Download or read book Shays s Rebellion written by Leonard L. Richards and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014-11-29 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the bitter winter of 1786-87, Daniel Shays, a modest farmer and Revolutionary War veteran, and his compatriot Luke Day led an unsuccessful armed rebellion against the state of Massachusetts. Their desperate struggle was fueled by the injustice of a regressive tax system and a conservative state government that seemed no better than British colonial rule. But despite the immediate failure of this local call-to-arms in the Massachusetts countryside, the event fundamentally altered the course of American history. Shays and his army of four thousand rebels so shocked the young nation's governing elite—even drawing the retired General George Washington back into the service of his country—that ultimately the Articles of Confederation were discarded in favor of a new constitution, the very document that has guided the nation for more than two hundred years, and brought closure to the American Revolution. The importance of Shays's Rebellion has never been fully appreciated, chiefly because Shays and his followers have always been viewed as a small group of poor farmers and debtors protesting local civil authority. In Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle, Leonard Richards reveals that this perception is misleading, that the rebellion was much more widespread than previously thought, and that the participants and their supporters actually represented whole communities—the wealthy and the poor, the influential and the weak, even members of some of the best Massachusetts families. Through careful examination of contemporary records, including a long-neglected but invaluable list of the participants, Richards provides a clear picture of the insurgency, capturing the spirit of the rebellion, the reasons for the revolt, and its long-term impact on the participants, the state of Massachusetts, and the nation as a whole. Shays's Rebellion, though seemingly a local affair, was the revolution that gave rise to modern American democracy.

Download or read book A Few Notes on the Shays Rebellion written by John Noble and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explore one of the most pivotal moments in early American history - the Shays Rebellion of 1786-1787. This account offers an in-depth look at the rebellion, from its causes and key players to its impact on the country as a whole. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Download or read book A Few Notes on the Shays Rebellion written by John Noble and published by . This book was released on 1903 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Shays s Rebellion written by Sean Condon and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How an uprising of debtors and small farmers unwittingly influenced the U.S. Constitution. Throughout the late summer and fall of 1786, farmers in central and western Massachusetts organized themselves into armed groups to protest against established authority and aggressive creditors. Calling themselves “regulators” or the “voice of the people,” these crowds attempted to pressure the state government to lower taxes and provide relief to debtors by using some of the same methods employed against British authority a decade earlier. From the perspective of men of wealth and station, these farmers threatened the foundations of society: property rights and their protection in courts and legislature. In this concise and compelling account of the uprising that came to be known as Shays’s Rebellion, Sean Condon describes the economic difficulties facing both private citizens and public officials in newly independent Massachusetts. He explains the state government policy that precipitated the farmers’ revolt, details the machinery of tax and debt collection in the 1780s, and provides readers with a vivid example of how the establishment of a republican form of government shifted the boundaries of dissent and organized protest. Underscoring both the fragility and the resilience of government authority in the nascent republic, the uprising and its aftermath had repercussions far beyond western Massachusetts; ultimately, it shaped the framing and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, which in turn ushered in a new, stronger, and property-friendly federal government. A masterful telling of a complicated story, Shays’s Rebellion is aimed at scholars and students of American history.

Download or read book Shays Rebellion written by B. A. Hoena and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2022 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In 1786, the Massachusetts government was seizing farmers' lands and throwing them in jail for unpaid debts and taxes. But many people couldn't pay because they had not yet been paid for fighting in the Revolutionary War just a few years before. Frustrated by this treatment, Daniel Shay led upset citizens in an armed revolt. Although their rebellion was short lived, it made clear to America's leaders that the young nation needed to change its laws, paving the way for the creation of the U.S. Constitution"--

Download or read book Daniel Shays s Honorable Rebellion written by Daniel Bullen and published by . This book was released on 2024-04-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On January 25, 1787, in Springfield, Massachusetts, militia Major General William Shepard ordered his cannon to fire grapeshot at a peaceful demonstration of 1,200 farmers approaching the federal arsenal. The shots killed four and wounded twenty, marking the climax of five months of civil disobedience in Massachusetts, where farmers challenged the state's authority to seize their farms for flagrantly unjust taxes. Government leaders and influential merchants painted these protests as a violent attempt to overthrow the state, in hopes of garnering support for strengthening the federal government in a Constitutional Convention. As a result, the protests have been hidden for more than two hundred years under the misleading title, "Shays's Rebellion, the armed uprising that led to the Constitution." But this widely accepted narrative is just a legend: the "rebellion" was almost entirely nonviolent, and retired Revolutionary War hero Daniel Shays was only one of many leaders. Daniel Shays's Honorable Rebellion: An American Story by Daniel Bullen tells the history of the crisis from the protesters' perspective. Through five months of nonviolent protests, the farmers kept courts throughout Massachusetts from hearing foreclosures, facing down threats from the government, which escalated to the point that Governor James Bowdoin ultimately sent an army to arrest them. Even so, the people won reforms in an electoral landslide. Thomas Jefferson called these protests an honorable rebellion, and hoped that Americans would never let twenty years pass without such a campaign, to rein in powerful interests. This riveting and meticulously researched narrative shows that Shays and his fellow protesters were hardly a dangerous rabble, but rather a proud people who banded together peaceably, risking their lives for justice in a quintessentially American story.

Download or read book In Debt to Shays written by Robert A. Gross and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Debt to Shays takes a fresh perspective on the rebellion by challenging existing understandings of late eighteenth-century America and restoring the rebellion to its historical context

Download or read book Shay s Rebellion written by Robert A. Feer and published by Dissertations-G. This book was released on 1988 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Shays Rebellion written by David P. Szatmary and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shays' Rebellion is often dismissed in the history books as an isolated incident following the American Revolution. Sometimes, it's grudingly given credit for spurring the Constitution Convention. In this well-balanced book, David P. Szatmary devotes the time and study necessary to classify Shays' Rebellion as the historical watershed it truly is. Shays' Rebellion signified more than economically depressed New England farmers waging war on creditors; it marked the beginning of the end of the American subsistence farmer. This change in an accepted way of life was at least as painful as the birth of the new United States. Szatmary chronicles how international influences forced a change in how merchants, farmers and artisans interacted, and how the initial changes brought friction. The rebellion resulting from this friction in turn revealed how ineffective the Articles of Confederation were in dealing with a crisis that could destroy the country. Szatmary links the state's governments weakness to the Constitution by using newspaper and editorial accounts of the day to provide a well-rounded view of an overlooked milestone.

Download or read book The Background of Shays s Rebellion written by John Willard Hahn and published by . This book was released on 1946 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Some Features of Shays Rebellion written by Jonathan Smith and published by . This book was released on 1905 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Federalist Papers written by Alexander Hamilton and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2018-08-20 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.

Download or read book The history of the insurrections in Massachusetts in the year 1786 and the rebellion consequent thereon written by George Richards Minot and published by . This book was released on 1788 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Shays Rebellion and the Constitution in American History written by Mary Hull and published by Enslow Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents

Download or read book Shays Rebellion written by Michael Burgan and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2008-09 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the circumstances in Massachusetts that led farmers to rebel against local and state governments soon after the Revolutionary War.

Download or read book The Contrast written by Cynthia A. Kierner and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Contrast“, which premiered at New York City's John Street Theater in 1787, was the first American play performed in public by a professional theater company. The play, written by New England-born, Harvard-educated, Royall Tyler was timely, funny, and extremely popular. When the play appeared in print in 1790, George Washington himself appeared at the head of its list of hundreds of subscribers. Reprinted here with annotated footnotes by historian Cynthia A. Kierner, Tyler’s play explores the debate over manners, morals, and cultural authority in the decades following American Revolution. Did the American colonists' rejection of monarchy in 1776 mean they should abolish all European social traditions and hierarchies? What sorts of etiquette, amusements, and fashions were appropriate and beneficial? Most important, to be a nation, did Americans need to distinguish themselves from Europeans—and, if so, how? Tyler was not the only American pondering these questions, and Kierner situates the play in its broader historical and cultural contexts. An extensive introduction provides readers with a background on life and politics in the United States in 1787, when Americans were in the midst of nation-building. The book also features a section with selections from contemporary letters, essays, novels, conduct books, and public documents, which debate issues of the era.

Download or read book Shays Rebellion written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-12-29 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the rebellion *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "You talk, my good sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found, or, if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders. Influence is not government. Let us have a government by which our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured, or let us know the worst at once." - George Washington, referencing Shays' Rebellion in a letter to Light-Horse Harry Lee Even as the young United States successfully secured its independence, the new nation was beset by problems. The drafters of the Articles of Confederation had deliberately avoided giving the national legislature the power to tax, because Parliament had so abused that authority against the colonies, but this proved to be a severe limitation on the national government. Besides hampering the Continental Army, the inability of the national government to raise revenue made foreign policy difficult. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress was also completely unable to pay any of the debts it incurred to foreign powers during the Revolutionary War. Though allied powers had lent to the American government on favorable terms and no repayment was expected until the end of hostilities, the hope of ever paying national debts without a national government that could tax was slim. In particular, the prospect of the new nation defaulting on its loans from France led to the end of the Articles of Confederation. To top it all off, the Articles of Confederation also had no judiciary or executive branch. Therefore, laws passed by the Congress could not be enforced by the national government: the enforcement of laws was left to the mercy of the states. Likewise, there was no national judiciary to decide disputes over national law. Fueled at least in part by the weakness of the federal government to respond to military threats, the young country quickly faced a problem in the form of a rebellion led in New England by former Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays. On December 27, 1786, Samuel Lyman of Massachusetts wrote to his friend and confidant, Samuel Breck, "[N]ot only this Commonwealth but the union at large are in the most confused and confounded condition; we do not yet feel that sameness or unity of interest which is the only cement of any nation, and which is absolutely necessary to be felt in order to make us respectable & important; but this is not surprizing, for our national existence is but of yesterday, and this unity of interest is the result of time, it is the effect of habit, sentiment, & opinion, it is the unison of each of these..." Whether he meant to or not, Lyman captured in this one statement the very essence of the causes of the series of riots known collectively as Shays' Rebellion; for they began during the earliest years of American independence and were led by men who were, by their very nature, rebels. Unlike most countries in the world, 18th century America was made up of people who believed in change, and who were willing to leave their homelands and strike out for the unknown to find it. The men who had just years earlier participated in the American Revolution were not afraid to break down a government they did not like; indeed, many of them reveled in it. When Massachusetts enacted laws that Shays and others didn't like, the rebels had no qualms about taking up arms, and while the rebellion was eventually put down, changes were made to prevent similar problems in the future. Out of this came peace, order and freedom.