(haunting music)
- [Narrator] News is the first draft of history.
It is immediate and takes place in real time.
Legends take longer to develop
and are sometimes based on myth.
This Fox News series looks at the truth behind the legend.
- We are an independent nation, gentlemen.
Now for us to tell the king.
(gun firing)
- Our next objective is North Carolina.
(thunder cracking)
- They must be crushed.
(rifle whacking)
(arm bashing)
- They may have the numbers,
but we have something to fight for.
(rifle firing)
(rifles firing)
You have fought and triumphed together.
(dramatic music)
- Where is Lord Cornwallis?
- He is under the weather, Sir.
- General Lincoln here? Can accept the sword.
(boots tramping)
(dramatic music)
(men shouting)
(men chattering)
- Gentlemen, our nation is on the verge of collapse
because we are not truly one nation.
Our current Congress can achieve nothing because
every state, no matter how small, has an equal vote.
We must have a congress whose members
are proportional and elected by direct vote.
- Yes, yes.
- Of course, Virginia would propose such a plan.
The larger states will hold all the power.
We fought to preserve the sovereignty
of the various states.
Congress must remain as a single body
with one representative per state.
- Yes, yes. (voices murmuring)
- I would rather have a monarch again
than a tyranny of the states.
(voices shouting)
- Open the damn door!
(voices murmuring)
(gun firing)
(gun plopping)
♪ My country ’tis of thee
(voices shouting)
♪ Sweet land of liberty
(whip cracking)
(dramatic music)
♪ Land where my fathers died
♪ Land of the pilgrim’s pride
♪ From every mountainside
♪ Let freedom ring
(dramatic music)
(rifle firing)
- [Narrator] Pushed to their limits
by an oppressive empire,
(guns firing)
(artillery blasting)
a determined group of rebels unites
under the cause of liberty.
Their quest for freedom will unify a people,
ignite a revolution and forge a new system of government.
In time, these brave men and women
will come to be known as the American patriots.
(dramatic music)
George Washington, the nation’s foremost founding father
and its first president, a battle-weary
and debt-ridden general ready for retirement,
but behind every president stands a man,
and behind every legend lies the truth.
(dramatic music)
(horse neighing)
- Go on. He’s expecting you.
(dramatic music)
(boots clopping)
(paper rustling)
- Property may be seized immediately
in order to satisfy these debts.
- Delivering this news, it presses hard upon me, Sir.
- Have I truly fallen this low that I no longer command
the title of respect I once did?
(dramatic music)
Or is that being reclaimed as well?
- Of course not, Sir, I mean, Your Excellency.
My apologies, General Washington.
- Three years after the end
of the Revolutionary War, the Articles of Confederation
are simply not holding up.
The founding document that precedes the Constitution
did not provide a way for the states
to work together on trade, borders or national defense.
It requires Congress to reach a unanimous vote
to pass laws, and there is no president
to enforce those laws.
With the economy collapsing, it was clear
the United States needs
a stable federal government to unify it.
Once again, George Washington will preside
as the country takes on its next battle,
states’ rights versus a strong centralized government.
(chest plunking)
After the costly revolutionary war,
American’s are left with enormous debt
and not even George Washington is immune.
(people murmuring)
(voices chattering)
Without a standard currency, national bank
or centralized government,
the young nation is in economic freefall.
- Gold and silver only. No paper money.
- What do you mean?
- The US government under the Articles of Confederation
had borrowed a lotta money
and had issued a lot of IOUs,
and had run the economy pretty poorly.
- Washington saw the American currency collapse,
inflation spiral out of control
to the point where it cost $150,000 to buy a horse.
- Get down on your bloody knee.
Get down here and eat just one.
(crowd murmuring)
Eat it!
- [Narrator] Humby Bornbred predicted this would happen.
If we can’t defeat the Americans on the battlefield,
okay, let’s give them their independence
and they’ll probably fall apart on their own,
and they might very well fall back into our laps.
- Out of the chaos comes Daniel Shays,
a revolutionary war veteran who served
bravely at Ticonderoga and Bunker Hill.
(voices chattering)
(gun firing)
(people screaming)
(table crashing)
(rooster crowing)
- Sir, are you all right?
- [Narrator] Now a farmer, like many of his countrymen,
Shays faces bankruptcy and debtors’ prison.
Desperate, he decides to take radical action.
(boots clopping)
- How many of us have fought and died for freedom,
only to have our own freedoms revoked?
For bad debt? Unpaid taxes?
Springfield, the armory, that is where
we will find the freedom you all deserve.
- Hear hear!
- We will find here muskets, ammunition, cannon and more.
- Yeah!
- And then, we will once again fight for freedom.
- Hear! Yeah!
(men shouting)
- They can’t take the rights from us
that we so hard fought for!
(men cheering)
- Daniel Shays and many veterans
of the Revolutionary War have an uprising,
leading a group of farmers, preventing judges
and sheriffs from coming in
to make foreclosures on their farms.
(dramatic music)
- All right, men. Step lively.
Armory is not far ahead. We’ll have it by nightfall.
- Aye. - Aye.
- [Narrator] Shays plans to overthrow
the Massachusetts government
by marching his ragtag rebels to Springfield,
capturing the national armory
where most of the military’s weapons
are manufactured and stored.
Shays expects to find the armory undefended.
- The Continental Congress could not get the states
to put up any money to support the troops.
They had to actually ask the states
to voluntarily provide soldiers.
The Massachusetts State Legislature is able
to raise a militia against Shay’s rebellion.
- [Narrator] Men who once fought
for freedom from Britain are now in open rebellion
against their own government.
The threat of a nation divided
has America once again bracing for war.
(men yelling)
- Hold! Hold!
(dramatic music)
Hold, men! Hold! Hold!
(cannon blasting)