Two short-lived armed uprisings, Shays's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion, took place just before and shortly after the creation of the federal Constitution. The first, named after its nominal leader, Daniel Shays, erupted in western Massachusetts in the winter of 1786 and continued into the early months of 1787. The Whiskey Rebellion occurred in western Pennsylvania in 1794 and ended that same year. Neither uprising presented a serious military threat, but they both raised troubling questions throughout the new United States concerning the stability of republican governments.

Shays's Rebellion: Causes

The causes of Shays's Rebellion were rooted in the economic and social dislocations accompanying the end of the Revolution. An economic depression followed the war, as the new United States was now excluded from its former markets in the British empire. A bewildering tangle of debts, public and private, added to...