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What Are The Causes Of Daniel Shays Rebellion

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What would happen if the original thirteen colonies never united? What if each state only looked for themselves in a loosely united federation? This chaos is what caused the farmer Daniel Shays to start his rebellion against Massachusetts in 1786. Only three years earlier, the newly created United States of America had won the Revolutionary War. In order to govern the states, the Continental Congress, the only federal assembly governing the US, drafted the Articles of Confederation. This constitution was extremely weak, leading to the states bullying the Continental Congress and ignoring the plight of many poor farmers throughout the US. Daniel Shays, through his rebellion, helped spark the cause for reformists to shape today’s centralized …show more content…

Shays, like many other western Massachusetts farmers, was a solider in the Revolutionary War. These soldiers were supposed to be paid by Congress for their efforts. However, Congress could not tax under the Articles of Confederation. Instead, Congress was allowed to ask the states for money. While many of the drafters of the Articles thought the states would easily comply with the requests, what usually happened was that the states gave little to no money to Congress. Because of this, Congress could not pay the soldiers when the war ended. Many soldiers, such as Daniel Shays, struggled to care for their families. They became in debt to the states, and had to sell their property or face debtor prison. Shays and hundreds of other Massachusetts farmers rose up to counteract the state courts taking away their land. This rebellion brought up a second weakness imposed by the …show more content…

Congress was only a legislative body. The laws that it wrote could not be directly enforced by Congress. This meant that the states could largely ignore demands sent out by Congress. Congress also had no control over many state economic decisions. For example, each state had its own currency and taxed each other’s goods. This lead to a disparity of wealth throughout the states that Congress could not correct. This economic depression also contributed to the Massachusetts farmers’ revolt. Not only could they barely afford to pay off debt using the little money gained from the war, they also had to face financial hardship. This fueled the rebellion, which ultimately resulted Shays leading a group of 2,200 men to unsuccessfully raid a federal arsenal. Through these three issues, it was clear to many people of the time that the US direly needed a strong federal government. However, some people

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212 Words | 1 Pages

BAby thesis!!!! Shays’ Rebellion was caused by the weakened national government. The Articles of Confederation did not have a strong national government therefore the yeoman farmers were in a lot of debt because of the post war recession. Since the yeoman farmers were unable to pay the debt the creditors took away the property the farmers owned. Shays’ Rebellion greatly alarmed politicians throughout the nation about the Articles.

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Last night on February 4, 1787, General Benjamin Lincoln attacked members of the Shays’ Rebellion, and successfully captured 150 of the rebels. As a result, Daniel Shays left Massachusetts and fled to Vermont. Shays Rebellion was an armed rebellion consisting of 1,200 angry farmers from Massachusetts. They caused major chaos in this state. On December 26, 1786 Daniel Shays and the rebels revolted in Springfield, Massachusetts insisting that the state legislature address their issues, such as lack of money.

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After the Articles of Confederation was passed, the national government was weak and began to introduce new taxes to the Nation. Massachusetts began to impose unfair taxes on farmers, because farmers were not cooperative to these new taxes the court seized their property and some farmers were even sent to jail. Then 1,000 armed men Shay and his army marched where all the states money and power was, Boston. After the rebellion some rebels were caught, tried, and hung. Others such as Shay were

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Additionally, Shay and other farmers caused chaos in the country. For example, Thomas Jefferson had sstated in Document C, that anarchy exists ¨in the single instance of Shayś Rebellion.¨ (Document C, Thomas Jefferson) In other words, Shay and his followers were the only cause of any disorder in the US. Not only did Thomas Jefferson see the mayhem Shayś Rebellion had caused, but Abigail Adams could see it too. According to Document B, Shay and his followers were described as a ¨mob of rebels wants to weaken the foundation of our country, and destroy the whole fabric of our nation.¨ (Document B, Abigail Adams) Shayś Rebellion was motivated by a desire to destroy the country and consequently, chaos ensued.

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Just as you have to look back on the past to understand the present, you must go back to the roots of Shay’s Rebellion to finalize your decision. The Articles of Confederation maintained the policy of the national government not holding more power than the states. It satisfied the worries that the people of the states had about a strong central power as they previously had with Britain before the Declaration Of Independence. There was no federal power as the people feared that giving someone that much power would be disastrous and it was decided that congress would handle all the nation’s matters. It may have seemed like an effective set of rules for the nation, but it turned down hill as we begin to see flaws in this constitution.

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Shay’s Rebellion “What country before ever existed without a rebellion?” a quote from Jefferson in document C. Throughout the history of the United States many conflicts and protests have occurred. One of these was Shay’s rebellion and it was caused by the government not paying war veterans their money after fighting in the war. This made the protesters threaten the court that they are going to raid the armory and many people consider them rebels for this. Although many people thought the farmers or war veterans were rebels, nevertheless they are truly freedom fighters because they stood up for what was right, kept the government aware of needs, and were not treated fairly.

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This is because Shays rebellion took place because the poor farmers were fighting against the outrageous taxes which were leaving them without land and in prison with no means of supplying food for their families. In many states at the time if someone didn't have land they weren't able to vote because in the governments eyes they had no power. These taxes were taking away the farmers land which then also took away their right to vote which left them powerless and made their options pointless. Poor farmers ended up in jail which left their families out on the streets begging for money and a means to survive. Just like the whiskey rebellion farmers were left without a way to supply for their family because the demand of whiskey was way down after the government increase the tax by 25%.

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External factors: One of the external factors was Shays Rebellion. In 1786, a group of farmers is formed under the revolutionary war of Shays. Dickerson, Reed (1977). They were protesting the constitution of Massachusetts and holding the farms for the non payments of debt. Their protest badly attacks the constitution.

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For example, conflicts between the rich and the poor, which have always existed throughout time in every country, still continued to exist in America after the American Revolution. As seen in the text on page 80, "In the midst of the war, in Philadelphia, which Eric Foner describes as ' a time of immense profits for some colonists and terrible hardships for others,' the inflation … led to agitation and calls for action. " Some of these calls for actions are known as the Fort Wilson Riot of 1779 and the mutinies in Morristown New Jersey, Trenton New Jersey, and Philadelphia. All of these different riots led to Shays' Rebellion, an event where a small farmer named Daniel Shays believed that he was being taxed unfairly by the government; therefore, he got together a bunch of men and petitioned the government to change or at least solve the farmers' needs. This rebellion was not something to be taken lightly, there were numerous deaths concerning the farmers involved.

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“Let the people take arms. The remedy is to present them with the facts, pardon, and pacify them.” (A letter by Thomas Jefferson, paragraph 2). Shays’ Rebellion was a group of American citizens that were fighting for their rights and were against taxation during the 1780s. Although many people perceive Shays and his followers as rebels, nevertheless Shays’ and his followers were freedom fighters because the government were treating others unfairly, the justice system was full of revenge, hatred, etc., and the wealthy became more rich from taxes.

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322 Words | 2 Pages

In addition to them not being able to earn money, they couldn’t pay taxes. As a result “the state officials seized farmers’ lands to pay their debts and threw many farmers in jail,” as stated on page 195. The state officials needed the money so they could pay for the Revolutionary War. Then a protest started to rise up from all the farmers in 1786. A former Continental Army captain, Daniel Shays and a cluster of farmers forced courts located in western Massachusetts to close.

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507 Words | 3 Pages

Shay’s rebellion was a crisis happened in 1780s at rural areas of central and western Massachusetts. At that time, many farmers were bonded to high debt when they started new farm, because of the local government did not handle the economic crisis well, there was no pro-debtor laws (i.e. forgiving debt and print more paper money). They already sent letters to the elected leaders, however, they only getting ignored by the state government, also the national government could not do anything because they had no power under the Articles of Confederation, which had many weaknesses, such as; (1) The national government did not have power to tax, (2) Congress did not have power to forces the states to obey the laws, (3) There was no system of national courts, (4) Congress could declare war and raise army, however it could not force the state

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From 1781 up until the before the end of Shay’s Rebellion in 1787, dear of a strong central government dominated the states. The rebellion changed that and Federalists like Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay saw that as an opportunity to rally support for a new constitution. Though the people were still weary of the powers of a strong central government, Shay’s Rebellion convinced them to set aside their previous fear and hear the arguments for a new

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849 Words | 4 Pages

Daniel Shays, an american soldier and farmer organized over a thousand other farmers that followed him on a march to the Springfield Armory in attempt to prevent the Massachusetts Supreme Court from meeting. Even though Shays was defeated by the militia, the rebellion made it known that state and national governments could not stop violence from happening. An immediate effect of this rebellion was the Annapolis Convention. Shays’ Rebellion lead to the Annapolis Convention because a change needed to be made to the Articles to reduce sectional and political violence in America. While Shays’ Rebellion was not successful in its original purpose, it made the framers aware that a change needed to be made in order to further improve the

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548 Words | 3 Pages

Also at the same time a Rebellion took place, called the Shay’s Rebellion, named after its leader Daniel Shays, it was an armed uprising against the American government, the reason for the uprising was because of the absence of coin “hard” money made it impossible for working class Americans to get loans. This angered many Americans, and most rioted in the street until they were able to provisionally shut down many tax collection areas. In search of a solution to the many problems at hand the government brought many legislatures (from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia) together in Annapolis, Maryland in September 11-14 of 1786 (many states legislature where unable to get to Maryland on time and other states didn’t bother).The major talking points at the “Maryland Convention” where The Shays’ Rebellion and The Articles of Confederation, sadly nothing was accomplished in this Maryland convention the only thing they agree on was to have another convention in Pennsylvania the following year consisting of every

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