USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Volume I pt 1 > Part 27
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The commonwealth had inherited an onerous judicial system from the province, and the general government had not then acquired the strength which it afterward possessed under the federal constitution. It was the dark period which immediately followed the Revolution. It is not a matter of wonder that the people should attribute to the government the misfortunes with which circumstances had sounded them, of that they should entertain the thought-" To what purpose have our own blood and suffering secured the liberties of our country if our own are to be at the mercy of the tax gatherer, the sheriff, and the jailer; or if, escaping from them, we are to be the serfs of soil which barely procures us a sanity subsistence, with a poor honse for the hope of our age ?"
Under these circumstances leaders were not wanting. Some of these were, without doubt, sincere, but were the victims of an overweening conceit of their ability to cope with the most knotty problems of Smis. cr of an impracticable fanaticism. Others were demagogues, or men who
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sought mainly for notoriety. These leaders had seen the assumption of power by county conventions and the obstruction of the courts twice crowned with success, and they failed to comprehend that under the constitution a different allegiance was due from the citizen. They there- fore resorted to the means which had before led to the desired end.
These conventions were at first. at least in form, law ful and respect- able, and they disclaimed all connection with mobs. As time went on, however, they became more frequent and intemperit, and in some cases they were the abettors of violence. Lists of grievances were made, and redress of these was demanded. The action of many of the conventions tended to render the government contemptible or experable in the eyes of the malcontents, and thus paved the way for, if they did not directly lead to, the violence which followed.
The constitution of 1780 made no provision for its own amendment or revision sooner than 1795, though it was believed by the conservative people in Berkshire county that in the absence of such provision the question of its revision might be submitted by the Legislature to the people.
In 1786 the malcontents in other counties, groaning under burdens of which they imperfectly comprehended the nature, and still more im perfectly the remedy, impatient of the long process and slow results of legislative reforms, and suspecting the State government of indifference to their sufferings, were eager for a change in those provisions of the con- stitution which, as they imagined, created an aristocratic element, by 1e. moving its officers from the direct control of their constituents. In- spired by this idea they raised a clamor for measures no less radical than the abolition of the Senate, a change in the basis of representation, and the dependence of all officers on salaries annually granted.
It was asked that the Courts of Common Pleas and General Sessions should be abolished : that the General Court should not sit at Boston : " to have a bank emitted of paper money subject to depreciation," mak ing it a tender in all payments equal to gold and silver : that the system of imposing and collecting taxes should be remodeled, the fee table it duced, and a general reform instituted in managing the finances of the commonwealth.
Violent ontbreaks occurred in several places in the State, and ses. sions of the court were prevented.
The course of the Berkshire people was peculiar. The insurgent leaders had evidently modeled their proceedings on those of this county previous to the adoption of the constitution, and from this circumstanes as well as from its defensible location, had counted on this as their strong. hold. But the six years discussion of political and constitutional ques tions previous to 1980 had rendered the people here more familiar with the great principles of government, and less liable to be misled by false or ignorant teachers than were those of most portions of the Suite. The inconsistency of seeking to overthrow the edifice which they had exerted
GENERAL HISTORY.
at such infinite pains was instinctively felt by those who had been promi nent in the struggles for a constitution, and doubtless they were too familiar with the evils attendant on an obstruction of the laws to favor a resort to it for light causes. Few of them, therefore, were involved in the Shays insurrection. Rev. Mr. Allen indeed was so active in his opposi tion as to be the special mark of the rebel ire, and he found it necessary to keep arms in his bedroom as a precaution, when it was most rangent. His earnest preaching against the sin of rebellion at this time won lim many bitter and life-long enemies. But the leading citizens of Berkshire had learned confidence in the people and in the flexibility of the lasys. as well as respect for constitutional authority, and instead of leaving the convention called in the county to be controlled by those who sought a violent remedy for sufferings perceptible alike to all. they tried their strength before the people and elected a majority of moderate men. This . was more important, as, in the imperfect organization of party politics . which then existed, delegates were elected by the towns, and not, as www. by sections of the people, whose opinions alone they are entitled to rep. resent. The county convention then carried with it something of the authority of the municipalities by which its members were chosen, and often instructed ; and by many its anthority. as being nearer the people, was held paramount to the Legislature.
The convention assembled at Lenox while the insurrection was raging in the lower counties. The wise conservative action of this convention where, as has been said, the more fiery and zealous of the rebels were met on their own ground, outreasoned and outvoted, had the effect to do- ter hundreds who would otherwise have joined the ranks of the insur gents, but who rendered aid to the friends of law and order, or at least refrained from active participation in the disturbances of the time No countenance was given to any of the preposterous political notions of the malcontents, but on the contrary, even the Tender Act, which was the least objectionable of the measures with which it was classed, was apposed. at a time when the cirenlating medium had been reduced to a point which rendered the possession of any considerable quantity of it impossible to men in ordinary circumstances. This much maligned aet simply provided that executions should be satisfied by property of a marketable kind. taken at a fair valuation, instead of being sold under the hammer, with a moral certainty that it would be sold for a tithe of its value, perhaps being " bid in," by the creditor for a nominal sum, through sheer ina- bility of the impecunions neighborhood to compete with him.
From the repudiation of this act by the convention it is fairly to be presumed that the follies enumerated by conventions in other countries were not approved, though the existence of grievances was admitted The influence of the convention did not, however, avail to save the county from participation in the insurrection, for it had hardly adjourned be- fore a mob collected at Great Barrington, and not only prevented de session of the Court of Common Pleas, but broke open the jail and re-
HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
leased the prisoners : after which exploits they, by theats. induced three of the judges-among whom was Charles Goodrich, who seemed to have lost somewhat of his inflexibility-to sign an agreement that they would not act under their commissions till the grievances complained of had been redressed. To the credit of the fourth judge. Hon. Elijah Dwight, of Great Barrington, as well as that of the rioters. it is related that, on his making a manly resistance, he was not compelled to sign the the papers. The mob was estimated at eight hundred men
Traditions of incidents which occurred in Pittsfield and Lenox tell how the insurgent forces were recruited, and from what material. The vil. lage orators, previous to court day, gave out, either plainly of by ingendo. that the session must be prevented : and the word passed from month to mouth. On the evening preceding the appointed day the disaffected farmers in the towns within a convenient distance-or perhaps through- out the county- as their men quitted work said to them. " Well. boys, they say there's to be goings on at Barrington to-morrow, and, if you like, you can have the day and take the team and go down." One leader in Pittsfield sent his two sons in this way, and one in Lenos his son and an apprentice. These were of the better class of the insurgents ; but in every town there were then an unusual number of unemployed men, ready for whatever excitement offered, and generally hostile to the govern ment, which they regarded as the cause of their bad condition, so that between those ready for any mischievous frolic and those earnestly les tile to the courts a boisterous and excited crowd was easily collected. which soon received the additional inflammation of strong drink, and thus fitting instruments were ready to the hands of the designing leaders. who seized the opportunity to commit their followers so deeply to the re- bellion that retreat was difficult.
A session of the Superior Court in Springfield was prevented by a mob - which collected there, and on the day fixed by law for opening the courts in Berkshire county a mob assembled at Great Barrington, and though no court appeared the crowd became riotous, and some acts of lawlessness were committed.
The insurrection assumed the form of a rebellion in the latter part of 1786, and acquired its name from Daniel Shays, who became its leader.
To General Benjamin Lincoln, of the Revolutionary army, was en. trusted the work of subdning this rebellion. A collision occurred at the Springfield arsenal between the insurgents and a portion of Lincoln's forces under General Sheppard, and with one discharge of artillery the rebels were dispersed, crying .. Murder " as they fled. and leaving three of their number dead on the field.
Four hundred Berkshire men, under the leadership of Eli Parsons, were in Shays' army. After the defeat of the rebels at Springfield, in the latter part of January, 1787, they fled to Petersham, where they were surprised by General Lincoln, a portion were captured, and the rest scat. tered.
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Meanwhile small bodies of the insurgents appeared in Berkshire county for the purpose of creating a diversion in favor of those in Hamp shire and elsewhere. But the friends of the government in this county, to the number of 500, some of them the first men in the county, volun ·teered to resist the rebellion. These volunteers went against the rebels. who had collected to the number of 150 of 200 in West Stockbridge cup- tured eighty four of them, including their leader. Hubbard, and dispersed the others. They rallied again and were scattered at Adams, and may .. peared to be again dispersed at Williamstown, where fourteen prisoners were taken.
After the dispersion of the insurgents at Petersham. Goneral Lincon marched to Berkshire county, passing through Porn, Hinsdale, and Dal: ton to Pittsfield, whence a party was sent in pursuit of one Major Wiley. whose son and five others were captured. Those in Northern Berkshire were driven into banishment or concealment.
Eli Parsons, who had led the insurgents from Berkshire, sont ont . from his hiding place an inflammatory appeal to his " friends and follow sufferers."
On the 27th of January, 1787, a party of between eighty and ninety men, under Captain Perez Hamlin, entered the State from New York, and pillaged the town of Stockbridge. They made prisoners of some of its most respectable citizens, and proceeded with their booty and prisoners to Great Barrington, where they released the prisoners from the jail, then went toward Shefield. Meantime Colonel Ashley, of Sheffield, had col lected a force in that town, and these, united with a small body that bad retreated from Great Barrington, made np a force of eighty men, Wich these he met the insurgents near the western boundary of Sheffield, and the severest encounter of the rebellion ensued. Thirty of the insurgents. and among them Hamlin, were wounded, two were killed. a third died of his wounds, and a large number were made prisoners. Of Colonel Ashley's force two were killed and one was wounded.
The borders of this and other counties remained, doing some months. in a disturbed condition, but by the energetic cooperation of the neighbors ing States, though Vermont was the most tardy of these, the disturbances were finally quelled, and in September the forces called into service for the suppression of the rebellion were discharged.
There remained the more difficult task of reestablishing order and composing the agitated minds of the people. Justice was to be tempered with mercy in such measure as would not give heart to new outbreaks. The majesty of the law was to be maintained, but in such manner that there should be not even the semblance of a vindictive spirit, either in the Legislature or in the courts. Above all. legislators were to enter ogr- nestly on the work of alleviating the burdens and sufferings which had maddened so many of the most patriotic and well intentioned Filizens. and in all this it was to be apparent that nothing was conceded to intimi.
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dation, but that all was done through a sincere desite for the best inter- ests of the people, and a pure regard for substantial justice.
Six of the insurgents in Berkshire county were found guilty of high treason, and condenmed to death. These were Samuel Rust, of Pins field ; Peter Williams jr., of Lee ; Nathaniel Austin, of Sheffield ; Anton Knap, of West Stockbridge; Enoch Tyler, of Egremont ; and Joseph Williams, of New Marlboro. Of these, three were pardoned, two esexpel. and the sentence of one was commuted to imprisonment during seven years.
William Whiting, of Great Barrington, John Deming of West Stockbridge, John Hubbard, of Sheffield, and Daniel Sackett were soll. teneed to various grades of punishment for seditious words and practices. Those who had participated in the insurrection wore, for a time, distran- chised and excluded from the jury box ; but these disabilities were soon removed, the offender being merely required to take the oath of allegi- ance. Measures of reform in the administration of the laws and of the finances were immediately entered on, at first with somewhat of the cry. dity of thought which had prevailed before the insurrection ; but the light soon began to break, and gleams of those beneficent reformus which have since prevailed began to streak the horizon. It is not the least among the compensations of the rebellion of 1786 that it directed the more earnest thought of cultivated statesmen to the imperfection of the laws, and to popular content as an element in the strength of the government.
CHAPTER XII.
BERKSHIRE IN THE WAR OF 1812.
D URING a long time previous to the declaration of war against Girone Britain, in June. 1812. a majority of the people in Massachusetts. east from Berkshire county, were federalists. They regarded the theories of government held by the supporters of Jefferson and Madison as dan gerous, and during the few years preceding the declaration of war their hatred of the administrations in power, and of the party which supported them, became intensified. When war was declared a sense of personal injury was added to their fears of what they regarded as poruicions theories of government. The evil which they feated had come on theus. The embargo and non-importation acts, with the irritating and vexations supplementary laws by which the government sought to enforce the m. seemed to the importers of Massachusetts, who thought they saw them enforced through favoritism, sometimes with needless severity and sogn- times with scandalous laxity, to be the very essence of tyranny. It was not now so much that the government favored France against Great Britain. The new laws seemed aimed less against old England than at the very life of New England ; for trade, navigation, and fisheries were to her the source of all prosperous life. To the majority of its prepde the acts restricting navigation and commerce seemed but another Buston port bill, quite as malignant as the first, and more comprehensive. Their opinion of the radical tendencies of Jeffersonian democracy was more . than confirmed by the effect of democratic measures on their fortunes
Berkshire continued to show the result of her mountain isolation from the rest of the State ; uniformly, from 1801 to 1815, choosing demi- cratic members of Congress, and State Senators of the same political com- plexion, except in a single year when a different result was securel by throwing out the votes of two democratic towns for informality. The territorial position of the county, acting on a basis of chameter diafeed from the Puritans, had made its people, in an unusual degree, independ- ent thinkers : independent, at least, of almost all externat into. nos. however biased by traditional prejudice and well preserved fends.
All assertions of this sort of independence must nevertheless be qual- 1
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ified, and perhaps the best that can be claimed for the people of Berkshire in this regard is that their peculiar freedom from the intellectual author- ity of their State capital enabled them to judge with more candor of the arguments-and reasonings which reached them from other sources. Of these influences, however little the people of Berkshire as a mass were inclined to be submissive to the opinions of their metropolis, no small portion were received from the town of Boston. It was impossible that every year some of the most active minds of the county -- some with liberal culture and nearly all with abundance of shrewd common sense should pass weeks among the people of Boston, and some of them in the most attractive circles, without a very considerable effect on their personal feelings, as well as on their views of the measures which were the ordi mary topies of conversation. It would be too much of a question to fully consider here what the effect of these influences was on different classes of minds ; but it is certain that as a rule the federalists returned charmed by the social fascinations of their metropolitan compatriots into a new devotion to the party of whose leaders they had found so pleasant an ex- perience ; and that the democrats were nerved by their legislative oranbats for sterner confiiets at home.
But, considerable as the influence of Boston on Berkshire opinion was. it was not a preponderating power. It was more than counterbal. anced by that which arose from the intimate business relations between the county and the States of New York and Contercient.
A more distinct and decided influence came, through Reverends Allen and Leland, from the leading intellects of the democratic party in the nation. From the era of 1726. Mr. Allen, until his death, followed Thom as Jefferson as the great apostle of liberty, and taught men to so regard him. Elder Leland, early familiar with the mighty men of his party in Virginia, and renewing his intercourse with them on impeated visits to the Old Dominion, communicated their spirit in its freshness as he passed from house to house, and what was thus told and taught became a mighty power.
The different material interests which had arisen in Berkshire tended to strengthen and confirm the democratie majority in their support of the the war. East of the mountains manufactimes and agriculture were see. ondary to commerce, and all their productions found foreign markets; while in Berkshire manufactures had assumed considerable importance. and they gave promise of becoming to a still greater extent the control ling interest. It was easy to see that the war would be indeed a strin- gent protective tariff which would greatly enhance the interests that had sprung up here, and the love of country and the hope of gain thus oper. ated reciprocally on each other.
There were not the same economical reasons which prevailed in the eastern part of the State to restrain resentment for British insults and injuries. Here what opposition to the war existed arose from party affil- iations and prejudices, or personal opinions regarding its justice, or its
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expediency as affecting the whole country. Party feeling in New Eng- land was then more violent than it ever has been since. The folenlists severely criticised the government for making war, and for the indde- quate provisions that were at first made to proscente it, and these grill cisms, so far as the feeble preparations for the war were concerned, ware not withont foundation.
But the federalists made a great mistake when war was declared. not only in refusing in their support, but in going to the very verge of the. son in their efforts to thwart the government in its measures for carrying it on, by their votes in Congress, by the acts of State Legislatmes in which they had control, by discouraging enlistments, and throwing thi cule on the army and its officers. The democrats complained that " what- ever difficulty or distress arose from the extraordinary circumstances of the times, when great difficulty and distress were inevitable, was aptera- vated and magnified to the highest degree for the purpose of inflaming the public passions; that from the moment when the war was declared they (the federalists) clamored for peace, and reprobated the war as wicked, unjust, and unnecessary. They made every possible effort to raise obstructions and difficulties in its proseention, and yet censhred the administration for its imbecility in carrying it on. They reduced the Los ernment to bankruptcy and then reproached it for its necessities and ent- barrassments. In a word. all their movements had but one object-to enfeeble and distract the government."
The indictment was a true one. Whatever may have been the im- policy of plunging into war, however a wiser statesmanship might have led to some other course, it could hardly be disputed that the west of Great Britain had been such as to justify a resort to aring ; that. as te. garded her, the war was just. By their efforts to impede its successful prosecution the federalists committed the fatal error which made their name a stigma and a by-word for generations afterward. While it isthe was uncertain, while mistakes in the camp and council offered constant themes for censure of the government : while taxation bore hand on the people, without, in most sections, adequate compensation by increased reward for industry ; and above all, while the heat of parts violenes hed no time to cool, it was easy to maintain a respectable opposition to the war ; but when it closed under circumstances which threw around it a brilliant halo of glory, and with the ends for which it was umlertaken substantially attained, although not definitely recognized in the treaty. the reaction came with double power, and the federal parts had to sustain not only the obloquy of its errors but of many heinons political offenses which were far from its thoughts. Many faithless Peters, who had been among the most hot-headed of its adherents, not only denied it in its fall, but found high places in the hostile camp by maligning their old as sociates, who, wrapping themselves in the mantle of their parte and pe- triotie intentions, maintained a dignified silence.
The establishment of a military post within the county of course in-
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creased the number and ardor of the supporters of the war, and the bit terness and intensity of their antagonism to their opponents. This was to a greater degree true here because the post was established in the State which, under the control of the federal party, openly opposed the war and threw every possible obstacle in the way of its successful prosecution by the general government. If the federalists of New England did not by overt acts give aid and comfort to the enemy they refused any genuine acquiescence in war measures, and hung on the rear of the enemies of the nation with all their moral force and with every power which by any in- terpretation of the constitution they could assume.
In Massachusetts those who had emphatically proclaimed their do sire for a stronger central government than was provided by the constitu- tion now avowed their belief in the extreme doctrine of State rights. Under their control the State refused to join in the offensive operations of the national government, or to aid in the defense of other States. She even, at first. refused to place her militia under the command of the officer assigned to the department by the President, although it was to be employed within her borders, and for her own defense.
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