year until it should finally disappear.

The experience of Rhode Island is not to be regarded as typical of
what was happening throughout the country but is, indeed, rather to be
considered as exceptional. Yet it attracted widespread attention and
revealed to anxious observers the dangers to which the country was
subject if the existing condition of affairs were allowed to continue.
The machinery of the State Government was captured by the paper-money
party in the spring election of 1786. The results were disappointing to
the adherents of the paper-money cause, for when the money was issued
depreciation began at once, and those who tried to pay their bills
discovered that a heavy discount was demanded. In response to indignant
demands the legislature of Rhode Island passed an act to force the
acceptance of paper money under penalty and thereupon tradesmen refused
to make any sales at all some closed their shops, and others tried to
carry on business by exchange of wares. The farmers then retaliated by
refusing to sell their produce to the shopkeepers, and general confusion
and acute distress followed. It was mainly a quarrel between the farmers
and the merchants, but it easily grew into a division between town and
country, and there followed a whole series of town meetings and county
conventions. The old line of cleavage was fairly well represented by the
excommunication of a member of St. John's Episcopal Church of Providence
for tendering bank notes, and the expulsion of a member of the Society
of the Cincinnati for a similar cause.

The contest culminated in the case of Trevett vs. Weeden, 1786, which is
memorable in the judicial annals of the United States. The legislature,
not being satisfied with ordinary methods of enforcement, had provided
for the summary trial of offenders without a jury before a court whose
judges were removable by the Assembly and were therefore supposedly
subservient to its wishes. In the case in question the Superior Court
boldly declared the enforcing act to be unconstitutional, and for their
contumacious behavior the judges were summoned before the legislature.
They escaped punishment, but only one of them was reelected to office.

Meanwhile disorders of a more serious sort, which startled the whole
country, occurred in Massachusetts. It is doubtful if a satisfactory
explanation ever will be found, at least one which will be universally
accepted, as to the causes and origin of Shays' Re