Shay’s
Rebellion and the Constitution by Mary Hull, 2000, Excerpts
During the 1780s, mob
in New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia
all protested debtor courts and attacked tax collectors. Anarchy threatened to
undermine the fledgling nation everywhere. The confrontation at the Springfield
arsenal in January 1787 was the high point in a series of yeoman protests and
Regulator conflicts that became known to history as Shays’ Rebellion.
After Shays’
Rebellion, state governments became even more convinced that the national
government needed to be stronger in order to prevent further insurrections.
Alexander Hamilton was one of the political leaders who pushed for a stronger
federal government in the wake of Shays’ Rebellion. He had long argued that the
Articles of Confederation was inadequate and needed to be revised to give more
power to the federal government.
By the summer of
1788, the Constitution had been ratified by nine states and was officially
adopted as the new governing document for the United States. Shays’ Rebellions
had played a vital role in the creation of the United States Constitution. The fear the rebellion had evoked helped the
Federalists in their crusade for a stronger government. The memory of Shays’
Rebellion and fear of other possible rebellions pushed many people who might
otherwise have rejected a stronger national government to accept one.
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