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Updated: June 3, 2025
The Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts, its support in the neighbouring States, and the disorder in Virginia and New Jersey, were moving arguments for immediate action. Even Washington was forced to admit that the people were at last sufficiently misled.
The Government had sufficient excuse for intervention after the attack upon the national arsenal in Springfield. The rebellion was over before any assistance could be given. The inefficiency of Congress and its lack of influence were evident. Like the disorders in Rhode Island, Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts helped to bring about a reaction and strengthened the conservative movement for reform.
It was at first proposed that Congress should have the power "to subdue a rebellion in any state on the application of its legislature." The Shays rebellion was then fresh in the memory of all the delegates, and their arguments simply reflected the impression which that unpleasant affair had left upon them.
In Massachusetts, when the legislature refused to issue paper money, many of the persons who owed debts assembled, and, during 1786-87, under the lead of Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary soldier, prevented the courts from trying suits for the recovery of money owed or loaned.
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. Meanwhile the habeas corpus act was suspended for eight months, and Governor Bowdoin called out an army of 4,400 men, who were placed under command of General Lincoln.
These debtors knew nothing about economics; they only knew that they were being crushed by persons more lucky than themselves. In Massachusetts they broke out in actual rebellion named after the man who led it, Daniel Shays. They were put down by the more or less doubtful appeal to veterans of the National Army, but their ebullition was not forgotten as a symptom of a very dangerous condition.
Terror exaggerated the exploits of these pirates, which however presented something of the marvellous. It was amongst these adventurers, then commanded by Harris, Sawkins, and Shays, that Dampier enrolled himself.
The insurgents retreated, but Lincoln pursued relentlessly and broke them up into small bands, which then wandered about the country preying upon the unfortunate inhabitants. When spring came, most of them had been subdued or had taken refuge in the neighboring States. Shays' Rebellion was fairly easily suppressed, even though it required the shedding of some blood.
It is SO like these people never to have seen it. It seems to be chiefly composed of costermongers and Americans. I got a box-seat on a public coach and went out at ten. We rode for three hours in a procession of donkey shays, omnibuses, coaches, carriages, vans, advertising wagons; every sort of conveyance stretching for sixteen miles, and with people lining the sides to look on.
Still there was a doubt in that look it was impossible to mistake. "You ton't know, eh? you ton't know, eh? Maype as he is petter as you ton't know, mine shild. T' man what prings shorrow into mine house; t' man what shays I pees one tief t' mine neighpors dat man he pees no friend of mine."
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