Written by Brendan Maloney   

I just stumbled upon this GEM of a 30-minute video lecture on Shay's Rebellion produced by Historical Spotlight. It was a huge tax revolt in Massachusetts that took place in the same years the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia. This video is a truly exquisite and vital crash course that should be shown in every high school history and civics program in America, IMHO. Why? Because our military industrial financial media academic congressional judicial executive complex reprehensibly uses uninformed kids as cannon fodder and hired killers, and informed teens grow into an informed citizenry... Imagine that!

I will not ramble on much here, because there is nothing of real value I can add to the lecture. But I will provide notes from it in order to entice those who think they are too busy to this watch this concise, hugely informative half-hour lecture:

Shay's Rebellion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5xUro2z2tI

*Taxes increased exponentially after British troops left our shores
*Citizens had to be fairly wealthy to hold office and even vote
*A huge snowstorm kept rural voters from voting down high taxes
*12,000 – 15,000 Massachusetts citizens rose in revolt
*Many pillars of society joined and supported the Rebellion
*Legal remedies were attempted first, but rejected by power elite
*“Super patriot” Sam Adams called for executions of the rebels!
*90% of Americans were farmers then - not an isolated “peasant rabble”
*Rebels took over courthouses, where tax abuses originated
*Thomas Jefferson: "I think a little rebellion is a good thing."
*Massachusetts governor hired a private army to fight rebels, many of whom were Continental Army veterans
*Henry Knox's misrepresentation of the Rebellion in the power elite's favor to George Washington was perhaps the main reason for Washington reluctantly making an appearance at the Constitutional Convention and arguing for a strong central government.

Upside: Shay's Rebellion succeeded in radically reducing citizens' taxes and improving voting rights.

Downside: It clearly scared hell out of Founding Fathers, who met behind closed doors away from an angry citizenry and press, hammering out the U.S. Constitution. Historians have to wonder how much more power at the state and local levels would exist today if Shay's Rebellion had not preceded the writing of the Constitution. I believe the Electoral College - a power elite bulwark against the voting citizenry - was created in response to Shay's Rebellion.

Note re Sam Adams: Preceding the Revolution he was a hired thug employed by John Hancock, whose shipping company employed 1/3 of the workforce of Boston. Hancock gave large bags of coins to Sam, who then doled them out to and bought drinks for those willing to attack British soldiers and Tories. So it isn't surprising to me that Sam acted as a thug again for the new American power elite that increased taxes by ten thousand percent after the Revolution. Legends, pseudo-heroes and myths die hard, don't they?

Historical Spotlight homepage
http://historicalspotlight.com/