The Story of Worcester Massachusetts
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV SHAYS'S REBELLION ? WASHINGTON AND LAFAYETTE VISIT WORCESTER AT the close of the Revolution, the country was struggling under the weight of a heavy debt. There was no money to meet the pay due to the soldiers; business was at a standstill; the money in circulation was mostly paper money and no one knew its value, for what was worth one dollar in one state might be worthless in another; there was comparatively little domestic trade, owing to the jealousy of the different states. The laboring classes were sorely pressed to meet their private obligations, while levy after levy of public tax was being laid upon them by the Legislature. The legal fraternity reaped a harvest because of the rapid increase of civil actions. Honest and industrious citizens were dragged off to prison or their possessionsw
...ere sold to satisfy a debt or for payment of taxes. The people, driven to desperation, first attacked the lawyers, then the courts. For more than four years the people had been looking to the Legislature for relief, but had been disappointed. They could wait no longer. A body of men banded together and called themselves " The Regulators." Their object was not the destruction of life and property, but they wished to show their determination that they meant to have reform, not only in the laws of the Commonwealth, but in the manner of their execution. It was the spontaneous rising of an overtaxed and overburdened people. In August, 1786, 1500 of the Regulators assembled and took possession of the court house in Northampton, and prevented the sitting of the official body. Governor Bow- doin issued a proclamation, appealing to the officers and citizens to suppress such treasonable demonstrations. The citizens of Hampshire, Berkshire, Worcester, Middlesex and B...
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