reckless rebels because they destroyed legal systems that cause them to take matters in their own hands, were discourteous for being wasteful, and also for being unfair to themselves.

Following the War the 13 colonies initially shaped an amazingly feeble focal government underneath the Articles of Confederation. This government lacked, for instance, any capacity to impose taxes, since it had no way of enforcing payment. It has no power to override tax laws and duties between states. The Articles required unanimous consent from the states before any changes might take effect. States carelessly misuse the central government which often result in most of their representatives being absent For insufficient a quorum, the national legislature was often blocked from making even ineffectual changes.

“I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing” (Jefferson). Thomas Jefferson wrote these words in a letter to James Madison after hearing about Shay’s Rebellion while he was a foreign diplomat in Paris. After the rebellion happened, the “Shaysites” as they were called, were labeled as traitors to their country and the democratic form of government. But were they really? Many of the men fighting in the rebellion felt that they were being oppressed just as they had been under British rule.

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, was formally adopted. The American Revolution had already been going on with the battles of Lexington and Concord over a year prior, but the first government of the United States is the Articles of Confederation, a constitution based on Republican ideas and democracy. The Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation in 1777. It was adopted, written by John Dickinson, but there was a delay in ratifying it by the states. States like Virginia and Massachusetts had claimed a bunch of land stretching from the East Coast all the way to the Pacific Ocean as part of their colonial charters. States like Maryland and Pennsylvania, who did not have these land claims, did not want to ratify this new national government until the land is relinquished. It was not until in 1781 when the states officially ratified the Articles of Confederation. From 1781 to 1789, the Articles of Confederation failed and had created problems in political, economic, and foreign policies, making this new national government an ineffective government.

and they engaged in tariff wars with one another, almost paralyzing interstate commerce” (). The government could not pay off the debts it had acquired during the revolution, including paying soldiers who had fought in the war and citizens who had provided supplies to the cause. Congress could

After fighting for our country against Great Britain in the American Revolution, the United States gained independence. We had to figure out how to govern ourselves since we would no longer be under the power of the monarch. The Articles of Confederation was the answer to our problems; even though it established a very weak central government and had many problems, it was our first constitution and our first step towards a solid government. Some of the problems with the Articles included that the Congress had no power to tax, no power to regulate commerce, no power to regulate domestic affairs, no power to enforce laws, and many more. The problems lead to troubles with the States which convinced the Continental Congress to create a convention of delegated people to revise them; this convention was called the Constitutional Convention. The Convention fixed these problems by throwing the Articles out altogether and creating a new Constitution.

After the Revolution, the States adopted their own constitutions, many of which contained a Bill of Rights. The Americans still faced the challenge of creating a central government for their new nation. In 1777 the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, which were ratified in 1781. Under the Articles, the states retained their “sovereignty, freedom and independence,” while the national government was kept weak and inferior. Over the next few years it became evident that the system of government that had been chosen was not strong enough to completely settle and defend the frontier, regulating trade, currency and commerce, and organizing thirteen states into one union.

The first event was in 1786, where a group of protestors made a nonviolent show of force aimed at closing down the civil courts that prosecuted the debt cases, and succeeded in preventing courts from sitting. The state militia withdrew to guard the federal armory at Springfield; but there were concerns that the Regulators would go after the weapons and gunpowder stored there. The government finally intervened, issuing curfews and suspended habeas corpus, the law that states that no one shall be kept in jail before being proved guilty. These actions raised tensions and radicalized the Regulators. Due to the weakness of the Articles of Confederation, the central government was unable to contribute meaningfully to emergent crisis. The inability to end this dispute peacefully led the blood being shed in 1787, where Massachusetts governor James Bowdoin personally raised a private state army made up of three thousand militiamen. A miscommunication on the Regulators side caused a group to march toward the armory a day early. Shays' fourteen hundred men approached the armory unsupported by their allies. Bowdoin's militia pursued the defeated rebels, and managed to scatter the rebels force completely, but Shays was able to escape, fleeing to Vermont. This battle was the effective end of the rebellion (Stock). The ineffectiveness of the central government to contain this uprising led to the