The experience of Rhode Island is not to be regarded as typical of what was happening throughout the country but is, indeed, rather to be considered as exceptional. Yet it attracted widespread attention and revealed to anxious observers the dangers to which the country was subject if the existing condition of affairs were allowed to continue. The machinery of the State Government was captured by the paper-money party in the spring election of 1786. The results were disappointing to the adherents of the paper-money cause, for when the money was issued depreciation began at once, and those who tried to pay their bills discovered that a heavy discount was demanded. In response to indignant demands the legislature of Rhode Island passed an act to force the acceptance of paper money under penalty and thereupon tradesmen refused to make any sales at all some closed their shops, and others tried to carry on business by exchange of wares. The farmers then retaliated by refusing to sell their produce to the shopkeepers, and general confusion and acute distress followed. It was mainly a quarrel between the farmers and the merchants, but it easily grew into a division between town and country, and there followed a whole series of town meetings and county conventions. The old line of cleavage was fairly well represented by the excommunication of a member of St.
John's Episcopal Church of Providence for tendering bank notes, and the expulsion of a member of the Society of the Cincinnati for a similar cause.
The contest culminated in the case of Trevett vs. Weeden, 1786, which is memorable in the judicial annals of the United States.
The legislature, not being satisfied with ordinary methods of enforcement, had provided for the summary trial of offenders without a jury before a court whose judges were removable by the Assembly and were therefore supposedly subservient to its wishes.
In the case in question the Superior Court boldly declared the enforcing act to be unconstitutional, and for their contumacious behavior the judges were summoned before the legislature. They escaped punishment, but only one of them was reelected to office.
Meanwhile disorders of a more serious sort, which startled the whole country, occurred in Massachusetts. It is doubtful if a satisfactory explanation ever will be found, at least one which will be universally accepted, as to the causes and origin of Shays' Rebellion in 1786. Some historians maintain that the uprising resulted primarily from a scarcity of money, from a shortage in the circulating medium; that, while the eastern counties were keeping up their foreign trade sufficiently at least to bring in enough metallic currency to relieve the stringency and could also use various forms of credit, the western counties had no such remedy. Others are inclined to think that the difficulties of the farmers in western Massachusetts were caused largely by the return to normal conditions after the extraordinarily good times between 1776 and 1780, and that it was the discomfort attending the process that drove them to revolt.
Another explanation reminds one of present-day charges against undue influence of high financial circles, when it is insinuated and even directly charged that the rebellion was fostered by conservative interests who were trying to create a public opinion in favor of a more strongly organized government.
Whatever other causes there may have been, the immediate source of trouble was the enforced payment of indebtedness, which to a large extent had been allowed to remain in abeyance during the war. This postponement of settlement had not been merely for humanitarian reasons; it would have been the height of folly to collect when the currency was greatly depreciated. But conditions were supposed to have been restored to normal with the cessation of hostilities, and creditors were generally inclined to demand payment. These demands, coinciding with the heavy taxes, drove the people of western Massachusetts into revolt. Feeling ran high against lawyers who prosecuted suits for creditors, and this antagonism was easily transferred to the courts in which the suits were brought. The rebellion in Massachusetts accordingly took the form of a demonstration against the courts. A paper was carried from town to town in the County of Worcester, in which the signers promised to do their utmost "to prevent the sitting of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas for the county, or of any other court that should attempt to take property by distress."
The Massachusetts Legislature adjourned in July, 1786, without remedying the trouble and also without authorizing an issue of paper money which the hardpressed debtors were demanding. In the months following mobs prevented the courts from sitting in various towns. A special session of the legislature was then called by the Governor but, when that special session had adjourned on the 18th of November, it might just as well have never met. It had attempted to remedy various grievances and had made concessions to the malcontents, but it had also passed measures to strengthen the hands of the Governor. This only seemed to inflame the rioters, and the disorders increased. After the lower courts a move was made against the State Supreme Court, and plans were laid for a concerted movement against the cities in the eastern part of the State. Civil war seemed imminent. The insurgents were led by Daniel Shays, an officer in the army of the Revolution, and the party of law and order was represented by Governor James Bowdoin, who raised some four thousand troops and placed them under the command of General Benjamin Lincoln.
The time of year was unfortunate for the insurgents, especially as December was unusually cold and there was a heavy snowfall.
