25 for 25. Shays’ Rebellion (1786-87)

“Good God!” said George Washington in the winter of 1786-87 in response to news of violent protests in western Massachusetts. “If three years ago any person had told me that at this day I should see such a formidable rebellion against the laws and constitutions of our own making as now appears, I should have thought him a bedlamite—a fit subject for a madhouse.” Washington couldn't predict where the tumult would lead. “Our affairs, generally, seem really to be approaching to some awful crisis. God only knows what the result will be.”

The insurrection that alarmed Washington was a tax revolt led by a Revolutionary War veteran named Daniel Shays. Farmers in western Massachusetts felt put upon by their Boston creditors and the state government based in that city. The farmers petitioned for relief, to no avail. They took up arms in their own defense—in many cases the same arms they had used in defense of American freedom against Britain.

Washington had dealt with similar dissatisfactions during the war. The Continental Congress had been slow to pay his troops what they were owed. The troops received tearful letters from home telling of families driven to destitution. Some of Washington's soldiers mutinied and were restrained only by the threat of imprisonment and execution. At the end of the war, officers of the Continental Army, camped at Newburgh, New York, still short on pay, had prepared to march against the government. Washington talked them out of it in a heartfelt speech.

Washington wasn't a particular student of history. But he had read enough of the history of other countries, and seen enough of the history of his own, to know that men trained at arms in the cause of a nation sometimes used those arms for narrower purposes. When Julius Caesar led his army across the Rubicon, the days of the Roman republic were numbered. Washington feared that the days of the American republic were numbered now.

Washington wasn't the only one worried about the future of the republic. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton had been scheming for years to overthrow the government of the Articles of Confederation. Their motives were sincere. They believed the Articles insufficient to sustain America against foreign enemies and domestic dissensions. Their methods, however, were oblique. They proposed a convention to recommend changes to the Articles. The proposal was innocuous on its face. Amendments to the Articles required unanimity among the thirteen states. Any radical recommendation would be vetoed by one or more. 

Washington so far had refused Madison's repeated invitations to attend the convention, scheduled for Philadelphia in the spring of 1787. He had retired from public life at the end of the war and hoped not to have to return. Besides, he suspected that Madison and Hamilton intended more than merely amending the Articles. He didn't want to endorse a project without knowing what it entailed.

The Shays rebellion changed his mind. The republic clearly needed a stronger central government than the Articles allowed, Washington judged. Even if Madison and Hamilton were being coy about their intentions, their coyness pointed in the direction of such a stronger government. Washington told Madison he would attend the Philadelphia convention.

Washington's participation was crucial. The knowledge that he would be present encouraged other waverers to journey to Philadelphia. When the convention began, the doors to the meeting hall were closed and the delegates were sworn to secrecy. Skeptics tut-tutted that something shady was afoot. Yet most Americans took comfort that Washington was there, and in fact was presiding over the convention. Washington had declined to make himself Caesar at the end of the war, preferring the role of Cincinnatus, the Roman general who put down his sword and took up his plow. Washington wouldn’t conspire against the national interest, nor would he let the convention do so, Americans assumed.

When the convention ended and unveiled a new constitution supplanting the Articles, Washington as president of the convention sent it to the states for their consideration. He wrote a cover letter endorsing it and asking his fellow Americans to do so as well.

His request succeeded, but not by much. The ratification debate was vigorous and at times bitter. The opponents of the new constitution disliked that it stole authority from the states. Many decried the power it granted to the executive of the new government, the president of the United States. The president’s powers were disturbingly akin to the powers of a king, they said. Yet most Americans were reassured by the understanding that the first president would be Washington. Washington hadn't abused power so far, and there was no reason to think he would begin abusing it now.

The Constitution was ratified. Washington was elected and served two terms. He retired voluntarily at the end of the second term. 

Daniel Shays was largely forgotten, except by those who realized that his rebellion was much of what had brought Washington out of retirement and onto the path that gave the republic a new lease on life, under a new Constitution.