During the late 1700's, farmers in Massachusetts experienced hard times. After the war, Britain refused to help the United States with trade, leaving the farmers poor. The American government did nothing to help these farmers. If fact, they actually hurt the farmers even more when they began over taxing, taking their farms away from them because the farmers couldn't pay their debts and sending them to prison. These treatments resulted in a non-violent uprising of the farmers, Shay's Rebellion, led by a war veteran, Daniel Shay. Shay's Rebellion showed the government that the people were losing morale and the current government's laws were not effective. This caused them to consider a change in the way national government was ran. So although the rebellion ended discouragingly with the capture of Shay and his men, their efforts resulted in major changes in the United States.
The immediate and most direct effect was the organization of delegates to revise the Articles of Confederation. All of the newly founded states except Rhode Island gathered into a small room in Philadelphia to make changes to the Articles that were in place. The debate was whether the government should have power or control over states. Many revisions were made that changed the role of the government. The immediate effect was the government had control over taxes, preventing individual states from overtaxing or abusing their citizens by taxing. This helped build trade relations with other countries and eased the minds of American citizens because laws were put into place that enforced government policies. .
There were several indirect results of Shay's Rebellion. These were the actual changes to the Articles. The Virginia Plan was a very large change that put into place the three branches of the government, the legislative, executive, and judicial. This kept the government from getting too much control and becoming a tyranny.
