Shays Rebellion Essay

Sacred Heart High School

A different kind of fight was going on in the heart of the United States while many were focused on fighting England. This fight was one of class conflict. Conventional history tends to gloss over class conflict and paint a pure and simple picture of the American Revolution as being a fight between a really-United-States, and the Englishmen. But a deeper look at history tells a different story. Rebellions of the poor against the rich in the name of their class interests show that there were individuals who had more direct concerns than taxation from England. Two rebellions, the Regulator movement and Shays Rebellion, had underlying causes within class conflict and had very significant effects. The Regulator movement was a response by poor tenant farmers and small landholders to wealthy and corrupt landlords who were considered oppressive by those who resisted them. The movement was mostly made up of poor farmers who felt they were participating in a system which disadvantaged them. The goal of the Regulators was to oppose a system of taxation which they felt only enriched a few large landholders. However, in their protests and riots, they were crushed by local militias, and the leaders were hanged. The result of this violent conflict in particular between the poor and downtrodden, and the government in lockstep with large landholders, was likely that most of the Regulators remained neutral during the Revolutionary War, and few participated as patriots. (Zinn, A Peoples History of the US, pgs. 63-65). Daniel Shays was fed up with the Continental army. Despite having fought at multiple battles such as Bunker Hill and Lexington, and having been wounded in action, he was not compensated for his service! That compelled him to resign from the army, but soon after he was in court for nonpayment of debts. That made Shays fairly angry, but what really compelled him to start a rebellion of his own was when eleven rebellion

Shays Rebellion Essay

Sacred Heart High School

leaders, including three of his friends, were indicted by a Massachusetts court for being disorderly and seditious. Shays organized seven hundred armed farmers to participate with him in a parade in Springfield, MA (somehow given permission by the state militia they passed by), and this court was adjourned. Shays continued protesting, even taking refuge in Vermont, but his followers then began to surrender (Zinn, 93 and 94). A consequence of this was the fear that promoted interest in creating a Constitution. Those who drafted the Constitution felt that a strong central government was necessary to not only protect certain economic interests but to suppress riots like these (Zinn, 91). Interestingly, some of the Founding Fathers who were quiet rebellious themselves against the British, even acting outside of the law to do so, were quick to be the ones promoting law and order in these situations. Sam Adams created a riot act and a provision for suspending habeas corpus. The Massachusetts legislature did concede to the farmers that they could pay off their debts in goods, rather than money, but this was a minor concession that they figured would be enough to pacify the farmers who would still remain downtrodden (Zinn, 94). Sam Adams held the belief that the man who dares rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death, making an exception for resistance to monarchy (Zinn, 95). Sam Adams became himself a tyrant when he made himself an exception to the rule. Indeed, Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben would agree. In his seminal work, Homo Sacer, he analyzes the nature of state power, and concludes that appeals to rights within the state are futile since the state can always create states of exception (Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer, pg. 17). This means that the state can simultaneously impose law and deem itself outside of it, just as it legalizes the violation of due process rights of non-citizen terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay,

Shays Rebellion Essay

Sacred Heart High School

only to torture them (Zones of Indistinction: Giorgio Agambens Bare Life and the Politics of Aesthetics, Anthony Downey. Third Text, Vol. 23, Issue 2, March, 2009, 109125). This creates what Agamben calls bare life, where an individual can be killed but not sacrificed. People are simultaneously turned over to the law and excluded by it, since they can be killed or tortured at any time.