The Revolutionary War Of Massachusetts Veterans - 1042 Words

In the months and years following the revolutionary war, many veterans faced dim prospects. Veterans of the former continental army received little of the pay that they were owed and any pay that was given out was typically of useless continental notes of so little value they gave rise to the saying â€Å"Not worth a continental† (Philips). In Massachusetts veterans were dealt a particularly harsh hand by the steep taxation of the state s conservative governor such that many faced property seizures or debtors prison from the crushing debts which arose from a combination of their lack of payment from the revolutionary war, a poor market for crops in the postwar depression, demands by merchants from payments in hard cash, and the†¦show more content†¦After a personnel investigation secretary of war Henry Knox, a proponent of a strong federal government, reported to congress the activities of the â€Å"regulators† was a full scale rebellion and to some degree mi srepresented(possibly unintentionally) their cause in a more negative light, portraying them as anarchists(Philips). Knox identified the national arsenal at Springfield as vulnerable and after raising a privately funded militia army(because no national army existed) and intercepting a note revealing the plans of the rebels to seize Springfield he defeated them and the rebellion fizzled out with sporadic violence against wealthy landowners(Philips). Though ultimately unsuccessful, Shay’s rebellion which occurred 1786 -1787 still played an important role in the history of the U.S by underscoring the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, which were also outlined around the same time by the Annapolis convention 1786. The events of the rebellion were surely present in the minds of the delegates at the Philadelphia convention a year later, where in complete secret, the Articles of Confederation were done away with rather than improved and replaced by the much stronger United States Constitution. Interpretations of, and opinion on, Shay’s rebellion by political figures of the day often conflicted. In a letter to Senator William S. Smith Thomas Jefferson praised the spirit of the rebels claiming their motives were founded â€Å"in ignorance, not wickedness† and