Shays's Rebellion, The Real History Not Taught In Schools from Leonard Richards of U-Mass Amherst
Shays Fought the
Revolution's Final Battle, and We Lost
Shay’s Rebellion by George F. Smith
gfs543@bellsouth.net
Leonard L. Richards,
a history professor at UMass–Amherst,
has written a groundbreaking book about Shays’ Rebellion, the event that sparked the
Constitutional Convention. Leonard
L. Richard portrays the Shaysites as Regulators in the spirit of the Revolution fighting a plundering corrupt
state. [3]
Shays’ Rebellion is
usually described as a revolt of poor,
backcountry farmers in western Massachusetts during the fall and winter of 1786 – 1787. During
the Revolutionary War, the
individual states and Congress had issued fiduciary notes to finance U.S. military operations.
Fiduciary notes were paper money
the government promised to redeem in coin at some point in the future. When the future arrived in the 1780s,
the holders of these notes
demanded redemption, and the states,
including Massachusetts, were raising taxes to pay them off.
As the story is told,
many farmers were too poor to pay their
taxes, so the courts were sending them to jail and seizing their farms. The farmers were also in debt to
merchants who had sold them goods
on credit. With the closing of the British West Indies to American trade, the merchants, under
pressure from their creditors,
were now demanding payment. To avoid paying their debts, the story continues, Daniel Shays and a few
other “wretched officers” from the
Revolution led backcountry rabble to
shut down the courts.
Massachusetts Governor James Bowdoin called out the militia to put a stop to the uprising. When they
failed to get the job done, he
turned to wealthy Bostonians to fund a temporary army. Led by General Benjamin Lincoln, the army
stopped the insurgents from
seizing the federal arsenal at Springfield in late January 1787, then crushed the rebellion
permanently a week later in a
surprise attack at Petersham. Though the top rebel leaders fled to other states, most of the others
eventually returned to their
farms. Bowdoin agreed to pardon the rebels if they signed an oath of allegiance to the state, which
the vast majority did.
Although the rebellion ended in the rout
at Petersham, “Shays’s Rebellion”
has lasted to this day as a propaganda tool for state power.
Recruiting Washington:
As soon as the
Revolution ended, the liars and murderers came out of their snake pits in government offices across the
country. These were not the
brave men who fought for freedom.
They were weasels who had
managed to insinuate themselves into
government offices as Presidential advisors, politicians and bureaucrats. Government-friendly versions of the rebellion spread throughout the States and upset
many elites, including George
Washington, who was enjoying a peaceful retirement at Mount Vernon. David Humphreys, one of Washington’s former
aides living in New Haven, told
him the uprising was due to a “licentious spirit among the people,” whom he characterized as “levelers” determined “to annihilate all debts
public and private.” [4]
According
to Washington’s trusted friend and former artillery commander General Henry Knox, who was planning to build
a four-story summer home on one of
his Maine properties, the
insurgents wanted to seize the property of the rich and redistribute it to the poor and
desperate. In a letter of
October 23, 1786, Knox told Washington the rebels “see the weakness of government” and thus feel free to pay
little if any taxes. According to
Knox, the rebels believed that since the
joint exertions of all protected the property of the United States from Great Britain, it rightfully
belongs to all. The rebels, Knox
explained, believe that anyone who “attempts opposition to this creed is an enemy to equity and
justice, and ought to be swept
[from] the face of the earth.” [5] Such comments didn’t surprise Washington. He had been
buying land in the Virginia
backcountry for over 40 years and owned some 60,000 acres. The people who migrated to that area often
ignored his property markings,
helping themselves to his timber and settling down.
This was a common problem of large landowners
throughout the backcountry of
every state. In Washington’s judgment, these folk were “a wretched lot, not to be trusted, and certainly not
to be the bone and sinew of a
great nation.” [6] On
November 8, 1786, James Madison wrote to Washington saying he and other officials had taken the
liberty of nominating him to lead the
Virginia delegation at a May convention in Philadelphia. The
upcoming convention, as Alexander
Hamilton had stated, would discuss how “to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate
to the exigencies of the Union.”
[7] But Washington had
misgivings. A convention held two months earlier at Annapolis had failed when only five states sent representatives, Virginia not among them. Would the one
in Philadelphia bomb and leave his
reputation tarnished? Besides, he had cited health problems (rheumatism) as a reason for not
attending a triennial meeting of the
Society of the Cincinnati in Philadelphia, to be held at the same
time as the convention. How would
it look if he now accepted Madison’s offer? [8] On March
19, 1787 Knox wrote Washington hinting that (1) he would be given the president’s chair at the
upcoming convention, and (2) he
would not be presiding over some middling conference of officials tinkering with the “present defective
confederation,” but instead would
lead a prestigious body of men as they created an “energetic and judicious system,” one which would
“doubly” entitle him to be called
The Father of His Country. [9]
While Washington absorbed those
prospects, he thought about the
British prediction that American-run government would soon collapse. It was especially disheartening to see
it falter in Massachusetts, the
state with the most “balanced” constitution, where the influence of
the unwashed was supposedly kept
in check. Washington, Madison and
other elites suspected their “transatlantic foe” was working secretly
with Daniel Shays to help fulfill
their prophecy. And if left unchallenged, the upheaval would spread to other states, where “combustibles”
like Shays were waiting to explode
and wreak anarchy. As Washington told Lafayette later, he could not resist the call to help establish “a
government of respectability under
which life, liberty, and property” were secure. [10]
Shays’s Rebellion, then, went from a problem to an
opportunity. It was used by certain
elites to pry Washington from retirement and send him to Philadelphia, where his status as America’s foremost icon
bestowed a noble splendor on their
power grab. Staunch opponents forced them to compromise, and the document they created would soon be graced
with a set of amendments that
initially limited their power. Nevertheless, the new constitution was a big step forward for conservatives,
who now had a government strong
enough to protect them from troublemakers like Daniel Shays and his gang. The bad guys lost, the good guys
won, so we have been told.
A Closer Look at the Rebels
Richards decided to write a book
on Shays’ Rebellion when he discovered
by accident that the Massachusetts archives had microfilmed the signatures of the 4,000 men who signed
the state’s oath of allegiance in
1787. Since many of the insurgents also included their occupations
and hometowns, he was able to
gather more information about them with the help of town archivists and historians. Richards makes some strong points
about why the standard story of Shays’
Rebellion as an uprising of debtor farmers does not wash.
1. The western counties of
Massachusetts as a whole did not rebel against the state, nor did the vast majority of poor farmers. Of the
187 towns that comprised the five
counties in which the courts were shut down, a mere 45 towns provided almost 80 percent of the rebels.
Seventy-two of the 187 towns did
not produce a single rebel, while 34 others produced only 1-4 rebels. The most rebellious county by far
was Hampshire County, producing nearly
half the insurgents. Here, too, turnout was uneven, with eight towns
not yielding any rebels, while
five others produced over 100. Colrain was the banner town of Hampshire County, with two-thirds of the
town’s 234 adult males bearing
arms against the state. Yet two small farming communities close to Colrain, Heath and Rowe,
produced not a single rebel. [11]
2. The rebels were repeatedly described in the newspapers as “destitute farmers” or “debt-ridden farmers.”
Although the number of debt suits in the
1780s skyrocketed, Richards found that “there is no correlation –
none whatsoever – between debt and
rebel towns.” [12] Only two
of the most rebellious towns ranked among the top 10 towns in suits for debt, but three of the least
rebellious towns were also among the
top 10. Colrain, the
most rebellious town, had 12 families involved in debt suits during 1785 and 1786. Yet only four of
these families provided men to the
town’s total of 156 rebels. Their leader, James White, who led the
assault against the Springfield
arsenal, was convicted of high treason. He was also one of Colrain’s creditors. By contrast, the non-rebellious
town of Granville had an unusually
high number of debt cases during 1785 and 1786. At the time of the rebellion, Daniel Shays owed money
to at least 10 men. But of those
10, three were rebel leaders. For every rebel who went to court as a debtor, another went as a
creditor. [13]
3. Shutting
down the courts in Massachusetts had been a form of protest at least since 1774. That summer in the
western town of Great Barrington,
1,500 men shut down the Berkshire County Court in response to
British oppression. Patriot
leaders applauded it. In
1782, the Reverend Samuel Ely, a Yale graduate, raised a mob against the court in Northampton to protest the
new Massachusetts constitution,
which he claimed made a mockery of the Revolution – a constitution, incidentally, that John Adams drafted
with help from James Bowdoin and
former radical Samuel Adams. Two-thirds of western Massachusetts
agreed with Ely, concluding that
the “great men” now in power were costing them more than the lackeys under George III. [14]
4. Private indebtedness was
common with backcountry folk in all states, not just Massachusetts. Ordinarily, it was not a problem. As
Richards points out, these debts
were often circular, as one neighbor might owe labor to another, who in turn might owe cordwood to a third,
who in turn might be indebted to the
wife of the first neighbor for her services as a midwife. Debts were expected to be paid, but without going
to court. [15] Massachusetts
wasn’t the only state to experience a surge in debt suits. In 1786 creditors in Connecticut took
over 20 percent of the state’s
taxpayers to court. Yet there was no comparable revolt in
Connecticut.
The Massachusetts War Debt:
It wasn’t debt that triggered Shays’s Rebellion,
Richards argues, but the new state
government and “its attempt to enrich the few at the expense of the many.” [16] The most glaring instance of this
abuse was the decision of Massachusetts
to consolidate its war notes at face value. Even when issued, the
notes traded at about one-fourth
par and later declined to about one-fortieth face value.
Many soldiers were paid in these notes and out of desperation sold them
at about one-tenth their value.
Boston speculators swooped up eighty percent of these notes, and forty percent of them were owned by just
35 men. Every one of those 35 men
had either served in the state house during the 1780s or had a close relative who did. [17]
Legislators praised the
speculators as “worthy patriots” who had come to the state’s aid in its time of need. But these men did not buy
the notes directly from the
government; they bought them from farmers and soldiers at greatly depreciated prices, who were now being
taxed to redeem them at full value.
The speculators, most of whom had stayed home during the war, would
now benefit at the expense of
veterans.
James Bowdoin had
run for governor in 1785 in place of the state’s perennial governor, John Hancock, who had declined to run
for reelection because of gout.
Bowdoin held some £3,290 in state notes, and his supporters were conservative merchants and fellow
speculators. The election was
bitter and close and eventually decided in the legislature. In his inaugural address, Bowdoin pledged to
honor the state’s debts in full with
new taxes.
Initially,
the legislature tried to collect the taxes with impost and excise duties, but then added a poll tax and property
tax. The poll tax taxed every family for
each male 16 years or older. Poll and property taxes were going to pay
90 percent of all taxes, while
impost and excise duties would account for the other 10 percent. Thus, a regressive tax ensured a wealth transfer
from farm families with grown sons
to the pockets of Boston speculators. As Richards observes, “Taxes levied by the state were
now much more oppressive – indeed,
many times more oppressive – than those that had been levied by the British on the eve of the American
Revolution.” [18]
Petitions Ignored:
From 1782 - 1786,
small communities throughout western Massachusetts had pleaded with the legislature to address
their concerns. Their petitions had always been polite and deferential, but their meaning was clear:
the rural economy was in bad
shape, and the new government was just making it worse. In the summer of 1786, the
legislature once again ignored their petition and adjourned. Newspapers in some towns counseled patience, but
in other towns, such as Pelham,
the people had had it.
In mid-July Pelham town fathers met and began coordinating with nearby
communities to hold a countywide convention. They decided to find “some method” of changing the state
constitution and thus getting a
more responsive government.
They met on August 22 and set forth 17 grievances, six of which
necessitated a new constitution.
They also agreed to break up the court the following week in Northampton as their method of getting
the legislature to reconvene. [19]
Thus, Shays’ Rebellion began as peaceful petitioning and escalated into
violence only after the state
repeatedly ignored the petitions.
Shays’ Regulators:
Ten years earlier,
the Continental Congress endorsed the declaration that governments are instituted among men to
secure their inalienable rights,
and that whenever any government became destructive of those ends,
it is the right and duty of the
people “to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” It was in this light that the
rebels saw themselves, Roberts explains.
Their enemies called them dissident debtors, Shaysites, insurgents, malcontents, and rebels, but from the
very beginning they understood
themselves to be Regulators whose purpose was “the suppressing of tyrannical government in the
Massachusetts State.” [20]
“Regulator” in this sense had an honorable history dating back to England in 1680 and had been used in
the Carolina uprisings of the late
1760s. As a Regulation role model, however, the Shays Regulators
drew upon the success story of
Vermont in the 1770s. In a dispute with New York land speculators, Bennington farmers had stopped courts
from sitting and terrorized
surveyors sent on behalf of the speculators. Later, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys established the
independent republic of Vermont.
Not surprisingly, the Massachusetts gentry saw the Vermont leaders as outlaws, while Allen denounced “’those
who held the reins of government
in Massachusetts [as] a pack of Damned Rascals.’” [21]
The Constitution of 1780:
The Shays’
Regulators were outraged over the state’s new constitution and the manner in which it had been
ratified. A meager and partisan
convention had approved it without their consent. In the fall of 1779, 247 towns
sent delegates to Boston for a constitutional convention. John Adams drafted a constitution, then left for
France on a diplomatic mission.
Another convention was scheduled later that winter to approve, disapprove, or modify Adams’ creation. Because of
the severity of the winter, only
47 towns were represented, most within 10 – 15 miles of Boston. Their decisions on the document
became the Constitution of 1780.
In general, it enhanced the power of the rich and well born. Though
it included a bill of rights,
white male taxpayers had to be worth at least £60 to vote, which was £20 more than their colonial charter
under the king. It allowed the
house to conduct business when only 60 members were present, favoring those most able to attend during the
winter, the mercantile elite in
Boston. It also established an independent judiciary and a senate, neither of which were
answerable to the people, as well as a clause forbidding any amendments to the constitution for at least
15 years. [22]
Defenders of the
Rebellion:
Not all state leaders
opposed the Rebellion. Moses Harvey, a legislator from the small town of Montague, had been a
hero in the war and was now a
captain in the local militia. He encouraged his men to join the
rebellion, calling his colleagues
in the legislature a band of “thieves, knaves, robbers, and highwaymen.” [23]
William Whiting, Chief Justice of
Berkshire County, had been a dependable
conservative who had received a number of prestigious appointments
and was a scion of a wealthy
family. Writing under the pen name “Gracchus,” in honor of the Gracchus brothers from the days of the Roman
republic, Whiting published a
letter accusing the leadership of enriching themselves at the expense of ordinary farmers. He
also faulted citizens for their
“inattention to public affairs for several years past.” “The people at
large,” he said, had an “indispensable
duty to watch and guard their liberties, and to crush the very first appearances of encroachments upon
it.”
On October 20, 1786,
the Continental Congress authorized the addition of 1,340 men to its 700-man army because the Massachusetts
militia was unable to suppress the
rebellion. Congress decided it would be foolish to tell the public the real reason for raising additional
troops, so they announced an
Indian war was pending in the Ohio Valley. It gave Boston legislators a good laugh, especially
those from western towns. But the
sharpest critic was Baron von Steuben, the Prussian drillmaster who had trained Washington’s troops. Writing
under a false name, the baron
pointed out that Massachusetts had 92,000 militiamen on its rolls.
Theoretically, the militia system excluded the
poor and transient. Members were
men of substance with deep roots in the
community. They were men of property. With such a force at its
disposal, why would the
Massachusetts government need outside support? There was only one plausible reason, von Steuben
concluded: the numerous militias
supported the rebels, whereas the present system of administration had the support of only “a very small number
of respected gentlemen.” If that
was the case, how dare Congress support such an “abominable oligarchy.” [24] The recruitment effort failed, leading Bowdoin to hire
an army without legislative
authority.
A Major Revisionist Work:
I believe
readers will find Richards’s Shays’s Rebellion stands with DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln and
Kolko’s The Triumph of Conservatism
as a work of outstanding scholarship exposing the conservative stake
in bigger government. Strict
constitutional government has a refreshing appeal in today’s world because of the Beltway monster we
have in its place, but we should
bear in mind the lessons of Richards’s research. The constitutional movement included the familiar
ingredients of plunder, crisis,
and lies to further government growth. The original Constitution was a step forward for big
government.
References 1 “Constitution Day ushers in mandate to teach the
Constitution,” Donna Krache, CNN
2
“Learn, Dammit,” Dennis Myers
3
Richards, Leonard L., Shays’s Rebellion: The American Revolution’s Final
Battle, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2002
4
Richards, p. 2
5
Richards, p. 130
6
Richards, p. 130
7
Richards, p. 127
8
Cunliffe, Marcus, George Washington: Man and Monument, The New American
Library, New York, NY, 1958, p. 124
9
Rosenfeld, Richard N., American Aurora: A Democratic-Republican Returns, St.
Martin’s Griffin, New York NY, 1998, p. 468
10
Richards, p. 132
11
Richards, p. 55-56
12
Richards, p. 60
13
Richards, p. 54
14
Richards, p. 59-60
15
Richards, p. 61
16
Richards, p. 63
17 Richards, p. 78
18
Richards, p. 88
19
Richards, p. 6-8
20
Richards, p. 63
21
Richards, p. 64-68
22
Richards, p. 72
23
Richards, p. 14
24
Richards, p. 16.
October 17, 2005 discuss this column in the forum
George F. Smith is a freelance writer and screenwriter.
Visit his website at www.libertyasylum.com George F. Smith Archive
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real history is no longer taught at all. neither is civics. that's one of the reasons we have become what we are. a nation of sheep !!!! the government walks all over us and we do nothing!!!! we have a president that stomps on the constitution, and we, as a whole, do absolutely nothing !!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis looks like a good read. I just ordered the book.
ReplyDeleteBAA! BAA!