In January 1787 Daniel Shays, a hero of the American Revolution, and an army of farmers, enraged by the program of heavy taxes imposed by the state government in Boston to pay the costs of the Revolutionary War, launched an attack on the federal arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts. The uprising was easily suppressed, but to this day debate still rages over Shay's Rebellion, its relevance to the American Revolution, and its influence on the formation of the United States Constitution.