On May 16, 1771, approximately 3,500 men met at a large field in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. For about two decades, the fight over excessive taxation and political corruption had increased from debate to protests to rioting. Now, it was an armed struggle. Of the 3,500 men who met near Great Alamance Creek, 2,000 were citizen farmers called Regulators. The others—slightly outnumbered, but better armed and better organized—were North Carolina militiamen. They had been sent by Governor James William Tryon to quell the rebellion.
Four months prior, on Jan. 15, Governor Tryon had signed the Johnston Act, which was “An Act for Preventing Tumultuous and Riotous Assemblies, and for the More Speedy and Effectually Punishing the Rioters, and for Restoring and Preserving the Public Peace of This Province.” What the Act did not do, obviously, was address the farmers’ grievances.
Before the breakout of armed hostility, the farmers requested one last time to meet with Governor Tryon. The governor responded that the farmers had to first lay down their arms, and they had one hour to do so. The farmers responded defiantly: “Fire and be damned.”
![A postcard illustration of the Battle of Alamance. (PD-US)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F08%2F21%2Fid5710122-Battle_of_Alamance_Postcard.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
The militia responded in kind. After a two-hour battle, the militia had defeated the rebel farmers. In the process, nine militia members were killed and 61 wounded. The casualty numbers among the farmers went unrecorded. The day after the battle, Tryon promised amnesty to any Regulator who took an oath of loyalty to the colony. More than 6,400 took the oath.
The Ultimate Rebellion
Four years after the Battle of Alamance, the Massachusetts colonists set in motion the ultimate rebellion: the American Revolution. This war was fought over similar issues. According to the colonists, the British Parliament and King George III—stationed 3,000 miles away in London—had become tyrants by introducing laws and acts without the colonists’ consent.For 150 years, the British had practiced the governmental policy of “salutary neglect.” British debt from the Seven Years’ War (known in America as the French and Indian War), however, had driven the king and Parliament to unilaterally institute laws and administer taxes on the colonists. One of the common refrains during the Revolution was “taxation without representation is tyranny.”
![A likeness of James Otis Jr., after the painting by Joseph Blackburn. Emmet Collection of Manuscripts. (Public Domain](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2023%2F03%2F22%2FJames-Otis-jr.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
A New, But Difficult Beginning
Twenty years after Otis’s famous speech, 10 years after the Battle of Alamance, and five years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution was all but officially over. In October 1781, the British were defeated at the Battle of Yorktown. When British Prime Minister Lord North received the news of the defeat at Yorktown, he cried out, “Oh God! It is all over!”Indeed, it was all over. After signing the Treaty of Paris on Sept. 3, 1783, the Americans were left to rule themselves. Self-governance after a revolution, however, was difficult. The war took a toll on a once-prosperous economy for various reasons, but mainly because its traditional and primary trading partner, Great Britain, implemented trade restrictions and heavily restricted American imports. With America’s agrarian economy, the farmers again took a major hit.
A Return to Armed Resistance
The Massachusetts farmers were hit especially hard, as many were forced to surrender property or their land in order to pay off their debts. Some who couldn’t pay were thrown into debtors’ prisons. To add insult to injury, many of these farmers had fought in the Revolutionary War and were actually owed money for their military service.![An engraving depicting a brawl between a Massachusetts government supporter and a rebel, during Shays's Rebellion (1786-87). Undated color illustration. (<span class="mw-mmv-author"><a class="new" title="User:Wmpetro (page does not exist)" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Wmpetro&action=edit&redlink=1">Wmpetro</a></span> /<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27s_Rebellion#/media/File:Shays'_Rebellion.jpg" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F08%2F21%2Fid5710125-Shays_Rebellion.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
The Springfield Standoff
With Shays’ Rebellion already in Springfield, Knox feared the group’s next destination would be the armory where 7,000 guns, bayonets, artillery, and gunpowder were stationed. He requested Congress send men to protect the armory. But Congress, just as with taxation, was practically helpless. By December, Governor James Bowdoin, of Massachusetts and Benjamin Lincoln, a former general in the Continental Army, raised money from local merchants to form a militia, combat the growing crisis, and keep Shays and the Regulators from taking the armory.If Lincoln did respond, Shays didn’t receive it. As the Regulators neared the armory, the militia fired several warning shots. The Regulators took no heed. Shepard directed his men to fire grapeshot into the 1,500 armed farmers. Four were killed and dozens wounded. The rest fled.
‘Tugging the Federal Head’
When news reached Washington of the rebellion’s conclusion, he wrote a congratulatory note to Knox. “I sincerely congratulate you; hoping that good may result from the cloud of evils which threatened, not only the hemisphere of Massachusetts but by spreading its baneful influence, the tranquility of the Union.”What was needed was what Shays had mentioned: “constitutional relief.” Due in large part to Shays’ Rebellion and the issues it highlighted, the leaders of the new country, such as Washington and Madison, agreed that “constitutional relief” was required—and sooner rather than later.
Exactly four months after the standoff at the Springfield armory, which effectively ended Shays’ Rebellion, delegates from all 13 states began to gather in Philadelphia for a convention. What developed from this convention was the United States Constitution—the oldest constitution in history and the source of “the tranquility of the Union.”
![“Washington as Statesman at the Constitutional Convention,” 1856, by Junius Brutus Stearns. Oil on canvas. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. (Public Domain)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F02%2F17%2FWashington_Constitutional_Convention_1787.jpg&w=1200&q=75)