Shays’ Rebellion

After the Revolution, Massachusetts set out to repay its war debt quickly, largely through heavy taxes that had to be paid in hard money. Farmers in the western part of the state, who had little cash, faced lawsuits from creditors, the seizure of their land, and imprisonment for debt. Many had served in the war and felt they were losing the freedom they had fought for.

When the state legislature refused to consider debt relief, protesters turned to direct action, drawing on the tactics of the 1760s and 1770s: they blocked the courts that heard debt cases.

In August 1786 armed protesters began seizing county courthouses to prevent debt proceedings. Over the following months the movement spread across western Massachusetts. In late January 1787, Shays led a force of about 1,500 men toward the federal arsenal at Springfield, where state militia were waiting. The militia fired, killing four of the insurgents, and the attackers fled. The movement soon collapsed.

The Confederation Congress had been powerless to help suppress an uprising next to a federal arsenal. As the National Constitution Center notes, the protest demonstrated that the federal government under the Articles of Confederation could not effectively put down an internal rebellion.

Shays’ Rebellion alarmed George Washington, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, who saw it as proof that the Articles of Confederation could not keep order. Washington, who had been reluctant to attend the planned convention in Philadelphia, changed his mind. The rebellion thus helped bring about the Constitutional Convention — while also reminding the framers that ordinary citizens would resist a government that seemed to serve creditors rather than the people.