How Did Daniel Shays Find Success In His Quest To Liberate The Farmers?

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Did Daniel Shays Find Success in His Quest to Liberate the Farmers? The 1780’s were a time that threatened many farmers’ livelihoods in Massachusetts. In this era of American history, states had much more power than the federal government had, so the state of Massachusetts had all jurisdiction over laws that could help or hurt farmers. Farmers at the time were trying start their farms in the new American country and they acquired tons of debt in the process getting the necessary equipment to start their farms. In addition to their debts, they were also taxed heavily. The Massachusetts government added to the farms troubles by not passing laws that favored farmers that owed debts. Mamy farmers got there land seized or were put in prison …show more content…

After the rebellion was squashed, many americans were alarmed that a mob of farmers were able to take over the Massachusetts government - even for a short time. The “commotions sufficiently shocked (George) Washington to set him on the road to Philadelphia” (Larson, 236 ) to rewrite the Articles of confederation and to make a new constitution. During the constitutional convention, the authors of the document gave lots of power to the central government to prevent another mob from taking over a government again. Because of the constitution, the federal government also received the power to tax all the states and pass laws that could hurt farmers (“Article I:”). This shows that Daniel Shays rebellion was unsuccessful because it went against the goals of the rebellion of getting taxed less and having having pro debtor laws. In the end, all the rebellion did was encourage the government that was hurting them to become more powerful and gain the ability hurt the penniless farmers