AN ADDRESS FROM THE GENERAL COURT, TO THE PEOPLE OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Boston: Adams and Nourse, 1786. 4to. 40, [1], [1 blank] pp. Disbound with mild scattered foxing. Narrow remnant of original wrapper at inner blank margin of title page. Ownership signature at upper blank margin of title page, "Revd Doctr. Lathrop." Good plus.
In August and September 1786 financially strapped western Massachusetts farmers, deprived of the ballot by reason of property qualifications and whose pleas for issuance of paper money had gone unheeded, forced the Court of Common Pleas, and then the Supreme Court at Springfield, to adjourn in order to prevent widespread foreclosures.
This Address, written in late October and published in early November 1786, argues that the disturbances, the result of widespread "misinformation," have been caused "by evil and designing men, to alienate the affections of the people in general, from those who are concerned in the administration of government." The Address explains the "state of the public debt, as well the particular debt of this Commonwealth, as this State's proportion of the national or Continental debt."
Much material is devoted to the depreciation of the currency and the necessity of repaying the debt: "Can we be willing, that the history of the American revolution, shall be blackened with the tale, that we refuse to redeem the securities we had given to effect it; and shall our posterity blush to hear of the event, because the perfidy of their ancestors exceeded their glory?"
The Address was of dubious success in deterring the unhappy farmers: in January 1787 Shays led the insurgents' charge on the armory at Springfield. The militia beat them back and then hunted them down. Historians agree that the Rebellion served as a frightening reminder of the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, and spurred adoption of the Constitution.
Evans 19781. Gephart 8825. ESTC W36754. Item #41889
Price: $2,000.00