Reddit reviews Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle

Want to add a couple things:

1. It's worth noting that in this instance that Benjamin Lincoln's mercenary militia was funded by the Boston merchants after Gov. Bowdoin's attempt to rise the existing Massachusetts militia failed. Because the existing militia was largely comprised of the class of people rebelling to begin with, many of the units simply refused a call to bring up arms against their neighbors, family members, even themselves. The trials that followed charged many members of the normal militia as leaders in the rebellion. Bowdoin even tried to get militias from different states to help put down the rebels, but he was unsuccessful. (Why would New Hampshire want to send forces?) So, the merchants put it in their own hands.
   
   
2. Jefferson's reaction to Shays' is difficult to unpack and going to be different than some of the other founding fathers. Someone asked a slightly similar question a while ago that I unpacked here.
   
   My go-to suggestions for Shays readings are Szatmary's Shays' Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection and Leo Richards's Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle.

Haven't read it yet but:

https://www.amazon.com/Shayss-Rebellion-American-Revolutions-Battle/dp/0812218701

A couple good books on the topic if you're further interested: Shays' Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection and Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle

The North went to war with the South motivated largely by nationalism, not the rights of slaves: it's utterly naive to claim that Lincoln would have let them leave peacefully.

The South was not trying to overthrow the Union, they were trying to leave it.

That's not to say that slavery wasn't a huge rallying cry in the Southern fight, but the Civil War deserves more nuance than your black and white.

Shay's Rebellion was a struggle against a tyrannical and out of touch state government burdening the common people - including veterans - to enrich wealth cronies who speculated in IOU's to veterans that were to be redeemed at par with higher taxes.

Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle covers it well.

Thomas Jefferson's views, and the Declaration of Independence, clearly condone overthrowing a tyrannical government.

>What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.