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 People’s

History of the US”, pgs. 63-65).

Shays’ Rebellion Essay Sacred Heart High School

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

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

Shays’ Rebellion Essay Sacred Heart High School

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, only to torture them (“Zones of

Indistinction: Giorgio Agamben’s ‘Bare Life’ and the Politics of Aesthetics,”

Anthony Downey. Third Text, Vol. 23, Issue 2, March, 2009, 109–125). 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.