TROUBLE FREE
Our own United States, in its younger years, was not without problems aplenty. Actual rebellion was not all that common but it did appear at several sore spots, with some odd circumstances.
Such a case was the rebellion which occurred in western Massachusetts. Known , then when in started in 1786 - just three years from the birth date of the new nation and it lasted well into the new year of 1787.
The farmers of the western area of the state were not alone in suffering from a severe economic depression. They could not pay their debts and, in keeping with laws of the time, they soon found themselves in court and then, in many cases, in jail. The farmers were not alone in feeling the economic pressures which explains what historians who have bothered to write about it, called it – not the Farmer's Revolt - but an “uprising of the mercantile elite of Eastern Massachusetts, especially Boston, who demanded hard currency to pay to their foreign creditors. It was the farmers in the western areas who took action, but the merchant class was in marked sympathy with their revolt.
Captain Daniel Shays (1747-1825) was a veteran soldier of the American Revolution. He was a farmer from Pelham, Massachusetts, He found himself leading around 1500 followers. They wore their old Continental Uniforms, for the most part, and had a spring of hemlock in their distinctive mark.
The rebellion started with a series of petitions to the government for paper currency,lower taxes and judicial reforms. .When these failed to have any affect, the farmers took more stringent action. The first target was to takeover the site of the Court of Common Pleas at Northhampton on August 29th. Other groups stormed the courts at Worcester, Taunt on, Great Barrington and Concord. Their plan was to disrupt further trials and imprisonment for debtors.
In September - from the 25th through the 28th - Shays' impromptu army occupied the Courthouse at Springfield which prevented the Supreme Judicial Court from convening.. Governor James Bowdoin assembled 4,400 militiamen under the commend of General Benjamin Lincoln to defend the courts and to protect the Commonwealth The rebels then decided to take over the Federal Arsenal at Worcester. General William Shepherd , however, successfully defended the Arsenal with some 1200 local militiamen, which, had it been successful which, might have given Shays' army supplies for extended engagements. That was on January 25, 1787.
Two weeks later General Lincoln arrived in the Springfield area and quickly scattered Shays army into various neighboring towns. The insurgents were taken completely by surprise on the morning of February 3, 1787. The actual decisive attack took place at Petersham, Mass. General Lincoln had marched his troops through a heavy snowstorm the previous night in order to surprise the insurgents.
Most members of Shays' army army took advantage of a General Amnesty which was offered. The Supreme Judicial Court, meeting once more, sentenced fourteen of the rebellion's leaders - including Daniel Shays to death for treason. They were later pardoned by Governor John Hancock, Just two men, John Bly and Charles Rose of Berkshire County, were hanged for their part in the rebellion. Just why they were singled out and Daniel Shays went back this farming, is not made clear. The Massachusetts Legislature started to consider reform legislation seriously and the Federal government, in convention assembled at Philadelphia, struggled to create a constitution to deal with such situations in the future.
An interesting sidelight - one which might prove to be of special interest today - is found in Thomas Jefferson's comment on the Rebellion. The word appeared in a letter James Madison. It is important for us to notice, however, that Jefferson wrote the letter to Madison from Paris, France, January 3th, 1787 - before the end of Shays' Rebellion. His words: “a little rebellion now and then is a good thing. -” and “a medicine necessary for sound health in government.”
We should, I feel, pay strict attention to the time elements involved when we make use of those Jeffersonian quotes.
A..L.M. September 25, 2003 [c767wds]
