What did Shays Rebellion show was needed if the US was to survive?

Answer 1

The government, under the Articles of Confederation, could do nothing about Shays' Rebellion. Shays and the other small farmers raided the armories and blocked the courthouse doors. The state militia could not put down the rebellion because the farmers were the militia. The state was in utter chaos and anarchy. The governor sent a message to Philadelphia for help. They responded they couldn't do anything.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government had no means of coercion because they did not have any means of extraction (except for state contributions which did not go far.)

The powers of the national government under the Articles were limited and ineffectual. Their powers were: declare war, negotiate treaties and alliances, regulate Indian affairs, establish post offices, raise national treasury through state contributions, and coin money (except that state governments could as well and many did.)

Answer 2

Shay's Rebellion was an armed uprising of rural farmers in western Massachusetts in 1786-87 in response to the state government's repeated refusal to alleviate their economic hardships. Daniel Shay was one of the leaders, but no one person began the rebellion or led it.

Shay's Rebellion highlighted two crucial needs for a new government: strong paper currency that people could rely on because it was backed by a strong government and a central government with enough steady revenue to pay for soldiers when needed not only for foreign wars but also to protect individual states from internal attacks. Another need of lesser importance was establishing the ultimate authority of the central government over state militias,

Times were tough for Shay and his fellow farmers after the Revolution. There was a general economic depression after the Revolution and also a lack of currency. European merchants insisted on payment in gold, not trusting the various paper moneys circulating in the states, so the merchants who engaged in foreign trade, located primarily in Boston and a few other ports, and merchants who bought from those merchants for resale elsewhere, also insisted on payment in gold rather than in paper money or goods like farm products and small manufactured items by their customers. Further, Massachusetts demanded that its citizens pay their taxes in gold. There simply was not enough gold in the economic system to sustain it. Farmers eking out a bare existence found it next to impossible to obtain gold, and many lost their farms as a result of non-payment and foreclosure. Veterans of the Revolutionary War like Shay found this situation especially galling because they were still owed pay for their soldiering.

Pleas for relief were repeatedly submitted to the state legislature, which was dominated by the seaboard areas and therefore ignored them. Frustrated, farmers in various places organized into well-armed groups which shut down county courts, halting judicial proceedings for tax and debt collection and foreclosures. Governor Bowdoin was infuriated but since he did not have funds to pay a state militia, he had to rely on local militias - which, he discovered, could not be relied upon in all instances. When the court in Worcester was shut down, the county militia, largely sympathetic to the rebels, refused to act. The state government's next response was to indict and arrest some of the leaders of the rebellion for seditious behavior. This further radicalized the rebels, who then began to plan to overthrow the state government by force of arms. Bowdoin requested help from Congress, which could not respond because it too had no money to pay any soldiers. With no state or confederate soldiers available, and with local militias unreliable, the wealthy merchants in Boston and other towns on the coast created a privately-funded militia of about 3,000 men led by former Continental Army General Benjamin Lincoln.

Their first major step in the rebels' plan was to seize the federal armory at Springfield, Mass..Their attempt resulted in thorough defeat, in part due to miscommunication but in large part also because they had been anticipated: General Shepard, on orders from the Governor Bowdoin, had already taken possession of the federal armory and its contents and used its arsenal to arm another militia force of about 1,200 men. After the defeat, Lincoln's privately paid army moved quickly to chase down the rebels. It arrested many and scattered nearly all the rest. For a few months, occasional acts of disruption occurred, but essentially Shay's rebellion was crushed.

Thus, (1) the rebellion was caused by the lack of strong paper currency, currency that European merchants could rely on, exacerbated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' need for the same thing; (2) when an armed rebellion attempted to overthrow a state government, neither the state government nor the flimsy confederation could act due to lack of money; (3) a privately paid army (sanctioned by the state government) was recruited and armed; and (4) federal property, the weapons and ammunition stored at the Springfield Armory, was seized by a state official. All of these concerns were addressed in the Constitutional Convention, which had already been called for when Shay's Rebellion began, but undoubtedly the Rebellion pinpointed these issues and helped convince some doubters that a strong central government was necessary.

Answer 3

George Washington, when he was president led an army and put a stop to the rebbelion

Answer 4

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