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Those named Antifederalists were the true advocates of Liberty and Freedom, not the Federalists.
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Those named Antifederalists were the true advocates of Liberty and Freedom, not the Federalists.
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Those named Antifederalists were the true advocates of Liberty and Freedom, not the Federalists.
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ლელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელე� ლელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელ� ლელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელელ� American heroes, a much forgotten class they were for sure, because they opposed the Constitution of 1787 and predicted in many instances what would happen should that Constitution be adopted. And today we are living through exactly what they predicted in so many instances. Well, as Cecilia Kenyon actually called them in the 1950s in a dissertation which prompted a new investigation of who actually these people were because they had not been mentioned in American history in any academic studies whatsoever for over a hundred years. So why was that purposeful? Did they not want the American public to know about these men and a woman who stood very strongly against this new Constitution and what was the results of that Constitution and what they predicted would be the results of that Constitution. And the drafting of the Constitution of 1787 was a criminal conspiracy by definition. They planned it ahead of time and it was against the law. That constitutes a criminal conspiracy. But then they also used other elements the Federalists did, their opposition. Of course the first thing they did was name themselves Federalists when they were no more Federalists than a house cat. They were monarchists. They wanted a monarchy that they would lead, that they would control. And so, you know, here we are. We're looking today at what the Anti-Federalists had to say. And not only what they had to say but what they tried to do in so many instances. And I just feel like that that is a crucial part of our history that has been left out for quite some time. But, you know, then after Cecilia Kenyon kind of opens the door again, people like Professor Herbert J. Storing, you know, puts together a seven-volume set which he called the complete Anti-Federalist. The problem was it's not complete because there are still Anti-Federalist writings being found. So why were they hidden? Why did the powers that be not want you to know about the Anti-Federalist? That is just a fantastic question but we're going to jump into that. Now, folks, in this session, I'm going to be doing a bit of jumping back and forth and what have you. But anyway, to bring forth these Anti-Federalists. Also of importance is the fact that the Federalists revealed that the, what the, I'm sorry, what the Anti-Federalists revealed was that the Federalists were in actuality, you know, being fraudulent about the ratification as which they needed to be. And let's not forget they had to do the whole thing in silence and swore each other to secrecy, you know, for silence to the public and swore themselves to secrecy for 50 years. Now, what could I do for my neighbor that I wouldn't want them to know I had done for 50 years? This, I'm terribly alarmed at, you know, what Americans do not know. But anyway, let's jump into this. In Pennsylvania, the Anti-Federalists, who were bitter and alarmed at the haste of the Federalist ratification fraud, they stepped up a campaign to get the state legislature to repudiate the actions of the convention. Now, at this point, it is vital or at least, you know, important that on October the 2nd of 1787, after receiving the newly drafted constitution, the state assembly of the state of Pennsylvania issued a public statement in which they said, bottom line, is that the delegates which they sent to the convention were there for the single purpose of adding amendments to the Articles of Confederation and no one was given authority to write a brand new constitution. And they put this out publicly. And they said that the men who were there operated on their own as individuals and did not act for the people. Well, if that is true, and which it is, then the Federalists wrote a constitution for themselves, people. Not for us. But anyway, they acted as a group. They had no official representation, I mean, no official authorization to even be there. So, again, the Anti-Federalists in Pennsylvania, who were well aware of this, because most of them had read that the whole thing was a fraud, and even the assembly, even though the Pennsylvania assembly went ahead and said, okay, well, let's look at it, let's, you know, take a look at what they've done, maybe there's something there, you know, that we can agree on, let's do this. But the critical part is that no one was authorized to do this. Anywhere. But in Philadelphia, or, you know, which was primarily where all of the delegates came from, those who called themselves Federalists, but also it was the home of Samuel Bryan and others, who Samuel Bryan would later write as the Anti-Federalist Sentinel. And so, Samuel Bryan, Benjamin Workman, and William Finley waged an attack in the newspapers with printed essays, but only in the papers which would print them, because the Federalists owned many of the newspapers and wouldn't allow this to be printed. But the Anti-Federalists of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, urged another course of action upon the legislature. And during the month of March in 1788, over 5,000 people signed petitions to the legislature to repudiate the Constitution. 5,000 people. And just in Philadelphia, or, well, Pennsylvania. So how could they even begin to convince people that it was we, the people, who supported this? Now, John Smiley was accused by the Federalists of inciting people to armed rebellion against the Constitution in western Fayette County and in Pittsburgh. At the end of December in 1787, in radical Cumberland County, the Federalists in the town of Carlisle tried to hold a public celebration and a bonfire in honor of ratification. But a radical group of Anti-Federalists, well, Anti-Federalists are radical from the beginning, aren't they? But anyway, they intervened to disrupt the proceedings. The mob threw a copy of the hated Constitution into the fire and shouted, and I quote, damnation to the 46 members and long live the virtuous 23. Well, that was the vote at the convention to adopt the Constitution, 46 to 23. But the next day, as the Federalists were celebrating their victory, the Anti-Federalists paraded and burned effigies of James Wilson and Chief Justice McKean of the Pennsylvania courts. At the behest of the vindictive McKean, seven of the leading Anti-Federalists were arrested. Finally, in late February 1788, the government agreed to release the prisoners and close the proceedings. Now, nearly 1,500 men paraded to the jail in celebration and hailed the liberation of their radical Anti-Federalist comrades. The fiery Anti-Federalist agitation resulted in the last effort of these Anti-Federalists in Pennsylvania, and that was the Harrisburg Convention of September in 1788, something I'm sure most of you have never even heard of. But while George Bryan had developed the idea of such a convention, now George was the father of Samuel, and so by February, the movement for a convention began in Cumberland County, where a meeting called a county convention to insist on amendments to this Constitution. The radical convention met at Harrisburg on September the 3rd with 33 representatives from all but five counties in the entire state, and this assembly was led by Samuel Bryan, Whitehill, and Smiley. But by this point in time, enough states had voted for ratification for the Constitution for it to take effect, and all thought of overturning ratification just simply disappeared with the Anti-Federalists. They had to change their strategies. So the Anti-Federalists confined themselves to petitioning for amendments that would restrict the powers of the central government. A young farmer in Fayette County, a brilliant associate of John Smiley, Albert Gallatin. Now boys and girls, there is a story. Albert Gallatin is something else. Hopefully we'll get into that for you history aficionados here. But he was the future Secretary of the Treasury under President Thomas Jefferson. He was also Secretary of the Treasury under James Madison. He's the longest sitting Secretary of Treasury in our history, and a man who was much hated and reviled by none other than Alexander Hamilton himself. Well, they urged Pennsylvania to push for amendments at a second Constitutional convention. It was young Gallatin's first appearance on the political stage. The Anti-Federalists, however, failed in their efforts to induce the Pennsylvania legislature to seriously propose amendments to this Constitution. So Philadelphia failed, I mean Pennsylvania failed in that, but the other states would pick it up, and we'll be getting into that. Now quite contrary to most everything you've been taught in your life, the Anti-Federalists had a critical asset among their weapons, and that was the basic support of the majority of the American people. I know, that's going to be a real bell ringer, isn't it? But it's true. The majority of the people in America did not want this Constitution. More specifically, the Anti-Federalists had overwhelming majorities in Rhode Island, New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and lesser majorities in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Virginia. In short, popular majorities in seven of the thirteen states. In contrast, the Federalists enjoyed enormous majorities in New Jersey, Delaware, and Georgia, imagine that, and lesser majorities in Connecticut, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Now if justice had prevailed, the Constitution would have been ratified in only six states, four of them in the Middle States areas, but this would not be enough. It must be remembered that the people were not called upon to ratify the Constitution directly, as we have been taught, or even in their broad town meetings. The only state that did that was Rhode Island, and the Constitution was overwhelmingly rejected. While the Conventions had a superficially popular air, two grave elements of distrust of the popular will entered into their proceedings. They stemmed from the fact that voting, as well as representation, was determined by the states to be the same as for the existing state legislatures. While property qualifications were low and broadly based, this still meant the disenfranchisement of the poorest strata of America's population, which increased support for the Constitution. Only New York took the monumental step of permitting universal voting in the ratification of the Constitution. I'm sorry, New York did do that, but Rhode Island also did it. I'm sorry, I kind of misled you there, I forgot about New York. But the other factor was the allocation of delegates. Representation in the legislatures was often weighted in favor of the old wealthy aristocracy. And so, therefore, it was against the new settled interior sections of the states. And there, once again, it favored the Constitution. A notable example was South Carolina, where the strongly Federalist Eastern Lowland had 143 seats in their lower house, while the West had only 93. However, if population figures from 1790 were to be considered in that representation, in the reality, the East would have only had 50 seats, and the West 186. One of the biggest complaints that the Anti-Federalists had was how they were treated in the media. You know, that government-owned apparatus. It was just as true back then as it is now. The wealthy aristocracy owned the majority of the media. But the Anti-Federalists complained that the Federalist-dominated press refused to provide equal space to opponents of the Constitution. The charge was repeated in both public and private statements. Thus, Aidanus Burke, probably haven't heard of him either, have you? He was an influential South Carolina Anti-Federalist. And he sent a letter to Samuel Bryan in Pennsylvania, and in that letter it said, and I quote, if any and what arts were used by the Federalists to mislead or deceive the people to adopt the Constitution, or to suppress the publications or objections of the other party, or the Anti-Federalists, unquote. Burke also made an inquiry about impediments in the printing offices, and, quote, the conduct and character of the printers in general referenced this Constitution. Were printers under any and what fear or restraint to publish against the new Constitution, or did the printers act independently or otherwise? Lots of good questions flowing in from South Carolina to Pennsylvania, don't you think? Although our modern accounts dismiss Anti-Federalist complaints as either paranoia or propaganda, the surviving evidence about publication supports their claims. Anti-Federalists did have trouble getting their message into the print. The perception that few papers would publish Anti-Federalist material was accurate. One quarter of all papers published no Anti-Federalist articles whatsoever. That's 25%. The median number of essays published by those editors who did open their pages to the Anti-Federalists was only four. In the view of Sentinel, or Samuel Bryan, the actions of printers were part of a Federalist conspiracy to prevent the Anti-Federalists from rallying the people against the Constitution. Government hasn't changed, has it? Well, Sentinel claimed that every means of intimidation was used to frustrate the efforts of printers to publish material against the Constitution, including actual physical harassment and the threatment of economic boycott. Further evidence of a conspiracy was provided by the actions of the Postmaster General himself. He adopted a new method for distributing the mails, which absolutely infuriated the Anti-Federalists and intensified their belief in the Federalist conspiracy. The controversy over the mails seemed to provide concrete proof of Anti-Federalist allegations that Federalists sought to use government power to crush opposition to the Constitution. Both of those controversies helped to account for some of the intensity and the passion of the Anti-Federalists about the media. The actions of Federalists seemed to confirm the predictions of all of the Anti-Federalists about the dangers of accepting the Constitution. If this was the situation during ratification, what chance would an opposition have under the new Constitution once it took effect? Well, the Postmaster that I mentioned earlier, General Ebenezer Hazard, believed that his decision to switch from stagecoach deliveries of the newspapers to postwriters was merely a prudent economy to improve the efficiency of the mail and cut costs. Yeah, how many lies have we heard from the government that conform with that one in just the last few months, or the last three years for sure? To his Anti-Federalist enemies, however, the decision was a deliberate attempt to interfere with the traditional prerogatives of printers and obstruct the free flow of political information. Rather than improving the efficiency of the mails, Hazard's reforms actually resulted in widespread delays and increased the opportunities for corruption. A postwriter probably would take a little bribe and throw some in the trash, don't you think? In many instances, papers were simply discarded by these postwriters, or some of them were actually picked up and sold for profit. Imagine that. An Anti-Federalist who called himself a friend of the people, believed that the actions of the Postmaster General was motivated by the advocates of despotic power who had found their efforts to shackle the press unsuccessful in too many states. That was an official statement. That was in one of his essays. But frustrated in their efforts, the next step was as much as possible to cut off all communication of sentiment and to prevent any publications from circulating to the other states. Sentinel thus believed that Hazard's actions limited the influence of newspapers and I will quote, to the places of their publication, whilst falsehood and deception have had universal circulation without the opportunity of refutation. Unquote. The actions of the Post Office constituted a violation of their duty and integrity and had prostituted their offices to forward the nefarious design of enslaving their countrymen by thus cutting off all communication by the usual vehicle between the patriots. Again, Sentinel nailed it. Well, another author who wrote in the Freedman's Journal believed this, and I will quote again, a stretch of arbitrary power surpassed that of the British before the revolution. Such a policy should have been disastrous. Here again from the Freedman's Journal, and I quote, By this maneuver, all communication is cut off between the states so that the despots may assemble an army and subjugate the freemen of one state before their friends in another state even know about it. Unquote. The controversy over the Post Office seemed to vindicate the conspiratorial rhetoric of the most, you know, the anti-Federalists with all of their passion here. The point did not go unnoticed by the Federalists. George Washington feared that the controversy over the Post Office would fuel anti-Federalist complaints and make, quoting Washington, a very plausible pretext for dealing out their scandals and exciting jealousies by inducing a belief that the suppression of intelligence at that critical juncture was a wicked trick of policy contrived by an aristocratic junto. Unquote. Well, he told the truth. See? Cherry tree and all. The paranoid often attributed, oh, I should say, I'm sorry, the paranoia often attributed to anti-Federalists by modern historical Marxist scholars seems less exaggerated when one considers the publishing history of ratification. Anti-Federalists might have been mistaken about the motives of many of their opponents, but they weren't. And also, they were not wrong about their impact on the campaign. The anti-Federalists did have a much more difficult time finding outlet for any of their materials. That's pretty simple. They were muffled. The actions of the Postmaster General and bias of the Federalist press intensified anti-Federalist concerns about the dangers posed by the Constitution. If anti-Federalists faced major obstacles to publication during ratification, the prospects after adoption seemed even more dire. Anti-Federalists believed that once adopted, the new Constitution would pose a whole range of threats to freedom of the press. In response to the Federalist question, quote, what control can proceed from the Federal Government to shackle or destroy that sacred palladium of national freedom? Oh, they were good. Anti-Federalists were prepared with a detailed set of responses to Mr. Washington. An old wig rattled off a number of measures that might be taken to limit freedom of the press, including licensing of printers and burdensome security bonds to compel good behavior. One of the most common fears expressed by the anti-Federalists was that taxation could be used as a weapon against a free press. The Federal Farmer observed, and I quote, I am not clear that Congress is restrained from laying any duties whatever on printing and from laying duties particularly heavy on certain pieces which are printed. And folks, the Federal Farmer was Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. Now, I hope you folks won't mind, but thinking about all this has brought me to another thought that I remember in my early teachings when I was taught about, you know, the revolution and the founding era and all of that other stuff. And one of the things that kept coming up, and I went back and actually looked at some of my college notes about what was called Shays' Rebellion. Now, Daniel Shays was a Revolutionary War soldier who had been given, you know, a sword by Lafayette for his bravery and had gone from an enlisted man to an officer. But it was called Shays' Rebellion, and it was also so many lies were told about it that it's incredible. So let me just kind of jump into that, but I think it is critical that we know that. But as recently as about 20 years ago, only one historian knew that the event that is acknowledged as key, as the key political event in the success of promoters of the Constitution was not at all what it ever appeared to be. That lone historian, one Leonard Richards, detailed his findings in Shays' Rebellion, the American Revolution's Final Battle. I highly suggest that for a very good reading. In 2002, his book was published. His thesis has not yet moved into textbooks, and it never will, people, I promise you. Shays' Rebellion was an armed resistance movement of about 4,000 men in western Massachusetts. Contrary to reports from the anti-Shays' faction in 1787, we might as well call them the Federalists, and contrary to modern historians' accounts, it was not a revolt of impoverished, indebted, rural radicals. It included men of all economic strata. Many of them were veterans of the American Revolution, including, as I mentioned before, Daniel Shays, who served from the Battle of Bunker or Breed's Hill on to the finish, and was a distinguished officer who worked his way up from the ranks to captain. And as I previously stated, Lafayette awarded him a sword for his valor. These men revolted against a group of land and debt speculators, Federalists, because that's the perfect description of the Federalists, land and debt speculators. So they had recently gained control of the governor's office in Massachusetts. Now, folks, this is extremely relevant, because it was also debt and land speculators who controlled that convention of 1789. For over two centuries, Americans have not been told the truth. Yeah, boy, that is true. Then, in one of these fluke events that every historian dreams about, and I really enjoyed reading about this myself, Professor Richards of the University of Massachusetts, which means that not all of them are Marxists, stumbled onto a fact that no previous historian had bothered to ever investigate. After the defeat of the Anti-Federalists, or what I guess we could call them Shays folks, or they were called rebels, I love that, the state required each of them to sign a loyalty oath. Now, unlike previous political rebellions, there were archival records of those who had participated. Those records were right under Professor Richards' nose. Yet it took some time for him to learn that they were actually in his own university's library on microfiche. He then made a detailed investigation of the participants in Shays' rebellion, the towns they lived in, their family connections, their debt positions in 1786, and their political offices, if they held any. What he learned enabled him to rewrite the history of Shays' rebellion. But, like I said, it'll never get to the textbooks. It was not a revolt of indebted farmers, as we have been told, and as I was taught, both in high school and college. It was a tax revolt, not at all unlike the Boston Tea Party, or many of those other events that led to America's independence. During the Revolution, the Continental Congress had issued irredeemable paper currency to pay for the war. The infamous Continentals, as in not worth a Continental damn. These notes quickly fell to zero value. States issued IOUs to pay their militia members. Notes issued in April of 1788 in Massachusetts quickly fell 25% of their face value. Now stop and think about this. You've just fought a war, they paid you off in money, and then almost immediately after you get the money, they take 25% of it through inflation or whatever. By 1781, folks, these notes were at 2% of their original face value. Other states followed suit. Virginia's notes fell to 1,000th of face value. Soldiers in the field sold these notes in order to keep their families eating and to keep shelter for them. The political question after independence was attained in 1783 revolved around the redemption price. At what percent of face value would states repay these men who had been paid with this currency? Unlike the other states, Massachusetts legislature, which was controlled by Federalists, passed a law to redeem the notes at face value, which was kind of surprising. Now the legislature was dominated by Boston's mercantile interest. That is definitely a valid point. While it is impossible to trace the ownership of all of the debt after the war, and believe me, several of us have tried, what can be traced indicates that 80% of the speculators, the debt speculators, lived in or near Boston. And almost 40% of the debt was held by only 35 men. Most of them had bought these notes at tremendous discounts. Now you see what's happening here? This happens over and over again. They issued that money to pay their soldiers. Then the value of those notes dropped. So then the legislature passes a law. After they go in and buy up these notes for almost nothing, then they go back, sit their fat butts down in a chair, and vote that they all be redeemed at face value. Who got screwed here, people? It sure wasn't the Federalists, was it? So even making them pay at face value was not enough for the Federalists. To add insult to injury, interest on these notes was retroactively made payable in silver by the same people who owned those notes, the Federalists in the legislature in Massachusetts. To pay off these speculators, taxes were raised on the people. Now imagine this. People, you've been a Continental soldier. They pay you in money, which quickly becomes worthless. Somebody comes along and offers you a small price, a small payment, 1%, 5%, whatever, buys up your notes, then carries them and holds them as speculators. Then they themselves vote no. They should be redeemed at face value with all of the interest owed on them to be paid in silver. The people just got raped again. And especially the people who were raped here, people, were the people who fought the damn war. I get angry about this. This just really bothers me that people can't seem to understand this. Then the Federalists raised the taxes to pay for that interest. So the people who got screwed to start with now have to come up with taxes to pay these speculators. Boy, this one is just absolutely unreal. The main taxes were the poll tax and the property tax, beginning in 1785. Now Professor Richards, in his work that I mentioned before, described the nature of this tax burden, and I quote, Every farmer knew that he was going to have to pay for every son 16 years or older, every horse he owned, every cow, every barn, every acre that he had in tillage. Everyone also knew that the tax bite was going to be regressive. Only about 10% of the taxes were to come from import duties and excises, which fell mainly on people who were most able to pay. The other 90% of the taxation was direct taxes on the property of the people, with land bearing a disproportionate share, and, of course, the poll tax. The latter was especially regressive since it mattered not a whit if a male 16 years of age or older had any property or not. Rich or poor, he was going to have to pay the same amount, and altogether, polls were going to pay at least one-third of all the taxes. But would these taxes actually be collected? Unquote. So, after the Revolution, the most popular politician in Massachusetts was John Hancock, because the people there knew he was a smuggler, and he was also a merchant whose signature is so large on our Declaration of Independence. He was among the richest men in the state of Massachusetts. He was lenient to all of the poor debtors who owed him money on a personal level. He let them pay him in depreciated paper money. The rich had to pay in silver. He was elected governor in 1780 and served for five years. He also was elected in 1787 and served until his death in 1793. He did not serve from 1785 to 1787. This was a crucial period. He declined to run in 1785, believe it or not, folks, because of gout. Gout normally affects the big toe. It can accurately be said that the great turning point in post-revolutionary America was John Hancock's big toe. As a matter of fact, there is even an article about that. Perhaps I'll read it to you folks at some point in time. Now, John Hancock had understood that the soldiers had been forced to sell their promissory notes for a small fraction of their face value. He was accused by opponents of refusing to collect taxes. When he left office, he was replaced by James Bowden, a close friend of Benjamin Franklin. But the crazy thing about it was is that Bowden held over 4,000 pounds of these notes. Or $4,000, you know, if we want to call it that. But back then they were called pounds. He did not receive enough votes to command a majority, so the legislature had to choose. The Senate insisted on him. They were all Federalists. And the House capitulated. Under his leadership, the political faction whose members had bought up these notes gained even more power. The government passed new taxes and insisted on collecting taxes that were in arrears. That tax burden was now higher by several times what King George had ever charged the American colonies. Folks, are you beginning to see the fraud and the deceit? I mean, it's been shielded from us. It's been kept from us. I can't, you know, get too angry at people, except when they continue to hang on to the lie because it makes them comfortable. Well, western counties in Massachusetts had petitioned the government for relief from this overwhelming debt to the people. But their petitions had been totally ignored by the legislature. Imagine that. I thought they were representatives. Hmm. Okay, well, we throw that name out the window, can't we? In July of 1786, a revolt began. It soon became an armed political revolt by towns as well as individuals. The rebels met as a convention. I love that word, rebels. To draw up a list of 21 grievances against the state government. This was not a mob, and it never was a mob. Daniel Shays became the head of this revolt after it had begun. Until Professor Richard's book appeared in 2002, the standard account of Shays' rebellion, even what is pushed out in our schools, emphasized the theme of farmers in the state's western counties as being heavily in debt to the merchants in Boston. This account never had any evidence whatsoever to support it, and it doesn't now. Boston merchants traded almost nothing with the people in the western towns, because most of them were self-supporting. Also, western towns in Connecticut did not revolt, as we have been told. If the decisive political issue was debt, why not? There is no evidence of any debt-revolt relationship in the western counties, two-thirds of which had not revolted at all. The revolt's leaders were often from the higher classes. Most of the insurgents were not heavily in debt. Kinship ties, town by town, accounted for recruiting far more than any debt did. The state of Massachusetts petitioned Congress to send in federal troops. But the U.S. Army at that time had approximately 700 men. Congress responded by promising to add another 1,340 men, but Massachusetts was supposed to raise 660 of these men. Congress then made up a phony war story to justify sending troops to quell another tax revolt. There was a pending Indian War, Congress also said. No one believed it, but the U.S. Army raised a total of 100 recruits after asking for 1,340. Meanwhile, is something similar happening in the world today, folks, especially here in America? I think so. Meanwhile, the militia members in Massachusetts were joining with the rebels. Boston's militia responded to the call. Western counties ignored it, especially revealing we're Revolutionary War veterans. Of 637 veterans in the militia in Northampton, only 23 volunteered for duty with the government. The two senior officers from Northampton who responded had between them a total of 14 days service in the Revolutionary War. Imagine that. All of the rebel captains had at least three years experience. Baron von Steuben, who had served under Washington, identified the problem in an article which he signed under the name Belisarius. Massachusetts had 92,000 militia men on its roads. Why did the state need military support from Congress? He provided the correct answer. The government was not representative of the opinions of the people. Still ain't, folks. The rebellion was defeated in battles and skirmishes in the winter and early spring of 1787. The commander of the state's militia was General Benjamin Lincoln, who had served under Washington during the American Revolution. Lincoln's force had not been authorized by the legislature, so 153 private citizens, most of them from Boston, provided the funds to pay for the troops. None of the contributors served in Lincoln's army. This all gets all too familiar, doesn't it? One impoverished Harvard graduate did serve. His name was Royall Tyler, and he soon wrote a play about the rebellion. It became the first American play, and it made his total reputation. Daniel Shays and other leaders escaped across the northern border into New Hampshire, and from there went west into Vermont. Vermont's governor refused to extradite any of them, despite large and numerous protests from the Massachusetts government. Shays and several other rebel leaders were staying at a farm right next door to the governor of the state. Well, now, how did this all work? And was this, you know, we look at these things today, we think about false flag events, how they bring up something to get something done that they want to do, and of course their false flag event is always a lie. Did the Federalists bring to work and put into the porridge everything that they would need to get popular acceptance of a constitution because of the so-called Shays' Rebellion? And we can see now at the core roots of that, and we know that there was a scam involved somewhere. Can't find any proof of that, let me state that up front very quickly, but it certainly has to be thought of. But did all of this motivate George Washington? Because we all know that, you know, they had the Annapolis Convention, Washington didn't show up, only five states out of 13 did. James Madison wrote many times, wrote to Washington begging him to come to the Constitutional Convention. And they all knew, all of these Federalists knew that without Washington, they just were not going to get this Constitution passed. There was just no way it was going to be accepted by the people without Washington. So without the participation of George Washington at the Constitutional Convention, there would never have been a Constitution, folks. The Federalists who were preparing to overturn the country's legal order were convinced of this, as I just said, the letter from Madison. So are most historians of the Constitutional Convention. Washington had resisted offers from Madison and others to attend the Convention. He wanted to stay out of public life at that point for some reason. Shea's Rebellion provided the motivational hook for the Federalists to persuade him to reverse his position and to attend. General Lincoln, now folks, I'm going to do a little bit of a story on General Lincoln here at some point in time, because you want to talk about an idiot. He's about as close to idiot status as anyone could ever get. And then, you know, you have to remember that under Robert Morris, Benjamin Lincoln was the commander of the War Department. And Morris put him in there specifically because he knew he could control him without any problem whatsoever. So, as I said, Lincoln writes to Washington lamenting the rebellion and painting it in terms of another revolution. So did Washington's former general, Henry Knox, who was also a Bostonian. So did David Humphreys, who had been his personal aide. He also was a New Englander. Knox's letter of October the 23rd of 1786 was as persuasive to Washington as it is misleading. This letter undermined Washington's resolve to remain a private citizen, although he did not consent to attend the convention until the following spring. Knox wrote that he had been east of Boston on business and had hurried back because of the commotions. He immediately launched into a critique of the present political structure under the Articles of Confederation, which I shall read for you now. Quote, Our political machine, composed of 13 independent sovereignties, have been perpetually operating against each other and against the federal head ever since we attained peace. The powers of Congress are totally inadequate to preserve the balance between the respective states and oblige them to do those things which are essential for their own welfare or for their general good. Isn't it wonderful how other people assume to know what's best for everybody else? Yeah, they're called politicians. Well, back to the letter. The frame of mind in the local legislature seems to be exerted to prevent the federal constitution from having any effect. The machine works inversely to the public good in all of its parts. Not only is state against state and all against the feds, but the states within themselves possess the name only without having the essential concomitant of government, the power of preserving the peace, the protection of the liberty and the property of the citizens. Unquote. Oh, don't they love that bait and switch? So far, none of that had anything to do with Shays' Rebellion. It is clear that Knox was a nationalist or a monarchist. He was offering a general critique of the Confederation. He then offered what seems to be substantiating specific evidence. But what he said was neither accurate nor even relevant. The state of Massachusetts was in a position to suppress the rebellion, assuming that the militia would respond to the call. The fact was the handful of speculators who were very close to the governor could not persuade the legislature to fund the counterattack, nor could local officers persuade militia members to respond to this call to arms. This was a grassroots rebellion of the people, just as surely as the American War for Independence was, and with far greater cause. None of this impressed General Knox, who continued, and I will continue as well with his letter, On the very first impression of faction and licentiousness, the fine, theoretic government of Massachusetts has given away, and its laws are trampled underfoot. Men at a distance, who have admired our system of government unfounded in nature, are apt to accuse the rulers, and say that taxes have been assessed too high and collected too rigidly. This is a deception equal to any that has been hitherto entertained, that taxes may be the ostensible cause is true, but that they are the true cause is as far remote from truth as light is from darkness. The people who are the insurgents, like that word? Boy, we've heard that one a lot, haven't we, in our lifetime, have never paid any or buy very little taxes. How do you buy a tax? But they see the weakness of government. They feel at once their own property compared with the opulent, and their own force, and they are determined to make use of the latter in order to remedy the former. But wait a minute, folks. This one line here really bothers me. They feel at once that their property is equal to that of the wealthy aristocracy. Is that property, or is that their rights? Anyway, that the western farmers had not paid high taxes prior to 1786 was in fact true. Hancock, as governor, had just refused to collect them to help the men out who had fought the war. But Bowdoin, as a holder of Massachusetts notes himself, wanted to enforce the law to get his money. He had the support of his political cronies, who also held the state's notes, but he did not have the support of the Massachusetts legislature, which never did vote to fund Lincoln's army. Knox did not convey any of this information to Washington. Instead, he turned the revolt into a revolt against property. It was in fact a revolt against the confiscation of property by a tiny group of debt speculators in the Massachusetts government. But Knox painted the movement as an organized interstate conspiracy of communists against property. Hmm. There we go. The creed is that the property of the United States has been protected from the confiscations of Britain by the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be the common property of all, and he that attempts opposition to this creed is an enemy to equality and justice, and ought to be swept from the face of the earth. In a word, they are determined to annihilate all debts, public and private, and have agrarian laws, which are easily effected by means of unfunded paper money, which shall be legal tender in all cases whatsoever. The numbers of these people may amount in Massachusetts to one-fifth part of several populous counties, and to them may be added the people of similar sentiments from the states of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, so as to constitute a body of 12 or 15,000 desperate and unprincipled men. Naturally, anyone who opposed being taxed to death is unprincipled. That's my addition, folks, not his. They are chiefly of the young and active part of the community, more easily collected than kept together afterward, but they will probably commit overt acts of treason, which will compel them to embody for their own safety. Once embodied, they will be constrained to submit to discipline for the same reason." Well, folks, none of that was true. Not one word. The men were led by adults, and these adults were leaders in their respective towns and communities. There was no connection to Rhode Island, which had debased a currency or any other colony. They were fighting a system of oppressive taxation that was being posed in the name of paying off these debt holders who had bought the depreciated notes of the Revolutionary War era from the soldiers who made that political rebellion a success. They were fighting against the transformation, mostly at their expense, of the unfunded paper money of the war era into post-war currency with interest payable in silver. They had been stiffed by the politicians during the war who paid them with unfunded promises, and then, now, they were being stiffed by these same politicians again by the very speculators who had taken advantage of them when they were on the battlefield. But Knox ignored all of this. He had a political agenda, and Washington's presence at the convention was the lynchpin, the sine qua non, of the nationalist political agenda. Knox proceeded with the grand deception of Washington. And here is more quotes. Having proceeded to this length, for which they are now ripe, we shall have a formidable rebellion against reason, the principle of all government, and against the very name of liberty. This dreadful situation, for which our government have made no adequate provision, hath alarmed every man of principle and property in New England. They start us from a dream and ask what can have been the cause of our delusion. What is to give us security against the violence of lawless men? Our government must be braced, changed, or altered to secure our lives and property. We imagine that the mildness of our government and the wishes of the people were so correspondent that we were not, as other nations, requiring brutal force to support the laws. Hence, it was time to brace, change, or alter the national government so as to supply the required brutal force of a standing army. And tax collectors, just like Patrick Henry predicted. And then he said, and I quote, But we find that we are men, actual men, possessing all the turbulent passions belonging to that animal, and that we must have a government proper and adequate to control him. Unquote. Knox was writing what turned out to be the most influential direct response sales letter in the history of this country, and perhaps in all of modern history. Every direct response letter needs a powerful close, what is called the Act Now Clause. He called Washington to join with the besieged men of property in Massachusetts, speculators in government bonds, to turn back these rural communists of the lower sort. The leaders are ready to defend the true interest of society. What about you, George? Will you wimp out at this crucial juncture? Unquote. Knox was the master of the closing sale. Here's the quote. The people of Massachusetts, for instance, are far more advanced in this doctrine, and the men of property and the men of station and principle there are determined to endeavor to establish and protect them in their lawful pursuits. And what will be efficient in all cases of internal commotions or foreign invasions, they mean that liberty shall form the basis. Liberty resulting from an equal and firm administration of the law. Here's a guy. This cracks me up. They're asking for an equal and firm administration of the law, except for their concern. They wish for a general government of unity, as they see that the local legislatures must naturally and necessarily tend towards a general government, or a tyrannical government. Continuing with the letter. We have arrived at that point in time in which we are forced to see our own humiliation as a nation, and that a progression in this line cannot be productive of happiness, private or public. Something is wanting, and something must be done, or we shall be involved in all the horror of failure and civil war without a prospect of termination. Every friend to the liberty of his country is bound to reflect and step forward to the dreadful consequences which shall result from a government of events. Unless this is done, we shall be liable to be ruled by an arbitrary and capricious armed tyranny whose word and will must be the law. In a series of letters to Washington, the Federalists put pressure on him to attend the convention. In his replies, he made it clear that he was on the side of law and order, and that he was becoming pessimistic regarding the future of the country. He resisted making a commitment to attend, but eventually he consented, all based on lies. Washington was already a Federalist, as letters reveal from 1783 on. He had written to John Jay that previous spring, and I quote, that it is necessary to revise and amend the Articles of Confederation, I entertain no doubt, but what may be the consequences of such an attempt is doubtful, yet something must be done, or the fabric must fall. Unquote. The gun was already loaded, folks. The misinformation passed on to him regarding Shays' Rebellion was the primer. Eventually, Washington pulled it. Pulled the trigger. He attended the convention and even agreed to keep Madison's secret notes of the debates, which were not made public until every participant had died. Shays' Rebellion was used effectively by the Federalists to scare voters into accepting both the legitimacy of the convention and the legality of their criminal conspiracy called the Constitution. Professor Richards wrote, and I will quote again, Within months, Shays' Rebellion gave the Nationalists the edge they needed. It provided the spark on which to advance the Federalist cause and to play on the fears of others. In the post-convention debates over ratification, Anti-Federalists were labeled Shaysites. With respect to Massachusetts, the accusation was inaccurate. Two-thirds of the towns opposed ratification, yet only one-third of that entire state had ever joined the rebellion. Had John Hancock not been struck by gout in 1785, he would have run for governor. He would have won, just as he did in 1787, the year that the rebellion was put down. Because Governor Bowden's faction gained control of law enforcement in 1785-1787, the rebellion took place. This was what forced George Washington's hand. The Constitution turned on John Hancock's big toe. That's great. The Constitutional Convention did not take place because of a democratic movement of the people. The people were generally uninterested in national politics and jealous of a transfer of sovereignty to any central government. This outlook was not shared by the men who became the founders, the founding fathers, the framers, and all of those other phrases. Yet, what they did was grossly illegal. It was far more illegal than what Daniel Shays had done. What is more, they knew they were acting illegally. Nothing better points that out than does the letter to Washington, full of lies. Shays' rebellion provided an opportunity for a majority of a group of 55 men, more than half of whom were lawyers, to break the law of the land and to get away with it. Of course, this is not how historians of the Constitution have treated the Convention in Philadelphia. The fact provides additional support for the ancient rule of historiography. Indeed, it's only known rule. The victors write the textbooks. Well, folks, there you have it. I tried to put that together the best that I possibly could. I sincerely hope that I have not confused you too much, but there's so much information out there which has been kept from us for so long, so much that we don't know. And then there's the big problem with what we do know being rejected in favor of the lie. Thank you, folks, for supporting me at Substack. And I intend to keep these messages, these things we didn't know and were never taught, I intend to keep these flowing as long as the good Lord gives me breath. So thanks, everyone, and God bless you. Substack
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