In Shays’ Rebellion, Massachusetts farmers, faced with high taxes, eviction, and imprisonment for debt, attacked the Springfield arsenal. While the rebellion was eventually put down by state militia, it also helped make clear the need for a stronger central government capable of protecting democratic institutions.
These lawyers, and men of learning, and moneyed men, that talk so finely, and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us poor illiterate people swallow down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves . . . and then they will swallow up all us little folks, like the great Leviathan.
Amos Singletary, 1788
Reading 2I am a plain man, and get my living by the plough. . . . I have lived in a part of the country where I have known the worth of good government by the want...
