Shays' Rebellion

an uprising in Massachusetts, 1786-87. At this time discontent was rife in the colonies. Poverty, instead of prosperity, seemed to follow in the wake of independence. The common people, in particular, were unemployed, or their products brought low prices. They were deeply in debt. Salaries were out of proportion to what a workingman could earn. Taxes, though low in comparison to what the descendants of these men now pay, were for the time exorbitantly high. Debtors' laws were stringent. Strong men were thrown into prison and allowed to languish there for no other reason than that they owed someone whom the people considered comparatively able to get on without payment. There were uprisings in Pennsylvania, in New York City, and in New Hampshire. Shays' rebellion in Massachusetts was merely the climax. The Massachusetts judges went from town to town, holding court. They were accompanied by a horde of lawyers engaged in seizing goods and foreclosing mortgages. Genuine distress prevailed.

At this juncture Captain Daniel Shays, who had been an ensign at the battle of Bunker Hill, and who won the title of captain in the Continental army, took it upon himself to prevent the courts from sitting and distressing the people by issuing warrants and granting judgments for debts. He surrounded the court at Springfield with an armed force, until the supreme court, after three days, adjourned without finding indictments. He filled the courthouse at Worcester with armed men, so that the court could not sit. A riot forced the court to give up its sessions at Great Barrington. Early in 1787 Captain Shays got together a force, reputed to be 1,800 men, and made an attack on the Springfield arsenal guarded for a time by a force of militia under General Shepard. According to one account four of Captain Shays' men fell before a volley directed into their ranks. Captain Shays and 150 men were arrested, but later amnesty was proclaimed. Shays was pardoned and went to Sparta, New York, where later he obtained a pension for his Revolutionary services. Washington, with all his love of justice, failed to see the popular side of the situation. He was of the opinion that something stronger than moral suasion was needed to calm these disorders, and wrote to Lee, then in Congress: "It was but the other day that we were shedding our blood to obtain the constitutions under which we now live--constitutions of our own choice and making--and now we are unsheathing the sword to overturn them."