dition
of affairs. Daniel Shays, formerly a captain in the Continental army,
headed a mob of 2,000 men in Massachusetts, who demanded the stoppage of
the collection of taxes and the issuance of a large amount of paper
money for general use. When they had dispersed the Supreme Court,
sitting at Springfield, General Lincoln was sent with 4,000 troops to
put down the rebellion. Lincoln placed the judges in their seats, and
then, when the rioters were about to attack him, he gave them a volley.
The rioters scattered and the rebellion ended. Fourteen of the
ringleaders were afterward sentenced to death, but were reprieved and
finally pardoned.

THE MEETING AT ANNAPOLIS.

Shays' rebellion was one of the best things that could have happened,
for it showed the country more clearly than before that it was on the
verge of anarchy, and that the remedy must not be delayed. Long before
this, Washington comprehended the serious peril of the country, and he
was in continual consultation with men whose worth and counsel he
valued. The result was that a meeting of commissioners from Maryland,
Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York met at Annapolis in
September, 1786. They held an earnest discussion, but as only a minority
of the States were represented, nothing positive could be done, and an
adjournment was had with a recommendation that each State should send
delegates to meet in Philadelphia in May, 1787. The prestige of
Washington's name gave so much weight to the recommendation that at the
appointed date all the States were represented except Rhode Island.

The wisdom of Washington was again manifest in a letter which he wrote
some months before the meeting of the Constitutional Convention, and
which contained the following:

"We have errors to correct. We have probably had too good an opinion of
human nature in forming our confederation. Experience has taught us that
without the intervention of a coercive power, men will not adopt and
carry into execution measures best calculated for their own good. I do
not conceive we can exist long as a nation without having lodged
somewhere a power that will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a
manner as the authority of the State governments extend over the several
States.... I am told that even respectable characters speak of a
monarchical form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds
speaking; thence acting is but a single step. But how irrevocable and
treme