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.