"Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in
the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the
encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should
render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too
much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."
Thomas Jefferson, letter
to James Madison
January 30,
1787
"if three years ago any person had told me that at this day, I should see such a
formidable rebellion against the laws & constitutions of our own making as now appears I should
have thought him a bedlamite - a fit subject for a mad house." He wrote that if the government
"shrinks, or is unable to enforce its laws... anarchy & confusion must prevail."
George Washington,
letter to Henry Knox
February 3,
1787
1. Describe one similarity in the way the letters portray Shay's Rebellion.