Shay's Rebellion

Shays’ Rebellion

Melanie Tucci

Everglades University

Abstract

Because of a little known revolt in 1786-1787 Shays’ Rebellion forced a weak central government to address its shortcomings and to create a document that would insure the rights of its citizens. This document, The Constitution of The United States was and is paramount in creating the most powerful democracy the world has ever known.

Shays’ Rebellion

Shays’ Rebellion forced the government to become more powerful all the while compelling it to become aware that it had distinct limits to its authority.

Daniel Shay was a veteran of the American Revolution. In 1776 ninety percent of the patriots who fought in the Revolutionary war were agronomists. To feed the war effort, they borrowed money from the banks and wealthy merchants to increase the size of their farms and to maintain them while fighting the revolution against the British. At the same time, the government, having financed the Revolution by borrowing money from Spain and France were not able to pay off their loans and they also could not afford to pay the returning soldiers but pennies on the dollar or with IOUs at the end of the war so they decided to print more money. This caused the currency to become devalued and a post war economic crisis ensued. Upon returning to their farms after the war these veterans found themselves unable to pay their mortgages and lines of credit. They found creditors were eager to foreclose on their properties, and adding insult to injury the government sided with the creditors. Many Farmers were put into debtors prisons. They not only lost their land and the ability to take care of their families, they lost their social standing as land owners and their ability to vote. Numerous petitions from the farmers to their legislatures went unanswered. “Western counties had petitioned the government for relief, for several years, but their petitions had been ignored” (Rockwell, 2004). The government decided to raise taxes. “Thus the poll taxes and property taxes” (Rockwell, 2004) were put into effect. Shay and his fellow insurgents felt the federal government was imposing the same unfair regulations on the farmers that the British had prior to the revolution and they were not going to stand for it. Unfair taxation, a reoccurring theme, was once again an issue that needed addressing. They would take over and close the “debtors Courts” (Calliope, 2000) and the foreclosures would stop.