Shay’s Rebellion and the
Constitution by Mary Hull, 2000, Excerpts
In the early American legal system, the debtor had to pay
court costs and lawyer’s fees, so being taken to debtor’s court was an
expensive experience. Yeomen who were unable to pay back their debt faced
prosecution and had their land and goods taken from them by the courts.
Debtors lived in fear that their land and livelihoods might
be taken from them by lawyers. The seizure of their land was a horrifying
prospect to yeoman farmers, for whom ownership of land was their only means of
earning a living. Their land was one of the things for which they had fought
during the revolution.
Debtors came to hate lawyers. Perhaps unfairly, yeomen
blamed the explosion of debt cases in the courts on lawyers, who profited by
prosecuting the ever-growing number of debtors from the western counties.
Lawyers were so hated in country areas that they became the butt of many jokes.
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