Читать книгу American Democracy in Context - Joseph A. Pika - Страница 68

By the mid-1780s, the new nation was in the midst of an economic depression. Farmers, in particular, had gone into debt to rebuild their farms after the Revolutionary War, in which many of them had served as soldiers. The combination of a bad growing season, high interest rates, and high state taxes to pay off the war debt made it impossible for many farmers to pay their bills. Foreclosures (losing one’s property due to failure to pay a loan) skyrocketed, and imprisonment for debt was common. In Massachusetts, desperate farmers turned to the state for help. When help did not come, the farmers—led by Daniel Shays, who had been a captain in the Continental Army—banded together and tried, by force, to shut down the courthouses where foreclosures were issued. This armed rebellion by more than 2,000 farmers, which began in August 1786 and continued into 1787, came to be known as Shays’ Rebellion.

Massachusetts appealed to the national government for help in restoring order. Congress requisitioned states for money to fund a national militia to quell the rebellion, but only Virginia complied. Without money, Congress was powerless to act. Massachusetts did not have enough money in its own state treasury to fund a state militia, and therefore had to rely on money from private donors. The whole event was unsettling, and it proved to be an important turning point. By highlighting the impotence of the national government, Shays’ Rebellion galvanized the nation. Those who had long feared that the Articles of Confederation were deficient now had a dramatic example of Congress’s inability to maintain order and protect the safety of the people.