Citation

Engels J. Q. J. Speech 2005; 91(1): 63-88.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Speech Communication Association, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/00335630500157532

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In 1786, backcountry Massachusetts farmers, fed up with government policies favoring aristocratic elites, marched on courts to bar the entry of judges and juries. Enacting a long-standing tradition known to colonists as a “Regulation,” the farmers’ movement became known as Shays's Rebellion. Erupting in the turbulent days following the War for Independence, yet predating the formation of the national Constitution, Shays's Rebellion was understood as a crucial post-war attempt to deploy state violence to manage popular dissent; thus, Shays's Rebellion produced deeply problematic yet lasting rhetorical conventions for justifying the compromised forms of republicanism that mark the early republic.