Enter your information below. You'll be working individually through each phase, then pausing to compare answers with your group before moving on.
The American Revolution ended in 1783, but independence created as many problems as it solved. The new nation needed a government — and fast. In 1781, the states adopted their first constitution: the Articles of Confederation.
The Articles created a very weak central government. There was no president, no national court system, and — critically — Congress could not tax citizens directly. It had to ask the states for money, and the states often refused. The national government could not pay its war debts or its soldiers.
Many Americans wanted a weak central government. They had just fought a revolution against what they saw as a tyrannical central power. Why would they immediately hand power to a new one?
Every history class begins somewhere. This is the account most American students encounter first — the textbook version of Shays' Rebellion. Read it carefully, then answer the sourcing questions below.
In August 1786, mobs of angry farmers began forcibly shutting down courts in western Massachusetts to prevent judges from foreclosing on their farms. The leader of the largest group was Daniel Shays, a former Revolutionary War captain.
The farmers' actions were in part a reaction to the state government's economic policies. Massachusetts had levied heavy taxes to pay off its war debt. When farmers could not pay the taxes, their farms were seized and they were thrown in jail.
State officials called out the militia to stop Shays, but many militia members joined the protesters instead. In January 1787, Shays led some 1,200 men to capture the federal arsenal in Springfield. State forces stopped the raid and quickly crushed the uprising. Shays fled to Vermont.
Though quickly put down, Shays' Rebellion alarmed many American leaders. They interpreted it as a sign of the growing disorder in American society, and as evidence of the Articles' weaknesses. "We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion," wrote George Washington after hearing of the rebellion.
Congress quickly sought ways to raise funds to maintain a standing army to deal with unrest like Shays' Rebellion. The uprising also convinced many political leaders that a stronger national government was necessary. In February 1787, Congress authorized a Constitutional Convention.
① Share one thing from your answer to the close reading question. Did your group describe the textbook's main claim the same way?
② The textbook quotes Washington but not a single farmer. Why might that be — and does it matter?
③ Before we read the next document: based only on the textbook, would you say Americans were united in their reaction to Shays' Rebellion? Keep that question in mind.
The textbook gives us one perspective on Shays' Rebellion — that of political leaders who saw the uprising as proof that the Articles were too weak. But not everyone agreed. Now you will read a letter by one of the most important Founding Fathers, written just months after the rebellion.
I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the Boston debates. The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.
I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the Atmosphere.
It is wonderful that no letters are yet arrived from thence. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
Our convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and in the sway of that impression have established two or three things which may produce a great deal of evil. The instability of our laws is really an immense evil, but it is one which our present form of government will not cure: because the powers of amendment are not given to the federal bodies, and cannot, I think, be given without dangerous extension of their powers.
I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe. Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.
① Compare your answers to Question 2. Did your group agree on what Jefferson actually thought about the rebellion — or did people read him differently?
② Look back at Jefferson's phrase "the spirit of resistance to government is so valuable." Who does he seem to be imagining when he says that? Farmers like Shays? Or someone else?
③ Jefferson vs. Washington: both Founding Fathers, completely opposite reactions. What does that disagreement tell us — and which view won out by 1788?
You have now read two very different accounts of how Americans responded to Shays' Rebellion. It is time to put them side by side and think carefully about what each source reveals — and conceals.
Key claim: Americans saw Shays' Rebellion as evidence of the Articles' fatal weakness and demanded a stronger government.
Voice centered: Political elites — Washington, Congress, the Constitutional Convention.
Tone: Alarm and urgency about disorder and instability.
Key claim: A little rebellion is healthy. The Convention overreacted. Liberty requires periodic resistance.
Voice centered: An individual Founder writing privately, skeptical of centralized power.
Tone: Calm, even enthusiastic about the spirit of resistance.
Historians have long debated how "unanimous" the reaction to Shays' Rebellion really was — and what it tells us about the creation of the Constitution. Here is what the scholarly record shows:
The Textbook — Textbooks serve an institutional purpose: to convey the "standard" story of national history to mass audiences. They are shaped by state curriculum standards, editorial choices, and the politics of textbook adoption committees. They tend to emphasize consensus and order, and to center the voices of political elites who left the most written records.
Jefferson's Letter — Private letters are among historians' most valuable sources because they capture what people actually thought, not what they said for public consumption. Jefferson wrote this knowing it would likely be shared among friends — but not expecting it to become a famous historical document. His distance from Massachusetts may have given him perspective, or it may have insulated him from the genuine fear that gripped Massachusetts' creditor class.