Ahad Hayaud-Din
Most Americans associate the Declaration of Independence with July 4 and the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Not every American knows that the creation of the U.S. Constitution was not part of a natural, inevitable progression of these events. The Constitution might not have been written, or not in the form we know, were it not for Shays’ Rebellion.
Brookhaven College, along with six other colleges across the country, is joining in promoting a new Web site, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Titled Shays’ Rebellion, the Making of a Nation: From Revolution to Constitution, the Web site chronicles the people and events of the 1780s and their pivotal role in the creation of the United States Constitution. Scheduled to go live on Sept. 12, the Web site is a lead-in to Constitution Day, Sept. 17.
A few years after the Revolutionary War, Captain Daniel Shays of Massachusetts and local farmers blockaded area courthouses to keep the courts from foreclosing on the property of their families and neighbors. In the bitter cold of Jan. 25, 1787, nearly 1,400 men marched up the Bay Path in Springfield, Mass., to attack the arsenal there, planning to take up arms to fight again for the freedom they thought they had won in the Revolution. Shays’ Rebellion directly led to the failure of the Articles of Confederation and the creation of a stronger centralized government through the U.S. Constitution.
Ahad Hayaud-Din, government professor at Brookhaven College, is the college’s partner in the Web site. He received a grant to contribute lesson plans and project ideas relating to Shays’ Rebellion to the site. Hayaud-Din has encouraged other government and history professors at the college to take advantage of the site to address this important part of the creation of the Constitution. The site has detailed histories and more materials than most introductory or foundation history and government textbooks can provide and will be a resource for both instructors and students.
The other colleges assisting in promoting the Web site include Bismarck Community College in Bismarck, N.D.; Cuyamaca College in El Cajon, Calif.; Sheridan College in Sheridan, Wyo.; York Technical College in Rock Hill, S.C.; and Westfield State College in Westfield, Mass.
