SHAY’S REBELLION

SHAY’S REBELLIONBirth of a Republic

Origin of Protest "our property is

torn from us“ Daniel Shays

emerges as a spokesperson for suffering farmers and revolutionary war veterans.

Anger grows

Debtors and Response Persons were jailed

for debt. Later outlawed—

recently re-enacted in Georgia.

Regulators In the summer of 1786,

thousands of Massachusetts citizens calling themselves Regulators began forcibly stopping sessions of the quarterly Courts of Common Pleas across the state. Armed with muskets, swords and clubs, the Regulators demanded that no courts convene until the government reformed the judicial system and amended the flawed 1780 state constitution.

Conflict becomes violent

Their breath steaming in the frigid air, over 1,200 local militia under the command of Major General William Shepard waited tensely for the attack on the United States Arsenal they had been told to expect at any time. Men who days earlier had handled manure forks, gripped muskets; others stood ready alongside two cannons hauled into position from the Arsenal's artillery park.

Defend the Arsenal at “all Hazards”

Regulators Advance

To the Armory Cold and poorly equipped, the Regulators

eagerly anticipated taking advantage not only of the Arsenal's stores but also the shelter it offered from the bitter cold. Many men carried only stout sticks or cudgels. The cannons and muskets stored at the Arsenal would solve this problem.

MAP

Results of Springfield Punishment and Appeasement The bloodshed and death at

Springfield horrified the people of Massachusetts and shocked observers abroad. An uneasy peace followed as thousands of men surrendered their weapons and took an oath of loyalty to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that would keep them out of prison and off the gallows.

Loyalty Oath

Impacts The Philadelphia Convention The violence and unrest in

Massachusetts loomed large in the minds of the delegates crafting a new United States constitution at Philadelphia in the spring and summer of 1787. Could they create a free government of the people powerful enough to keep the United States from collapsing into anarchy?

May, 1787, men representing every state except Rhode Island began arriving in Philadelphia to attend a "grand convention.“

The 55 delegates included many of the most prominent men in the United States. For the next three and one-half months, they endured oppressive heat in closed-door (and window) sessions at the Pennsylvania State House, the same building in which the Continental Congress had voted for American independence almost 11 years earlier.