Shays Rebellion: Shay's Rebellion
Shay Rebellion-Alexander Hamilton
The lackluster response to the Annapolis meeting might have been repeated the following spring, but for the violence that erupted in Massachusetts over the fall and winter. To Hamilton, Shays' Rebellion was the direct and inevitable result of the weak national government. The attempt by Massachusetts to pay off its war debts on its own had resulted in a crushing tax burden, especially for farmers unable to produce the required gold or silver currency. The consequence, in Hamilton's mind, was predictable: lawless mobs, assaults on property, and anarchy.
For men like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, the actions of Daniel Shays, Luke Day and other insurgents could not have come at a better time. Coupled
with the desperate tone of reports from General Benjamin Lincoln, General Henry Knox, and others, Shays' Rebellion helped the cause of those arguing for the need to strengthen the national government. Every state sent delegates to Philadelphia except Rhode Island; the most famous and revered man in the United States, George Washington, chaired the deliberations.
Hamilton was one of three New York delegates at the Convention but although he had been central in arranging the gathering, few paid him much heed. Badly shaken as the delegates were by whale at Elbridge Gerry called "the excess of democracy" many believed had caused Shays' Rebellion, Hamilton's prescriptions were far too anti-democratic for most, such as the presidential appointment of governors, and life terms for the President and United States senators. Hamilton's major contribution to the Constitution was in the essays he wrote in collaboration with James Madison and John Jay, collectively known as the Federalist Papers.
Whiskey Rebellion –Alexander Hamilton
The chain of events that led to the Whiskey Rebellion began when Alexander Hamilton put together an agreement between the states and the federal government that said the feds would assume all the debts incurred by the states after the Revolutionary War. In return the states agreed that the nation's capital city would be moved south from Philadelphia to a piece of backwoods, mosquito-infested swampland located on the banks of the Potomac River between Virginia and Maryland.
The lackluster response to the Annapolis meeting might have been repeated the following spring, but for the violence that erupted in Massachusetts over the fall and winter. To Hamilton, Shays' Rebellion was the direct and inevitable result of the weak national government. The attempt by Massachusetts to pay off its war debts on its own had resulted in a crushing tax burden, especially for farmers unable to produce the required gold or silver currency. The consequence, in Hamilton's mind, was predictable: lawless mobs, assaults on property, and anarchy.
For men like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, the actions of Daniel Shays, Luke Day and other insurgents could not have come at a better time. Coupled
with the desperate tone of reports from General Benjamin Lincoln, General Henry Knox, and others, Shays' Rebellion helped the cause of those arguing for the need to strengthen the national government. Every state sent delegates to Philadelphia except Rhode Island; the most famous and revered man in the United States, George Washington, chaired the deliberations.
Hamilton was one of three New York delegates at the Convention but although he had been central in arranging the gathering, few paid him much heed. Badly shaken as the delegates were by whale at Elbridge Gerry called "the excess of democracy" many believed had caused Shays' Rebellion, Hamilton's prescriptions were far too anti-democratic for most, such as the presidential appointment of governors, and life terms for the President and United States senators. Hamilton's major contribution to the Constitution was in the essays he wrote in collaboration with James Madison and John Jay, collectively known as the Federalist Papers.
Whiskey Rebellion –Alexander Hamilton
The chain of events that led to the Whiskey Rebellion began when Alexander Hamilton put together an agreement between the states and the federal government that said the feds would assume all the debts incurred by the states after the Revolutionary War. In return the states agreed that the nation's capital city would be moved south from Philadelphia to a piece of backwoods, mosquito-infested swampland located on the banks of the Potomac River between Virginia and Maryland.