and Virginia threatened to break off and form a new State. From 1785 to
1786 the so-called State of "Franklin," within the territory of what is
now eastern Tennessee, had a constitution and legislature and governor,
and carried on a mild border warfare with the government of North
Carolina, to which its people owed allegiance. The people of Kentucky and
of Maine held conventions looking toward separation. The year 1786 was
marked by great uneasiness in what had been supposed to be the steadiest
States in the union. In New Hampshire the opposition was directed against
the legislature; but General Sullivan, by his courage, succeeded in
quelling the threatened insurrection without bloodshed. In Massachusetts
in the fall of 1786 concerted violence prevented the courts from sitting;
and an organized force of insurgents under Captain Shays threatened to
destroy the State government. As a speaker in the Massachusetts convention
of 1788 said, "People took up arms; and then if you went to speak to them
you had the musket of death presented to your breast. They would rob you
of your property, threaten to burn your houses; obliged you to be on your
guard night and day.... How terrible, how distressing was this!... Had any
one that was able to protect us come and set up his standard, we should
all have flocked to it, even though it had been a monarch." The arsenal at
Springfield was attacked. The State forces were met in the open field by
armed insurgents. Had they been successful, the Union was not worth one of
its own repudiated notes. The Massachusetts authorities were barely able
to restore order, and Congress went beyond its constitutional powers in an
effort to assist.


55. SLAVERY (1777-1788).


[Sidenote: Anti-slavery spirit.]