Shays’ Rebellion: A Little Revolt with Big Repercussions

For Americans winning the Revolutionary War was a cause for celebration and optimism.  The good feelings would not last long.  The British cut off US merchants’ access to British markets causing hardship in the Northeast.  The states accrued huge debts during the war and the realities of paying the bill for victory set in.  The Articles of Confederation government was proving weak and ineffective.  Matters came to a head in Massachusetts in 1786.  Poor farmers rose up in protest.  Their revolt failed but sent tremors through the young republic resulting in major changes.

By 1783, nearly every state had incurred large debts prosecuting the Revolutionary War.  The northeast suffered the most.  Several states enacted pro-debtor laws reducing or forgiving individual debts and/or turned to paper currency.  The solution was not perfect and aggravated European creditors but shielded many states and their citizens from dire consequences.

Massachusetts did not follow this approach.  Eastern merchants were the creditors for most of the state domestic debt.  They controlled the state government and were opposed to debt forgiveness and paper currency which would de-value loans they held.  To make matters worse, Massachusetts amassed $41,500,000 in debts during the Revolution.  With no other recourse, the state continually raised taxes.  By 1786, Massachusetts levied one third of personal income a year.  Because foreign loans had to be paid in specie, Massachusetts required taxes to be paid in gold or silver backed currency which was in short supply.

Western Massachusetts residents were largely subsistence farmers.  Lacking hard currency, they bartered with crops they raised.  In the early 1780s, harvests were poor.  Many small landholders incurred debt to buy food and other necessities they could no longer produce on their own.  Eastern Massachusetts merchants refused to accept paper money demanding hard currency in payment of debts.  Western farmers faced high taxes and loan payments beyond their means.

Merchant creditors began suing in court.  State law allowed the creditors to seize every asset the farmers had including their farms to satisfy the debts.  Soon creditors were taking judgments, throwing farmers off their land and selling the property.  Some debtors ended up in jail until friends and family could bail them out.

Additionally, most western Massachusetts farmers did not meet property requirements necessary to vote.  Without the means to elect their own representatives, they petitioned the state legislature for relief from debt by either forgiveness or paper currency.  Their petitions fell on deaf ears in the merchant dominated legislature.  In 1785, wealthy merchant James Bowdoin replaced the retiring John Hancock as governor.  Bowdoin raised taxes and initiated foreclosure proceedings to collect back taxes which took effect in 1786.

After four years of frustration, western farmers, calling themselves Regulators, marched on the Massachusetts courts to demand they be closed until some debt relief could be enacted.   They forcibly closed Northampton County Court on August 29th.  If the courts could not sit, they could not foreclose on property or send debtors to jail.  The success of the first closure led to others.  Regulators shut down courts in several western counties in the fall of 1786.  Governor Bowdoin pushed the Riot Act through the legislature making it illegal to shut down the courts, outlawing speech critical of the Massachusetts government and suspending habeas corpus.  Passing laws did little to stem the growing wave of dissent.  An army veteran, Captain Daniel Shays emerged as one of the primary leaders of the movement.  Warrants were issued for the arrest of 11 Regulator leaders resulting in several arrests.   Angry Regulators began talking and planning to overthrow the state government.

Massachusetts turned to the federal government for assistance.  Aid was not forthcoming.  The federal government had no standing army and no funds to raise one.  Instead Governor Bowdoin and eastern Massachusetts merchants raised a private militia of 3,000.  Lacking arms, Shays decided to capture the armory at Springfield in January of 1787.  1,500 militia awaited them.  The militia fired grapeshot at the approaching Regulators from two cannon that killed 4 and wounded 20.  The rebels retreated in confusion and were pursued.  With an overwhelming private army now in the field, resistance evaporated.  Many of the Regulators and their leaders, including Shays, fled to New Hampshire and Vermont.  Order was soon restored.

The Massachusetts legislature offered amnesty to all but 18 leaders of the rebellion if a participant signed a confession.  4,000 did so.  Eighteen leaders were convicted and sentenced to death but sentence was only carried out on two unfortunate men.  The other 16 had their convictions overturned on appeal, were pardoned or had their sentences commuted.  Shays was eventually pardoned and returned to Massachusetts.

The reaction to Rebellion represented was mixed.  Some recognized that Massachusetts had pursued an overly harsh policy against poor farmers who had no political vote and thus no power.  The Regulators acted in the best traditions of the American Revolution.  They had petitioned for relief.  When that failed, resorted to arms to enforce their rights.  From his distant post as Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson observed to James Madison that the Massachusetts rebels: “do not appear to threaten serious consequences.”   He accurately concluded that the economic woes in Massachusetts: “must render money scarce, and make the people uneasy. This uneasiness has produced acts absolutely unjustifiable: but I hope they will provoke no severities from their governments.”  Jefferson summed up the situation with one of his most quoted observations: “I hold that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”1  In a separate letter, he expounded on his views:

“What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”*2

The reaction of closer to the action was much different.  Several prominent Americans already recognized the weakness of the Articles of Confederation.  The federal government could not manage interstate commerce and embarrassingly could do nothing about states paying off debts in depreciated paper currency or not at all.  James Madison and Alexander Hamilton organized the Annapolis Convention to call for a more energetic central government. They met in September of 1786 as Shays’ Rebellion gained steam.  The convention failed to generate much interest.  Only five states sent representatives and the delegates could do little more than call for another convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to consider reforms.

Shays’ Rebellion generated a new urgency.  George Washington offered private support for a stronger central government, but refused calls to attend the Philadelphia Convention.  The Massachusetts insurrection alarmed Washington.  He wrote: “What stronger evidence can be given of the want of energy in our governments than these disorders?  If there exists not a power to check them, what security has a man of life, liberty, or property?”3

Though he still refused to accept an invitation to attend the upcoming Philadelphia Convention, Washington’s thoughts and sympathies were clear in a letter to Henry Lee:

“You talk . . .  of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. . . .  Influence is no Government. Let us have one by which our lives, liberties and properties will be secured;  . . .  let the reins of government then be braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the Constitution be reprehended: if defective, let it be amended, but not suffered to be trampled upon whilst it has an existence.”4

In this last sentence, Washington’s thoughts were similar to Jefferson’s in wanting a government responsive to the needs of its people.  However, Washington and Jefferson viewed the result very differently.  Jefferson saw the rebellion as a sign of health.  Washington saw an ominous sign of anarchy.

By the time Washington wrote to Henry Knox on February 3, 1787, his fears had crystallized: “If government shrinks, or is unable to enforce its laws; fresh maneuvers will be displayed by the insurgents – anarchy & confusion must prevail – and every thing will be turned topsy turvey in that State; where it is not probable the mischiefs will terminate.”5  Washington predicted small insurgencies would fester and grow across state lines bringing about a national crisis.

Washington could no longer remain retired.  Shays’ Rebellion forced him to agree to attend the Philadelphia Convention.  Washington’s presence cannot be underestimated.  The delegates in Philadelphia far exceeded their mandate for reforming the Articles of Confederation.  They emerged with a new Constitution with a much more powerful federal government capable of maintaining a national army, with the power to tax, and regulate interstate commerce.  Washington’s presence gave the convention credibility no one else could provide.  Without him Americans may not have enacted the Constitution.  Americans agreed to an unprecedented strong central government including a powerful executive branch because they knew Washington would be the new president and they trusted him to act with restraint.

Shays’ Rebellion turned out to be the weight that tipped America towards enacting a Constitution that is still in force.  The rebels have been remembered as heroes and villains depending one’s perspective.  However, whatever one’s conclusion, it cannot be denied that they were immensely influential.  The rebellion also revealed that American founders may share a generalized beliefs in individual liberty and limited government but Washington’s and Jefferson’s different commentaries foreshadow the development of major rifts over the purpose and scope of American government that would come to the fore after ratification of the Constitution.  For more on the rivalry between Washington and Jefferson on the proper scope of government, please click on:  The Rupture of George Washington’s and Thomas Jefferson’s Friendship and Its Importance [Abridged]

 

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*Jefferson comment on Shays’ Rebellion is often misreported as a single thought: “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing.  The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.”  These two thoughts actually come from two separate letters written 10 months apart.

 

Sources:

1  Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, January 30, 1787

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-11-02-0095

2  Thomas Jefferson to William S. Smith, November 13, 1787

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-12-02-0348

3  George Washington to James Madison, November 5, 1786

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-09-02-0070

4  George Washington to Henry Lee, October 31, 1786

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-04-02-0286

5  George Washington to Henry Knox, February 3, 1787

https://founders.archives.gov/GEWN-04-05-02-0006

 

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