Dbq Essay On Shays Rebellion

“Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel.” - Alexander Pope. Shays’ Rebellion was a protest against the government for charging people with so little money huge taxes and was led by Daniel Shays.The Shays’ Rebellion occurred in Massachusetts in January of 1787. Although many people say that Shays and his followers were reckless rebels, nevertheless Shays and his followers were a group of freedom fighters because the government was unlawful, rich people were being made richer, and they helped the country grow into what it is today. First of all, the farmers that rebelled were freedom fighters due to the fact that the government

According to Daniel Gray in paragraph 3, “Instead of improving our credit, our money is being used to help the rich get richer.” This means that the taxes the people that don’t have a lot of money pay, go to the rich people and don’t benefit them at all. To add on, in paragraph 2 of Gray’s speech, it says, “The harsh rules for collecting debt will fill our jails with people who owe money.” This shows that the jails are being filled up by people that only owe money, which leaves less room for people that actually committed a serious crime like murder or theft. It supports the claim because if the money was going to the rich then they wouldn’t really care if the jail was being filled up with people that owe money, all they would care about is getting the money. Another piece of evidence that supports the claim of the rich were getting money instead of the money benefiting the country is, the second paragraph of Gray’s speech it says, “As a result, many people will not be useful to themselves or the community.” In other words, this is saying that because all these people were being thrown in jail for owing, those people won’t be able to help their community. For example, if they had been needed to help fight for their country, they wouldn’t be able to because they would be in jail for a silly reason like owing money. This proves the money wasn’t really

According to “Crating America” (the textbook) on page 225, “America’s leaders realized that an armed uprising of common farmers spelled danger for the nation. Some leaders hoped that the nation’s ills could be solved by strengthening the national government.” Due to Shays’ Rebellion, the leaders realized that they needed to have a better government so they could protect the nation, therefore, Shays’ Rebellion helped the country grow because without it we might still have a weak government and the Constitutional Convention wouldn’t have happened. According to Thomas Jefferson, “And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?” (paragraph 2). This is showing that when a ruler of a country forgets the people have the right to protest, things can go downhill and conflicts are created, so the people must remind the rulers to restore the peace, which means that Shays’ Rebellion was that protest reminding the rulers of their rights. As stated in paragraph 3 of Jefferson’s letter, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” This is a metaphor saying that liberty is a tree and like every tree, it needs