Daniel Shays Essay

Daniel Shays



When the constitution was formed many people don’t think of the name Daniel Shays. He was one of the reasons why our government got rid of the Articles of Confederation. If not for his rebellion our system of government may have been run by the Articles and not the constitution. Daniel Shays’s rebellion is an important movement in the building of our government. Daniel a small farmer in Massachutes with his ideas for a better tomorrow he indeed made a world with a better tomorrow.
Before we begin with the rebellion one must know about the life that Daniel Shays led before his big rebellion. Daniel Shays was born in 1747 in Hopkinton Massachusetts. He grew up in Irish Family who were farmers even thought they were dirt poor and they need Daniel just to make ends meet they sent him to school for a year a two so that he could read and write. When the war for an independent nation broke out Daniel Shays joined the Massachusetts army. He quickly jumped the ranks because of his ability to read and write and persuade people to join the Massachusetts army. Daniel even fought in many important battles of the revolution. He fought at Lexington and at Bunker Hill. Even though he was never trained for battle his fellow soldiers said that he was good fighter. In 1779 he was officially named captain of the regiment in Massachusetts. In 1780 he resigned form the military and was fully paid for his work in the military. After the war he returned home to find that the farmers of Massachusetts were suffering from the freedom they had received.
The reason that the farmers were facing many problems form the newly formed nation was because they had no market to sell there goods to. England was not only the biggest importer of goods but England was also the only importer of American goods. Besides the fact they had one to imports goods there states also had no funds. To make matters worse printed money during that time was useless because each state had its own so the farmers were asked to sit down and take it. To make matters worse the Farmers were faced with a new and deadly growing force. The state had issued a court to come form farm to farm and taking property and goods form farmers that were behind on there taxes.
Daniel and his farmer militia herd that the courts were coming to there town next they picked up arms and would fight the state ordered courts. Besides the court coming to town Daniel still fought because he thought the new government had many injustices that he wanted to see fixed. For example the only people who had a say in the government were people who owned property. Also people who wanted hold office had to take a religious oath and because of this many people didn’t want to take the religious oath. He would fight until the injustices done to farmers were fixed. Shay wanted change so he went to Springfield where they were going to discuss what the farmers were doing. When they entered Springfield they were met with huge army ready to fight. When Shay met the army he asked the general if his army could just march. They marched right up to court in Springfield and made their demands. Shay and his rag tag group of fighters helped some of our nation’s heroes build our nation
. Without Shay’s rebellion we would still have the national document be the Articles of Conferadation. When Shay rebelled it showed how weak our government to present uprising. It also made a certain hero of our government come out of public life because even he suffered form the bad farm policy it was George Washington.
Because of the revolution he got George Washington to get back into the public life and help lift up the struggling nation on its firm feet. Even though the demands of the farmers were never met they still helped build a great a nation that would later help them.