7 July 03

Shays's Rebellion and the Second Amendment:

The series of conflicts that today are blended together into what historians call the French and Indian Wars in the mid-1700s convinced the French that their national interests in North America could be adequately defended by their Indian allies. Therefore, France, who at the time had the largest land army in Europe, sent no troops to North America. The British, equally convinced that their Indian allies were duplicitous and unreliable, sent over troops by the boatload! The future of what would become the United States of America was thus decided. In the later half of the Eighteenth Century, French influence in North America dwindled, as British influence expanded.

Expanded too much, as it turns out. American colonists eventually threw off characteristically heavy-handed British rule. The Revolutionary War, which started at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts in 1776, essentially ended at Yorktown, Virginia in October of 1780, although an official peace treaty was not sighed until 1783.

At War's end, having done his job, General George Washington retired to his farm in Virginia, having no further interest in military operations and even less in politics. He would probably have lived out his days there in quiet seclusion as a gentleman farmer were it not for a decorated Revolutionary War veteran in rural Massachusetts named Daniel Shays.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the only document that bound together the newly-independent thirteen (former) colonies, each colony was now, in essence, and independent country. In Massachusetts, politicians (then, as now) saw it as their duty to tax people to death while forging political alliances with powerful interests, all of which were located in Boston, the only big city in the colony. Led by Governor James Bowdoin, a campaign to foreclose on debtor farmers in rural Massachusetts in an effort to seize vast tracts of private land (which could then be doled out to political supporters) went on with scant notice outside the Massachusetts Colony itself. Rural towns everywhere pleaded with the Assembly in Boston to address their plight, but were ignored.

Massachusetts citizens began wondering why they had bothered to fight a war against the British. It struck them that the "Revolution" had failed them, that they had merely exchanged one tyrant for another. They had been led to believe that a democracy was a virtual guarantee against tyranny. Now, it was obvious that tyranny could exist, indeed flourish, even within a democracy. Rural areas could not muster enough votes to counter the vast reserve of votes in population centers, like Boston. In Boston, groups and constituencies could easily be bought and manipulated, so politicians seldom bothered to venture forth beyond the city limits (much as is the case today).

Daniel Shays and his wife Abigail were farmers in rural, western Massachusetts. Shays never allowed a portrait of himself to be painted, so we don't know what he looked like. We do know his service during the War was characterized by conspicuous bravely and devotion to his country.

Seeing no sympathy in their plight emanating from Boston, armed insurgents in the Berkshire Hills and the Connecticut Valley, under the leadership of Daniel Shays and others, began in August of 1786 to forcibly prevent county courts from sitting to make judgments on foreclosures. In fact, in September of that year they forced the state Supreme Court at Springfield to adjourn before it could conduct any business. The Boston elite finally took notice, but, when they tried to enlist the help of the state militia, they found it of scant assistance as most of its members, particularly Revolutionary War veterans, sympathized with Shays and his followers.

Like most who participated in the 1786/87 Shays's Rebellion in central and western Massachusetts, Shays was a noble and upright citizen, with no criminal history. None of this interested Bowdoin (who was not a veteran), and he ruthlessly used his influence with the press to portray Shays and his colleagues as sleazy, threadbare, trailer trash. That false portrayal still persists today.

On 25 January 1787, a poorly organized armed group, led by Shays, marched on the US arsenal at Springfield in an effort to break in and equip itself with modern, military arms. They were repulsed by a hastily-assembled state militia unit under the command of Major General William Shepard, who had arrived in the nick of time, as no federal units were available to protect the facility. Shepard used the arsenal's cannons on the rebels and killed four. Five times that number were wounded. The assault subsequently fell apart, and the rebels fled in disarray.

They were pursued by General Benjamin Lincoln, leading another hastily-assembled army, to the town of Petersham. There, early in the morning of 4 February, Lincoln surprised Shays and his men, but the weather was so bad that a full-scale attack could not be mounted. Most of the rebels, including Shays himself, escaped.

On Tuesday, 27 February, Colonel John Ashley routed a group of insurgents, under the command of Perez Hamlin, near Sheffield, killing two and wounding thirty. A hundred prisoners were taken. The 27 February engagement is considered by most to have marked the end of the Rebellion. However, sporadic activity continued for months afterward before dying out altogether by the end of June. The Sheffield battlefield is today marked by a single, stone monument, the only reminder of Shays's Rebellion to have survived to the present time.

Most of the rebels were promptly pardoned. A number in the leadership group were sentenced to be hanged, but, in the end, only two were. With an election coming up, Bowdoin was anxious to but it all behind him with a minimum of fanfare, knowing the Rebellion still garnered a good deal of sympathy. Bowdoin was soundly defeated anyway, and his successor, John Hancock, equally anxious to move on, pardoned nearly all who had not been pardoned before.

Daniel Shays fled Massachusetts and eventually settled in western New York, although he himself was pardoned by Hancock in June of 1788. He died in New York in 1825, then in his seventies, of natural causes, outliving both Bowdoin and Lincoln by many years. In New York, he was noted for his aversion to politics!

Shay's Rebellion scared the snot out of the governors of the other twelve colonies and literally drove them to a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1788, something for which most had no enthusiasm previously. It also drove George Washington out of retirement and ultimately into the office of president. A strong, central, federal government was now seen as a crucial necessity. In fact, opponents of the new Constitution were incessantly accused of being sympathetic with Shays and his rebels.

However, in the middle of the convention, James Madison and Elbridge Gerry insisted on a Bill of Rights, fearing "Massachusetts-style" repression would be a consequence of a concentration of power at the national level. With Shays's Rebellion still fresh in their collective memories, the notion instantly struck a resonant chord. In the end, it became obvious that a constitution, without amendments protecting individual rights, would not be ratified. In December of 1791, the new Constitution, with a Bill of Rights, was finally approved by by all thirteen colonies (now states) and took effect.

Without Daniel Shays and his audacious Rebellion, there probably never would have been a Constitution Convention. The colonies would have remained disunited and would have been ultimately reabsorbed, one by one, back into the British Empire.

Without Daniel Shays, George Washington would have probably stayed in retirement and not become our first president.

Most importantly, without Daniel Shays, Thomas Jefferson probably never would have expressed the opinion that an occasional armed insurrection is healthy for a democracy. Armed protest against tyranny would probably not have thus imbedded itself so thoroughly into American democratic thought. Indeed, the Second Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights precisely to support that conviction.

Without Shays, there would probably never have been a Whisky Rebellion (in western Pennsylvania in 1794), or an American Civil War (seventy years later).

Comment: Like so many heroes of human history, Daniel Shays is scarcely known today. He was a quiet man of principle who never wanted to be a celebrity. Like most decent and honorable men, he was never attracted to politics. But, when history called upon him, he went forth boldly and did what clearly had to be done. Good show, Dan!

/John