Shay’s Rebellion and the
Constitution by Mary Hull, 2000, Excerpts
The day after the standoff at the courthouse, the
Massachusetts legislature met in Boston. First, it suspended the writ of habeas
corpus, the requirement that a law enforcement officer have evidence against a
suspect in order to imprison him or her. Without habeas corpus, anyone the
governor considered dangerous to the state could be arrested.
Next the legislature passed the Riot Act to prevent the
regulators from organizing. This law, designed by former revolutionary and
patriot leader Samuel Adams, authorized sheriffs and justices of the peace to
order an armed crowd to disperse. The
failure of an armed crowd to disperse would result in arrest, imprisonment, and
seizure of personal property. Mobs had been useful in resisting the British
prior to the revolution, and people who were upset with the new government
tried to use these same methods now.
The legislature also passed the Militia Act during its fall
1786 session. The Militia Act declared that “any officer or soldier who shall
begin, excite, cause, or join in any mutiny sedition” will be subject to “such
punishment as by a court martial shall be inflicted.” People suspected of being
regulators could now be arrested and detained without bail on the grounds that
they put the safety of Massachusetts in danger. They could be held in jail with
any evidence.
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