Page 180 - American Stories, A History of the United States

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shays’s rebeLLiOn This 1787 woodcut portrays Daniel Shays with one of his chief officers, Jacob Shattucks.
Shays led farmers in western Massachusetts in revolt against a state government that seemed insensitive to the needs
of poor debtors. Their rebellion frightened conservative leaders, who demanded a strong new federal government.

seize the federal arsenal in Springfield. Congress did not have funds sufficient to sup-
port an army, and the arsenal might have fallen. But wealthy Bostonians raised 4000
troops to suppress the insurrection. The victors were in for a surprise. At the next
general election, Massachusetts voters selected representatives sympathetic to Shays’s
demands, and a new liberal assembly reformed debtor law.
Nationalists throughout the United States were less forgiving. Shays’s Rebellion
symbolized the breakdown of law and order that they had predicted. “Great commo-
tions are prevailing in Massachusetts,” Madison wrote. “An appeal to the sword is Quick Check
exceedingly dreaded.” The time had come for sensible people to speak up for a strong What role did Shays’s Rebellion play
national government. The unrest in Massachusetts persuaded persons who might have in bringing about constitutional
ignored the Philadelphia meeting to participate in drafting a new constitution. reform?

The Philadelphia Convention
In the spring of 1787, 55 men representing 12 states traveled to Philadelphia. Rhode
Island refused to take part, which Madison attributed to its “wickedness and folly.”
Jefferson described the convention as an “assembly of demi-Gods,” but this flattering
depiction is misleading. However much modern Americans revere the Constitution,
they should remember that its authors did not possess divine insight into the nature
of government. They were practical people—lawyers, merchants, and planters—many
of whom had fought in the Revolution and served in the Congress of the Confedera-
tion. Most were in their thirties or forties. The gathering included George Washing-
ton, James Madison, George Mason, Robert Morris, James Wilson, John Dickinson,
Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton, to name some of the more prominent
participants. Absent were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who were conducting
diplomacy in Europe; Patrick Henry, a localist suspicious of strong central govern-
ment, “smelled a rat” and remained in Virginia.
As soon as the Constitutional Convention opened on May 25, the delegates made
two important procedural decisions. First, they voted “that nothing spoken in the
House be printed, or communicated without leave.” The rule was stringently enforced.
Sentries kept out uninvited visitors, windows stayed shut in the sweltering heat to pre-
vent sound from either entering or leaving the chamber, and members were forbidden
to copy the daily journal without official permission. As Madison explained, the secrecy
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