Shays' Rebellion

“ The spirit of Shays's Rebellion inspired the opponents of the Constitution in Massachusetts. "Many of the [Shays's] insurgents are in the Convention," Lincoln informed Washington; "even some of Shays's officers. A great proportion of these men are high in the opposition. We could hardly expect any thing else; nor could we ... justly suppose that those men, who were so lately intoxicated with large draughts of liberty, and who were thirsting for more would ... submit to a Constitution which would further take up the reins of Government, which, in their opinion, were too straight before." ”

“ Under these views and restrictions, the States have succeeded well, thus far,-over half a century,-in suppressing domestic violence in other ways than by martial law. The State courts, with the aid of the militia, as in Shays' rebellion and the Western insurrection, could, for aught which appears, by help of the posse comitatus, or at least by that militia, have in this case dispersed all opposition. ”

“ The mass of the people contented themselves with withdrawing from open sympathy with the insurrection, and maintaining a surly neutrality. They were tired of the rebellion, without being warmly disposed toward the government. Neither the friends of government nor the insurgents who still withstood them, could presume too much on the support of this great neutral body, a fact which prevented them from immediately proceeding to extremities against each other. ”

“ By way of remedy they demanded the removal of the General Court from Boston, the relief of debtors, and the issue of a large amount of paper money. Daniel Shays, an ex-captain of the Continental army, placed himself at the head of a movement to secure these ends by force, and his effort has come down thru history as “Shays’ rebellion.”
In December, 1786, he appeared at Springfield with one thousand insurgents, resolved to break up the session of the supreme court. After forcing the adjournment of the session, the insurgents directed an attack against the arsenal in Springfield. ”

“ By this time Governor Bowdoin and General Lincoln also had gathered a small force of soldiers. In the midst of winter, through snowstorms and over terrible roads, Lincoln marched with his men. He drove Shays from place to place, captured his followers, and put down the rebellion. There were risings in other states, especially in North Carolina. But Shays's Rebellion in Massachusetts was the most important of them all, because it convinced the New Englanders that a stronger national government was necessary.
CLAIMS AND CESSIONS.
Claims of the states to Western lands. ”

“ If any of the court party had flattered themselves that this mob, like that of the week before, would, after making an uproar for a day or two, disappear and leave the community in quiet, they were destined to disappointment. The popular exasperation and apprehension which the Squire's ill-starred attempt to regain authority had produced, gave to the elements of anarchy in the village a new cohesive force and impulse, while, thanks to the news of the spread and success of the rebellion elsewhere, the lawless were encouraged by entire confidence of impunity. ”

“ For the financial troubles the most convenient general survey is to be found in A.S. Bolles's Financial History of the United States, 1774–1789, N.Y., 1879; Sparks's Life of Gouverneur Morris, 3 vols., Boston, 1832; Pelatiah Webster's Political Essays, Phila., 1791; Phillips's Colonial and Continental Paper Currency, 2 vols., Roxbury, 1865–66; Varnum's Case of Trevett v. Weeden, Providence, 1787; Arnold's History of Rhode Island, 2 vols., N.Y., 1859–60. The best [Pg 354] account of the Shays rebellion is G.R. Minot's History of the Insurrections in Massachusetts, Worcester, 1788 ”

“ The negro and the white man will remain on the old ground, but new relations must be established between them. What those shall be will depend on many yet undeveloped contingencies. But—when we reconstruct, it will be with a North stronger than ever before and a government too strong for rebellion ever to touch it again. Under a free government of majorities, such as ours, rebellion is simply the resistance of a minority. Secession has been acted out to the bitter end on a small scale ere now in this country. Daniel Shays tried it in Massachusetts; Thomas Wilson Dorr tried it in Rhode Island. ”

“ And so though the mass of the people by the early part of winter had grown to be indifferent to the rebellion, if not actually in sympathy with the government, the insurgent soldiery still held together wonderfully and in a manner that would be impossible to understand without taking into account the peculiar material that composed it. ”

“ It is likewise usual for men with much property at stake to be conservative on such occasions. Philip Ludwell’s statement, that some of the rebels entertained communistic notions, is just what one might have expected. There is always more or less socialist tomfoolery at such times. In some of its aspects there is a resemblance between Bacon’s rebellion and that of Daniel Shays in Massachusetts one hundred and ten years later. But the Massachusetts leader was a weak and silly creature, and his resistance to government had nothing to justify it, though there were palliating circumstances. ”

“ It was fortunate that there was some such check on the animosity of the two factions. For the bitterness of the still unreconciled insurgents against the friends of the government was intense. They derided the white cockade as “the white feather,” denounced its wearers as “Tories,” every whit as bad as those who took King George's part against the people, and deserving nothing better than confiscation and hanging. Outrages committed upon the persons and families of government sympathizers in outlying settlements were daily reported. ”

“ Visionists indulged their hopes of universal happiness. The rebellion which Captain Daniel Shays, officer in the late Revolutionary army, headed in Massachusetts was aimed directly at closing the courts and preventing the issuing of writs to sell mortgaged farms. But Knox wrote Washington that the creed of the insurgents was that the property of the United States had been saved from Britain by the exertions of all the people and therefore ought to be the common property of all ”

“ This power is also necessary to restrain the violence of seditious citizens. A concurrence of circumstances frequently enables a few disaffected persons to make great revolutions, unless government is vested with the most extensive powers of self-defence. Had Shays, the malcontent of Massachusetts, been a man of genius, fortune and address, he might have conquered that state, and by the aid of a little sedition in the other states, and an army proud by victory, become the monarch and tyrant of America. ”

“ Bankrupt in fortune and in fame, Shays was ready to embark on the flood of any desperate adventure. Without the energetic decision or enlarged conceptions, the strong spirit or the bold daring, which befit a leader, by some accident, he was elevated to the command of the insurgents. Of capacity too humble to direct the movements of an army in those moments when the force of talent makes itself felt by triumphant results, and turns even obstructions into encouragements, he was weak, vacillating and irresolute. ”

“ Southey calls sedition, and the firm, manly, and independent expression of public opinion, which he calls rebellion. We detest despotism: we deprecate popular commotion: but if we are forced upon an alternative, we have a choice: we prefer temporary to lasting evils. Mr. Southey has indeed a new-acquired and therefore lively dread of the horrors of revolution. But his passion for despotism is greater than his dread of anarchy; and he runs all the risks of the one, rather than not glut his insatiable and unnatural appetite for the other. ”

“ The insurrection of Daniel Shays and his followers in Massachusetts, the disturbances in western North Carolina and other outbreaks in various parts of the country were but symptoms of radical weakness in the body politic, and of the complete failure of the loose-jointed confederation to command the confidence of the people and maintain the credit of the nation. It became evident that union was as vitally important in peace as in war ”

“ The arrival of the state militia under Lincoln completed the demoralization of Shays' army. Retreating through the hilly country of Hampshire, they wore finally overtaken and routed at Petersham. Some of the insurgents went to their homes, completely humbled and subdued; others fled across the border to await better times; and still others, unrepentant and unsubdued, continued to harass the countryside. It was not until the following September that Governor Bowdoin ventured to disband the militia.
To these disturbances in Massachusetts, Congress had not remained indifferent. ”

“ People still remembered too vividly the treasonable attempt to [Pg 181] overturn the authority of the State, only just established and none too strong. But by and by, the pertinacity of the petitioners wore out the fading hostility to his name. He was proclaimed pardoned, and notices were sent to all American newspapers informing him that he could now return. This had happened a year before Colonel Shays had started down to Cambridge, but you may be sure that at that period no newspapers found their way to the Sandgate valley. ”

“ After a disorderly parley, with much cursing and swearing, they beat a retreat, and the court was prevented from sitting. Fresh riots [Pg 181] followed at Worcester and Concord. A regiment of cavalry, sent out by the governor, scoured Middlesex County, and, after a short fight in the woods near Groton, captured Job Shattuck and dispersed his men. But this only exasperated the insurgents. They assembled in Worcester to the number of 1,200 or more, where they lived for two months at free quarters, while Shays organized and drilled them.
The insurrection suppressed by state troops. ”

“ Heavy taxes, cruel collection laws, numerous private debts, and frequent cases of imprisonment for debt, caused a wide-spread feeling of discontent. The State Constitution was found fault with from the start, and a clamor arose for the abolition of the Senate, a change in the basis of representation, and an annual grant of salaries to all officers. This agitation, in 1786, culminated in an appeal to force of arms, known from its leader, as Shay’s Rebellion. It is unnecessary to repeat the story of its suppression. The leaders of the former opposition held aloof. ”

“ Johnson's friends never call it an outrage when the Rebels keep Union men out of office because they are Union men?
Show me in the history of the world a single example of a great rebellion, the suppression of which was attended with such mildness and magnanimity. If there were any proof wanted to demonstrate the greatness of that magnanimity, it would be found in the fact that the same men whose lives were forfeited by the law and who but yesterday escaped the halter, are vociferously complaining of our cruelty because we do not just yet want them to rule us to-morrow. ”

“ The demonstration at Worcester had been indeed a brilliant success in some respects. One thousand well armed men headed by Shays himself with a full staff of officers and a band of music had held the town for several days in full military occupation, overawing the militia, preventing the sitting of the courts, and even threatening to march on Boston. ”

“ Sieyès was essentially a revolutionist, because he held that political oppression can never be right, and that resistance to oppression can never be wrong. And he was a royalist, not as believing in the proprietary right of dynasties, but because monarchy, justly limited and controlled, is one of many forces that secure the liberty which is given by society and not by nature. He was a Liberal, for he thought liberty the end of government, and defined it as that which makes men most completely masters of their faculties, in the largest sphere of independent action. ”

“ Fortunately he was checked; but should jealousy prevent vesting these powers in the hands of men chosen by yourselves, and who are under every constitutional restraint, accident or design will in all probability raise up some future Shays to be the tyrant of your children.
A people cannot long retain their freedom, whose government is incapable of protecting them.
The power of collecting money from the people, is not to be rejected because it has sometimes been oppressive. ”

“ There were certainly some who were angry because they thought chaos must follow any tampering with the existing social order. But if you take the mass of those who tried to laugh Bernard Shaw aside and grew angry when they could not do so, you find at the root of the anger an intense dislike of having any part of a system questioned which was to them unquestionable, which they had erected into a creed. They thought Shaw's ideas dangerous and wanted to keep them from the young. They did not want anyone to ask how a civilisation had laid its principles open to this brilliant and effective siege. ”

“ During that year, an insurrection broke out amongst the slave population, known as the Southampton Rebellion, or the "Nat Turner Insurrection." Five or six hundred slaves, believing in the doctrine that "all men are created equal," armed with such weapons as they could get, commenced a war for freedom. Amongst these was George, the white slave of whom we have spoken. ”

“ And, finally, by implicitly advocating a policy of concession to armed rebellion, they propose to set aside the fundamental obligation of submission to the constitutional will of the majority, to remove the only guarantee of order in democratic life, to pay a premium to revolt, and thus to open the flood-gates of civil disorder, and a turbulent and endless war of factions. ”