SHAYS’S REBELLION AND THE U.S. CONSTITUTION Essay -- Essays Papers

SHAYSS REBELLION AND THE U.S. CONSTITUTION Introduction Although not widely known, Shayss rising greatly impacted the debate on sovereignty and led many to conclude that the only possible beginning was the substitutionization of power in a national authority. Historian tin can Garraty notes, The lessons became plain Liberty must not become an excuse for attest and therefore greater authority must be vested in the central government.1 While this effect was not the rebels intended goal, Shayss Rebellion helped make for the construction of the U.S. Constitution and the American political thought that has since followed. An analysis of some(prenominal) the causes and effects of Shayss Rebellion highlights its contribution to the demise of the Articles of Confederation and the verification of the Constitution.What was Shayss Rebellion? In the winter of 1786-1787, many farmers protesting the foreclosure of their fweaponry took up arms and stormed county courthouses across Massachusetts. All over sore England, there existed a outgrowth frustration with the American postwar situation under the Articles of Confederation. Massachusetts farmers disconnectedness from the Boston government rendered the situation more volatile than anywhere else. Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont instituted harsh laws to stem the growth of insurrection. But inland Massachusetts was so heavily agrarian that the rebellion gathered steam.2 Backcountry farmers banded together in mobs of up to one thousand men and marched to different cities, rioting in front of prominent shops and courthouses in order to make their frustrations heard. The rebellion is named by and by Daniel Shays, a former officer in the Contine... ...9415 Szatmary 10316 Kenney17 Marion L. Starkey, A Little Rebellion (New York Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1955), xiv.18 Richards 6719 Richard D. Brown, Shayss Rebellion and Its Aftermath A View from Springfield, Massachuse tts, 1787, The William and bloody shame Quarterly 40, no. 4 (1983), 598-615.20 Harpers Monthly clipping 66021 Harpers Monthly Magazine 66122 Starkey 23523 Houston memorial, Side by locating memorials tell both sides of 1787 Shays Rebellion, 6 February, 1987, 8.24 Kenney25 Robert A. Feer, Shayss Rebellion and the Constitution A Study in Causation, The New England Quarterly 42, no. 3 (1969), 388-410.26 Szatmary 12327 Houston Chronicle28 Starkey 24229 Jackson30 Jonathan Clark, The tree of liberty refreshed, The Times, 28 November 1996, 1.