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| “Slavery in Massachusetts” by H.D. Thoreau | …[¶14] Every humane and intelligent inhabitant of Concord, when he or she heard those bells and those cannons, thought not with pride of the events of the 19th of April, 1775, but with shame of the events of the 12th of April, 1851. But now we have half buried that old sham… | |
| “Resistance to Civil Government” by H.D. Thoreau | …cy are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of ’75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should… | |
| Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 24 October 1837, part 4 | …Emanuel C. Reigart “resumed”: The gentleman from Allegheny had referred to the Constitution of ’76 as giving greater privileges to those who scruple to bear arms than the present Constitution. The sixth section of the first chapter of the Declaration of the Rights to which he refers, provides that “every member o… | |
| Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 24 October 1837, part 3 | …count of his religious sentiments. If he should fail to show that this conscientious scruple to bear arms was a religious sentiment in those who belonged to the Society of Friends, then his argument based on this declaration in the Constitution of 1776 could amount to nothing. But if he should succeed in showing that it was a religious sentiment, a part of the creed of this class of our citizens, then we must renounce all these principles which our fathers had laid… | |
| Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 24 October 1837, part 3 | …if any such there are, whether it was not our duty to grant this claim to all who sincerely asked it. It is as plain as day that there is a principle in this thing — it has been acknowledged in the Constitution itself, and in the Constitution of 1776. This principle was then acknowledged when our soil was stained with hostile blood; when the country was agitated by fear and all were ready to acknowledge that there was a Supreme Being to be looked up to. The princ… | |
| Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 24 October 1837, part 3 | …was then acknowledged when our soil was stained with hostile blood; when the country was agitated by fear and all were ready to acknowledge that there was a Supreme Being to be looked up to. The principle was acknowledged in the Constitution of 1776 as follows: “No part of a man’s property can be justly taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of his legal representatives, nor can any man who is conscientiously scrupulous of be… | |
| Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 24 October 1837, part 2 | …ithin its bosom who may desire to rend and overthrow it. Now, sir, I have shown from Proud’s History what the opinions of the Society of Friends are in respect to public contributions; and I find, in the Constitution of 1776, the principle adopted and recognized under which they seem always to have acted. The 8th section of that Constitution is in these words: “Every member of society has a right to be protecte… | |
| Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 24 October 1837, part 2 | …n of a clause to some extent prohibiting the enactment of laws interfering with the religious scruples they entertained, and this was nothing more than was already secured to their fellows. This was asserted as a principle in the Constitution of 1776, and repeated in the existing Bill of Rights. It was, perhaps, sufficient merely to call attention to the fact that from the first settlement of Pennsylvania down to the present moment, it had been observed as a rule… | |
| “Letter to the Liberals” by Leo Tolstoy | …d, and was executed in Moscow in 1671. — Translator Pugatchef headed the most formidable Russian insurrection of the eighteenth century. He was executed in Moscow in 1775. — Translator The series of reforms, including the abolition of serfdom, which followed the Crimean War and the death of Nicholas Ⅰ, were, from the firs… | |
| Excerpts from H.D. Thoreau’s journals (1851) | …11 Why, gentlemen, even consistency, though it is much abused, is sometimes a virtue. Every humane and intelligent inhabitant of Concord, when he or she heard those bells and those cannon, thought not so much of the events of the 19th of April, 1775, as of the event of the 12th of April, 1851.12 I wish my townsmen to… | |
| Excerpts from H.D. Thoreau’s journals (1851) | …been filling the gubernatorial chair all the while.7 One Mr. Boutwell,8 — so named, perchance, because he goes about well to suit the prevailing wind. In ’75 two or three hundred of the inhabitants of Concord assembled at one of the bridges with arms in their hands to assert the right of three millions to tax themselves, to have a voice in governing themselves.… | |
| Excerpts from “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” by H.D. Thoreau | …on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers We were soon floating past the first regular battle-ground of the Revolution, resting on our oars between the still visible abutments of that “North Bridge,” over which in April, 1775, rolled the first faint tide of that war, which ceased not, till, as we read on the stone on our right, it “gave peace to these United States.” As a Concord poet has sung:— “By the rude br… | |
| 30 June 2007 | …nkins then goes on to argue that “that the individual right of religious conscience not to be compelled to participate in or support military activity was well recognized at the founding of this nation. For example, the New York State Constitution of 1777, which predates and is independent of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights, expressly protects persons with ‘scruples of conscience’ from forced military service and requisition for armament. The consti… | |
| 29 May 2008 | …d the testimonies you allude to, contain seasonable exhortations to observe a godly conduct, consistent with the peaceable principles of our Christian profession; and the papers and records of some of our meetings were seized and detained in the Ninth Month, 1777, and, after undergoing a scrutiny and examination, nothing seditious or prejudicial to the public good being found in them, they were returned. In whatever mistaken or unfavorable lig… | |
| 27 August 2011 | …nted to treat with them and report to next meeting. John Decow had already been in trouble for “bearing of arms in a military manner” and had submitted a written condemnation of his actions to the meeting in 1776. This time a “testification” was produced against him and Joseph English, Jr., and they were informed of their appeal rights. Neither chose to appeal, and that’s the last w… | |
| 27 August 2011 | …chose not to appeal. Caleb Shreve’s acknowledgement condemning his repaying the money to those who had bought his goods taken for military fines was read and received. The previous year, Shreve had been in trouble, along with some others, for “being concerned in military services” and those Quakers who had visited him and his fellow-offenders found that “they seemed to justify [that is, ma… | |
| 27 August 2011 | …These excerpts can also be found in the book American Quaker War Tax Resistance. 1777 Joseph Ridgway produced an acknowledgment condemning his having inadvertently paid a fine in lieu of personal services in the militia which was read and received.… | |
| 26 October 2007 | …iction is sin: therefore I chose rather to suffer in this world, than incur the displeasure of him from whom come all my consolation and blessings. Things turned out just fine: Having for nearly a year declined taking the paper currency, agreeably to the secret persuasion which I had of my duty therein, as before mentioned, I have now the satisfaction of comparing the different rewards of obedience an… | |
| 26 October 2007 | …hat love of things here below, which alienates from the true love of and communion with him. In general, he found tax resistance to be less daunting than he had anticipated it to be: About the latter end of the Sixth month this year, an old acquaintance of mine, being now collector of rates, came and demanded one of me. I asked him what it was for. He said, to sink the paper money. I told him, as t… | |
| 26 October 2007 | …Much close exercise of mind I had for a considerable length of time, on account of some particular scruples, which from time to time revived with weight, and so pressingly accompanied me, that I could not get rid of them. It being a time of war, and preparations for war between Great Britain and America; and the rulers of America having made a paper currency professedly for the special purpose of promoting or maintaining the war; and it being expec… | |
| 26 May 2008 | …We can all be conscientious objectors. War tax resistance is conscientious objection. When 70 percent of the population is against the war in Iraq and they are made to pay for it, we have taxation without representation. It seems that it is way past the time to throw the tea into the harbor. Throwing tea into the harbor is as American as apple pie. We need a nonviolent revolution as much as the founders needed a revolution in 1776.… | |
| 26 July 2011 | …uments about the Cowgill case. First is a declaration of the Committee of Inspection and Observation for Kent County, a group associated with the rebel Continental Congress: In Committee, DoverJanuary 4, 1776 Resolved, That the keeping up the credit of the Continental currency is essential to support the United Colonies in their virtuous opposition to ministerial oppression, and that the… | |
| 26 January 2011 | …This excerpt can also be found in the book American Quaker War Tax Resistance. At the Yearly Meeting, in the fall of 1777, under a sense of the judgments now in our land, and the many deviations from the simplicity and purity of our profession, into which we, as a people, had slidden, and thereby as justly perhaps as any other of the in… | |
| 25 October 2011 | …s Iredell, a distinguished patriot of this place, who married Miss Hannah Johnston, a sister of one of the signers of the noted document. London, Queen Square, January 31, 1775. Dear Brother: I see by the newspapers the Edenton ladies have signalized themselves by their protest against tea drinking. The name of Johnston I see among others; are any of my sister… | |
| 25 October 2011 | …nt, fourteen by ten inches, entitled A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton, in North Carolina. London. Printed for R. Sayer & J. Bennett, No. 53 in Fleet Street, as the Act directs 25 March, 1775, Plate V. A group of fifteen figures are around or near a table in a room. A female at the table with a gavel is evidently a man, probably meant for Lord North. A lady, with pen in hand, is… | |
| 24 June 2008 | …e Friends on the subject of paying Taxes, etc. (see The Picket Line, 22 May 2008) in 1776. He thought that Quakers ought to be paying their taxes willingly to the Continental Congress, while the orthodox opinion in his Meeting said no. He was disowned by the Sandwich (Massachusetts) Monthly Meeting i… | |
| 24 August 2011 | …ountry when such action shall go unrebuked. Promptly, by a meeting of thousands of her people, was such rebuke uttered a few days after the oppressor’s key imprisoned this young man with a dozen criminals. If the Continental Congress in 1775 could be generous and just in the midst of war and extreme emergencies, how much more Christian should we be in 1874, when the nation’s life is not imperiled! An increase of population sh… | |
| 24 August 2011 | …ca is the price set upon conscience. Conscience was involved in its discovery. The Mayflower and Plymouth Rock meant it, and the settlements of Roger Williams and William Penn confirmed it. Nearly a hundred years ago, in the Congress of July 18th, 1775, called Resolves of the Continental Congress, we find this magnanimous concession: As there are some people who from religious princip… | |
| 23 May 2008 | …e state of the money. The bills as they became due were burnt by the proper officer, but fresh ones took their place. A table of value of Spanish milled dollars is given in an act fixing the depreciation of continental bills for each month after January, 1777. One hundred Spanish milled dollars at that time were worth a hundred and five in paper. The price rapidly increases till three years later, in August, 1780, they were wort… | |
| 23 January 2011 | …Happersett ruling. In the course of her testimony, she alluded to the tax resistance of Julie and Abby Smith: It was the tax on tea — woman’s drink prerogative — which precipitated the rebellion of 1776. To allay the irritation of the colonies, all taxes were rescinded save that on tea, which was left to indicate King George’s dominion. But our revolutionary fathers and mothers said, “No; the tax is paltry, but the… | |
| 22 May 2008 | …The text of this pamphlet can also be found in the book American Quaker War Tax Resistance. Here’s another rarity: a 1776 pamphlet from Timothy Davis urging his fellow-Quakers to consider the rebel Continental Congress to be their legitimate government, and to pay taxes for its support. There was a variety of Quaker tax resistance… | |
| 22 June 2011 | …being sold now, and some of my brethren are being put into prison, because we will not pay the rate.” And with his eyes flashing, like the eyes of a Boston Tea Party man, and with clenched fist, he repeated, “But I will not pay the rate.” (prolonged applause. The spirit of ’76 still lives.) I’ve hunted in vain for any indication that Clifford tried to introduce the tactic of tax resistance to the anti-war movement of the day.… | |
| 22 August 2011 | …he thumb of the papists (that is, James Ⅱ) again. The Declaration is a good predecessor of the better-known one of 1776, but much more interesting reading. Here’s a nice excerpt: …extraordinary and intolerable Fees extorted from every one upon all occaſions, without any Rules but thoſe of t… | |
| 21 August 2011 | …the house opened for that purpose, when two of the leading members of that meeting came about the time appointed for holding the meeting, locked up the house, took away the key and prevented the meeting from being held — yet so late as the years 1777 and 1778, all the meeting houses in the state were opened to a preacher from England, then here, although it is generally understood that he considered, and on all occasions, public and p… | |
| 19 December 2006 | …they had to resort to petition for all the exemptions they enjoyed. The petition for freedom from military service is not to be found anywhere in the published records, but a resolution recorded in the minutes of the Constitutional Convention of 1776 shows us what its contents must have been. Under date of July 6, the following entry occurs in the Journal on the reading of the petition of the “Society of Mennonites and German Ba… | |
| 19 December 2006 | …dom from military service is not to be found anywhere in the published records, but a resolution recorded in the minutes of the Constitutional Convention of 1776 shows us what its contents must have been. Under date of July 6, the following entry occurs in the Journal on the reading of the petition of the “Society of Mennonites and German Baptists:” Resolved that the several committees of obser… | |
| 19 December 2006 | …, writing of the conditions at this time says, The majority of the ministers in the western part of Montgomery county were opposed to the payment of a new war tax of three pounds, and ten shillings which had been levied in 1777. …Funk contended that the tax ought to be paid and said, “Were Christ here he would say give Congress that which belongs to Congress and to God what is… | |
| 15 December 2012 | …hich they made the case that the government was essentially bankrupt, and they urged people to withdraw their deposits from the banks in gold rather than in untrustworthy government notes, and to demand their wages in gold. During the American revolut… | |
| 14 May 2008 | …s or assessments made for the advancing of the hire or enlisting-money of volunteers, or which may be expressly therein ordered to be given or paid to military men. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1775 [A]s many Friends have expressed that a religious objection is raised in their minds against receiving or paying certain bills of credit, issued expressly for the purpose of carrying on the war, apprehendin… | |
| 14 May 2008 | …rom a clear conviction of Truth in their own minds; showing forth, by their meekness, humility, and patient suffering, that they are followers of the Prince of Peace. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1776 It is the judgment of this meeting that a tax levied for the purchasing of drums, colors, or for other warlike uses, cannot be paid consistently with our Christian testimony.… | |
| 14 July 2010 | …Dr. Shaw replied that while she was illegally denied the right of participating in the Government of the State to ask her to make out a list upon which taxes were to be levied would be “heaping injury upon tyranny.” “In the spirit of 1776,” as her statement reads, she “declined to be a party to an act which violated the national Constitution.” So she returned the document unadorned. Dr. Shaw did… | |
| 13 May 2011 | …the 13th of Fifth Month, 1776, I made a visit to my dear friend, Jonathan Farnum, at Uxbridge, who was very far gone in a consumption. I sat up with him during the night and in the morning we had some serious conversation together, in the course of which, after mentioning that he had given up all expectation of recovery, and felt resigned in mind, and willing to leave all, even his dear ch… | |
| 13 May 2011 | …ildren may be preserved faithful to him in all his requirings; and out of that love of things here below, which alienates from the true love of and communion with him. About the latter end of the sixth month [1777], an old acquaintance of mine, being now collector of rates, came and demanded one of me. I asked him what it was for. He said, to sink the paper money. I told him, as that money was made expressl… | |
| 13 May 2011 | …This excerpt can also be found in the book American Quaker War Tax Resistance. On the 13th of Fifth Month, 1776, I made a visit to my dear friend, Jonathan Farnum, at Uxbridge, who was very far gone in a consumption. I sat up with him during… | |
| 13 May 2011 | …On the 13th of Fifth Month, 1776, I made a visit to my dear friend, Jonathan Farnum, at Uxbridge, who was very far gone in a consumption. I sat up with him during the night and in the morning we had some serious conversation together, in the course of which, after mentioning that he had given up all expectation of recovery, and felt resigned… | |
| 13 May 2008 | …ut exempted them from attending musters. The act of May, 1777, went backward. It makes no exception in their favor in regard to enrollment, mustering or drafting. This was probably an oversight, for the new law of October, 1777, recruiting the Virginia regiments, discharges all Quakers and Menonists taken by draft from personal service, but provides that a number of substitutes, equal to the number thus discharged, be secured an… | |
| 13 May 2008 | …to the peculiar views of the Quakers. I have not found any mention of the Society whatever in the South Carolina laws. In the case of Georgia, Quakers report to the North Carolina Yearly Meeting that under the laws of the State, passed in 1777 and 1778, they were exempted from military service if properly reported. In 1775 they complain that they “have been misrepresented in their conduct respecting… | |
| 13 May 2008 | …t to Congress. This body resolved at once to arrest persons who were notoriously inimical to American freedom, and directed that the records and papers of the Meetings for Sufferings in the several States be secured and transmitted to Congress. In September, 1777, twenty Quakers of Philadelphia were arrested by the Council of Pennsylvania on the charge of having given information to the British, and seventeen of them were hurried down to Winchester,… | |
| 13 May 2008 | …k how much of the religious and how much of the economic element was present here? This action was unfortunate. The result was to hasten the decline of the money and to throw the influence of the Society on the side of the British Government. In 1776 North Carolina Quakers declined to vote for delegates to attend the convention, but left Friends to take the paper bills or not. In 1778 they were in doubt whether they were able “to pay… | |
| 13 May 2008 | …fered from them in regard to the method that should be employed to attain the end. Their property was sometimes seized for the commissariat, and Friends were sometimes arrested on the charge of being unfriendly to the American cause. In August, 1777; certain papers containing a set of questions relating to the American Army, and some other notes that might assist the English, were found on Staten Island,… | |
| 13 May 2008 | …dissenting ministers, the same legal exemption as had always been granted to the clergymen of the Church of England. This is the first step in the movement which led up to the sixteenth section of the Virginia Bill of Rights. The act of May, 1776, seems to have been a sort of continuation of the act of 1766. It required Quakers and Menonists to be enlisted in the militia, but exempted them from attending musters. The act o… | |
| 13 May 2008 | …May, 1776, seems to have been a sort of continuation of the act of 1766. It required Quakers and Menonists to be enlisted in the militia, but exempted them from attending musters. The act of May, 1777, went backward. It makes no exception in their favor in regard to enrollment, mustering or drafting. This was probably an oversight, for the new law of October, 1777, recruitin… | |
| 13 May 2008 | …1798. In the gloomy aspect of affairs which greeted them at the beginning of the struggle, Friends were induced to appoint representatives from New England, Virginia and North Carolina to attend the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1776 to consult on the condition of their affairs, and this course was followed during the most of the war. The war brought much distress and suffering to Friends. In this extremity the noble character of the creed of Fri… | |
| 13 May 2008 | …of Georgia, Quakers report to the North Carolina Yearly Meeting that under the laws of the State, passed in 1777 and 1778, they were exempted from military service if properly reported. In 1775 they complain that they “have been misrepresented in their conduct respecting the said contest,” and in 1780 complain of being “oppressed by the violent behavior of the militia of these p… | |
| 13 May 2008 | …April, 1778. After the beginning of the Revolution the first matter in Virginia that related in any way to the Quakers was the first ordinance of Convention of July, 1775, which exempted “all clergymen and dissenting ministers” from serving in the militia. But no dissenting minister could avail himself of this privilege unless he had been “duly licensed by the general court,… | |
| 12 December 2012 | …es that had been illegally imposed by Governor Andros: This act of resistence has been called “the foundation of American Democracy,” and was the beginning of a series of events which eighty-eight years later culminated in the Revolutionary War. The act of opposition is commemorated in the seal of the town of Ipswich, which bears the motto, “The Birthplace of American Independence… | |
| 10 September 2012 | …of property. To Miss Anthony’s plea it is objected, somewhat lamely, that the property of minors, aliens, and idiots is taxed, although they are not voters. Minors, aliens, idiots, and insane persons were taxed without representation in 1776, but that did not seem to our forefathers a sufficient reason why sane adults should be taxed in the same way, and they fought the war of the Revolution upon that argument. It is not likely that Miss Anthony will get… | |
| 10 September 2012 | …state demands that the citizen thus illegally denies her rights, shall in addition be the state’s accomplice in this unconstitutional act by making out a list upon which taxes may be levied, this is heaping injury upon tyranny. In the spirit of 1776 Dr. Shaw declined to be a party to an act which violated the National Constitution. She returned the document without making out the list. “But in declining t… | |
| 9 February 2007 | …more patriotism and heroism.” In the secular American religion of patriotism, this is high blasphemy. Concord is where “the shot heard ’round the world” was fired in 1775. But Thoreau has become very skeptical of such patriotic stories as these. On 5 February 1852, he suggests: “Read the Eng… | |
| 9 April 2012 | …to recognize as having the right to levy taxes, in that said parties were never elected by the people as representatives, and therefore by their affecting to levy taxes they violate the first principles of American liberty, baptized in blood in 1776, and hallowed by the memories of ages, which teach us that taxation, to be legal, must be accompanied by representation, without which it is robbery, and should be resisted by good citizens under the motto of “millio… | |
| 5 August 2011 | …mo., 1778. by Nicholas Waln, Clerk. Petitions like this didn’t always have the hoped-for effect, and sometimes tended to inflame resentment against the Quakers. In 1775, John Pemberton sent a similar letter to the Pennsylvania Assembly in response to a proposed militia act, explaining Quaker pacifism and the history of tolerance of conscientious principles in Pennsylvania, and no… | |
| 2 October 2011 | …lso be found in the book American Quaker War Tax Resistance. To the Monthly Meeting of Friends, held at Long Plain, for Sandwich, the 2d day of the 10th mo., 1777. Dear Friends — We being under appointment, by last Yearly Meeting, to visit your Me… | |
| 1 September 2011 | …payment of an equivalent, as the purchase of a religious right, not the purpose to which it may be applied, to which we conscientiously object. It is worthy of special notice, that from the first settlement of the colony until the year 1775, about twenty years after the members of our Society had chiefly withdrawn from the legislature, there never was a compulsive militia law enacted in Pennsylvania. At a previous date, it was declared, in a preamble to… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …ty Poles’ and the soldiers (light horsemen) cut them down. I saw no illusion in your address to this fact, and if father were correct, this addition to your paper would substantially strengthen it. Father was born in Tinicum, March, 1777, consequently he was 22 years old when the occurrences of 1798–99 took place. He said his first vote was for Jefferson for President.” From an ex… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …t is excelled by few, if any, public house outside the large cities, and the accommodations are of the best. It is frequently alleged Lafayette put up at the Sun tavern, while recovering from the wound received at Brandywine, 1777, but this is an error. He occupied the house lately owned by Ambrose Rauch, on Main street, torn down 1872. The Marquis was driven in a carriage from Bristol, on the Delawa… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …s way all over the country. It was settled as early as 1685. It is rich in Revolutionary incidents, and, within its limits, some important movements were made by the two opposing armies in Fall of 1777 and Winter of 1777–78. It is cut by the North Pennsylvania railroad and is twelve miles from Philadelphia. Mather’s mill is in Whitemarsh township, Montgomery cou… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …ountry. “Camp Hill” is an elevation in Whitemarsh township, Montgomery county. Pa., and so named because a portion of the Continental Army occupied it during the Fall, 1777, in the operations following the occupation of Philadelphia by the British. It lies on the left of the North Pennsylvania Railroad below Fort Washington Station, the next station below it being known a… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …orthampton, and named after General Anthony Wayne. The original area was 1300 square miles. Nazareth, a village of a few hundred inhabitants, in Northampton county, ten miles from Bethlehem, was founded by the Moravians, 1775. The first house erected was a spacious stone mansion for the residence of Count Zingendorf. The building was converted into a school, 1785, and, from that time, known as “… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …nd is still in operation. During the Revolutionary War Bethlehem was often visited by American troops, and upon more than one occasion the brethren were sufferers from military exactions. On the retreat of Washington through New Jersey, December, 1776, Lee’s divison, under the command of General Sullivan, after crossing the Delaware, came to this place, where it encamped on the 17th, and La… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …men, who had already reached more than man’s allotted years. Daniel, the younger of the two, was born at “Boggy Creek,” May, 1782. When the contest between Great Britain and her American Colonies came on, 1776, John Fries espoused the cause of his country, and became an active patriot. He was already enrolled in the militia and had command of a company. We are not able to say at what period he was first called into service… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …igrated from Switzerland between 1750 and 1760, and settled in Milford township. The father’s name we do not know, but his wife’s was Ann, who was born 1722, died 1775, and was buried at the Trumbauersville church. Henry, one of the sons, made powder for the Penna. Committee of Safety, 1776… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …ies, January 11, 1757, and educated at Columbia College, New York. While a student he organized an artillery company of his fellow students, and took an active part at the battle of Long Island. In January, 1777, he became Washington’s Private Secretary and remained with him until April, 1781. He married a daughter of Philip Schuler, 1780… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …from military exactions. On the retreat of Washington through New Jersey, December, 1776, Lee’s divison, under the command of General Sullivan, after crossing the Delaware, came to this place, where it encamped on the 17th, and La Fayette spent some time there to recover from the wound received at Brandywine. In the spring of 1778, the single Sisters presented… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …d, and settled in Wrightstown among the first settlers. He was commissioned captain in the 4th Pennsylvania regiment, commanded by Col. Anthony Wayne, January 5, 1776; serving in the campaign in Canada of that year, returning home on the recruiting service in December. He shortly afterward resigned his commission, bec… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …Philadelphia the 25th of December. He shortly went to Easton where he was occupied in a store, taught school a year; then studied law, and was admitted to the bar, 1777. He took an active part in the Revolution, and was Secretary of the County Committee of Safety from 1776 to 1778; was appointed a justice of the peace,… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …Fries espoused the cause of his country, and became an active patriot. He was already enrolled in the militia and had command of a company. We are not able to say at what period he was first called into service, but we know he was on active duty 1777, for, in the Fall of that year, his company being of the militia was called out from Bucks county to re-enforce the Continental Army, and was with Washington at White Marsh and Camp Hill.20… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …December. He shortly afterward resigned his commission, because of some unjust treatment by Colonel Wayne, but continued his activity in the cause of the Colonies. He was commissioned a Sub-Lieutenant of Bucks county, March 22, 1777; a Brigadiere General of the State, January 9, 1778, before he was 23, taking the field shortly afterward. During that Winter and Spring he had comman… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …725 to 1813, is situated in a delightful country, six miles from the Delaware and twenty-five from Philadelphia. The population is about 1500. It was to this place Washington brought the captured Hessians from Trenton, December 26, 1776. Bristol is on the west bank of the Delaware, opposite Burlington, N.J., twenty miles above Philadelphia. It was made the… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …7, the house in which they worshipped being built as early as 1742. Millarstown, now called Macungie, signifying “the feeding place of bears,” and laid out by Peter Millar about 1776, is situated at the foot of South Mountain on the East Penn. railroad, nine miles from Allentown. It was incorporated in… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …1778, the single Sisters presented to Count Pulaski an elegant embroidered banner, which was borne at the head of his regiment until he fell at Savannah, 1779. Bethlehem was also visited by the Baron De Kalb, September, 1777. Hospitals were established there for the sick and wounded of the army, and it was also made a depot for provisions; and, in fact, during the whole war it was an important point in military operations.… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …1768. For sometime he was register of deeds, Essex county, and in 1766 was confirmed by Gov. Bernard, lieutenant of militia; in 1775 was elected Colonel, and subsequently joined the Continental Army. In September, 1775, he was commissioned justice of the peace, and two months later, judge of the marit… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …1766 was confirmed by Gov. Bernard, lieutenant of militia; in 1775 was elected Colonel, and subsequently joined the Continental Army. In September, 1775, he was commissioned justice of the peace, and two months later, judge of the maritine court for the counties of Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex. He was appointed by Washington Adjutant Gene… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …1730; became the seat of justice in 1734, and was incorporated, 1742. It was an important place in Revolutionary times. Congress repaired there in September, 1777, and thence removed to York. It is the seat of Franklin and Marshal College. Lancaster is in the heart of one of the very finest agricultural regions in the country, and for a long time e… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …1722, died 1775, and was buried at the Trumbauersville church. Henry, one of the sons, made powder for the Penna. Committee of Safety, 1776, at a mill on Swamp creek. Another son, John Jacob, was probably the “Jacob Hoover” mentioned here. This was in 1859; the present owner we do not know.… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …. It was so named from Carlisle, in Cumberland county, England. In 1753 it contained but five dwellings. It was the seat of a government cavalry school for many years; the barracks being built in 1777 by the Hessians captured at Trenton were burnt down by Lee’s forces when they invaded the Cumberland Valley in June, 1863. Dickinson’s College, chartered by the Legislat… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …commanded by Col. Anthony Wayne, January 5, 1776; serving in the campaign in Canada of that year, returning home on the recruiting service in December. He shortly afterward resigned his commission, because of some unjust treatment by Colonel Wayne, but continued his activity in the cause of the Colonies. He was commissioned a Sub-Lieutenant of… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …bar, 1777. He took an active part in the Revolution, and was Secretary of the County Committee of Safety from 1776 to 1778; was appointed a justice of the peace, 1777, and military storekeeper at Easton, March 11, 1778. He was sheriff of the county from 1781 to 1784; member of the Assembly f… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …N.C., 1768; studied law and was admitted to the bar, 1770. He was appointed to the Supreme Court of the State, 1777, and Attorney General, 1779. In 1790 Washington appointed him one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, and he held that… | |
| Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 2 February 1838 | …se people had been opposed to their own government, and thrown every obstacle in its way. He could show that they had not been patriots, but on the contrary, enemies of their country, prior to the French Canadian War and during the revolution of 1774–5–6. At both periods these people had shown great enmity to their own government. They not only stood out against the demands of the governor for men and money, but they did all they possibly could to induce oth… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …s occupied in a store, taught school a year; then studied law, and was admitted to the bar, 1777. He took an active part in the Revolution, and was Secretary of the County Committee of Safety from 1776 to 1778; was appointed a justice of the peace, 1777, and military storekeeper at Easton, March 11, 1778. He was sheriff of the count… | |
| 17 December 2010 | …sition which they had assumed, she said, was no more than that of their ancestors one hundred years ago, and she proceeded to show that the very resolutions which she submitted were based on the declaration made by their ancestors in Congress in 1774 and 1775. …[Miss Susan B. Anthony] then supplemented the list furnished by Mrs. Blake, of interesting ladies who declined any advances by the Government in the… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …rly as 1685. It is rich in Revolutionary incidents, and, within its limits, some important movements were made by the two opposing armies in Fall of 1777 and Winter of 1777–78. It is cut by the North Pennsylvania railroad and is twelve miles from Philadelphia. Mather’s mill is in Whitemarsh township, Montgomery county, near the intersection of the Bethlehem and… | |
| 21 May 2008 | …sections of the colony, and Pennsylvania fell in with the sentiments of the other colonies. Upon this the Quakers made an outcry against war taxes, which placed them in such contradiction with themselves as to increase their discredit. During the occupation of Philadelphia by the English, proofs were obtained of the services rendered to them by the Quakers; some of these were caught acting as spies, and, as it has been thus far the mist… | |
| 27 August 2011 | …27 August 2011 A book containing the handwritten minutes of the men’s portion of the Chesterfield [New Jersey] Monthly Meeting from 1774 to 1786 is on-line, and contains a lot of good data about how meetings dealt with those members who weren’t going along with the official testimony against paying militia exemption fines. Here are some exa… | |
| 27 May 2008 | …clean rye, one stack of do., forty bushels of corn, two stacks of oats, and one of hay, 187 7 0 Within one of our Monthly Meetings alone has been taken, since the year 1777, exclusive of the late large tax and diverse preceding demands, not yet taken account of by us, from about one hundred and twenty families, property to the amount of £6,108 19… | |
| Excerpts from H.D. Thoreau’s journals (1838-1840) | …Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1788) Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the Aeneid (1770) Memoirs of My Life (… | |
| 20 February 2008 | …s, Jewish Zealots resisted the poll tax of the Roman occupiers of Palestine. In the mid-18th Century many Quakers refused to pay taxes to finance the French and Indian War. In the 1760s and 70’s, American protests at taxation without representation led to tax boycotts, which ultimately triggered the American War of Independence. William Wilberforce used tax boycott to increase pre… | |
| 26 December 2012 | …pirit” of resistance but were “not a little pleas’d to hear that McIntosh has the Credit of the Whole Affair.”3… “The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, 1763–1776,” by Arthur Meier Schlesinger; Vol. ⅬⅩⅩⅧ, Whole Number 182, of “Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law,” edited by the faculty of politic… | |
| 7 September 2011 | …between groups of Indians, Presbyterian settlers, the crown-aligned Anglican absentee proprietaries, and Quakers in pre-revolutionary Pennsylvania. I read it largely to give me some more context as to what was going on in Pennsylvania in the 1750–1780 period that was so important to the development of American Quaker war tax resistance. It was an interesting read, though a depressing one. Pennsylvania seems at the time to have been one massacre afte… | |
| 22 October 2007 | …f, as Job Scott informs us, that it must be clearly against paying taxes which are specially for war; and this principle became incorporated in the discipline of the Society. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting makes record accordingly, at different times from 1755 to 1790, and offenders were considered disownable. Ohio Yearly Meeting, afterwards established, has similarly recorded its judgment and decision. This subject of taxes occupied much time in our m… | |
| 26 October 2007 | …de for raising money to defray the expenses of war, by means of a duty laid on imported articles of almost every kind. This duty, I believed, was instead of taxing the inhabitants, as had been done some time before. I had felt myself restrained, for thirty or forty years, from paying such taxes; the proceeds whereof were applied, in great measure, to defray expenses relating to war: and, as herein before-mentioned, my refusal was from a tender conscientious… | |
| 12 May 2008 | …de for raising money to defray the expenses of war, by means of a duty laid on imported articles of almost every kind. This duty, I believed, was instead of taxing the inhabitants, as had been done some time before. I had felt myself restrained, for thirty or forty years, from paying such taxes; the proceeds whereof were applied, in great measure, to defray expenses relating to war: and, as herein before-mentioned, my refusal was from a tender conscientious… | |
| 24 April 2008 | …e was a tendency to react in repulsion to the compromises of politics by retreating from public life: There was growing up in the Society a belief, which was vastly strengthened by the military experiences of the years between 1740 and 1780, that public life was unfavorable to the quiet Divine communion which called for inwardness, not outwardness, and which was the basic principle of Quakerism.… [T]he Yearly Meeting was… | |
| 5 March 2012 | …further into manufactures. As it turned out, the British stubbornness in maintaining the tea tax did not work out too well for them. On the same day this debate was taking place, British soldiers fired into a group of colonists, killing five, in what became known as the Boston Massacre. Over the next five years, the American independence movement would move in the direction of an armed rebellion.… | |
| 23 May 2008 | …ce of her strength and her weakness. More such stories come from Extracts from the Journal of Elizabeth Drinker from 1759 to 1807, A.D.: Sept. 14 [1779] — This morning… | |
| Excerpts from Thoreau’s juvenilia | …From a September 1835 exercise on the subject of “[t]he comparative moral policy of severe and mild punishments.” William Blackstone (1723–1780) The fact that he was no party man, the leader of no sect, but equally to be feared by the foes of freedom and religion every where, explains the circumstanc… | |
| Excerpts from H.D. Thoreau’s journals (1852) | …t” in W.H. Sleeman’s Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official (1844). “Lord” Timothy Dexter (1748–1806) was a marvelous American eccentric. In Life Without Principle, Thoreau recounts this story and adds: “I may add that… | |
| Excerpts from H.D. Thoreau’s journals (1852) | …1843. The Washington Monument was still under-construction. “Lord” Timothy Dexter (1748–1806) was a marvelous American eccentric. See Genesis 11:1–8… | |
| 12 May 2008 | …These excerpts can also be found in the book American Quaker War Tax Resistance. Joshua Evans (1731–1798) left a record in his journal of his war tax resistance around the time of the American Revolution, which led him eventually to avoid all imported goods so as not to pay an excise tax which would go to militar… | |
| 1 February 2011 | …1 February 2011 In 1802, William Matthews (1747–1816) compiled a book called The Recorder: Being a Collection of Tracts and Disquisitions, Chiefly Relative to the Modern State and Principles of the People Called Quakers in order, as he put it, “to arrange and record, under the foregoing title,… | |
| Excerpts from H.D. Thoreau’s journals (1853) | …ailed. It is no longer so, according to his editor. Nobody legislates for me, for the way would be not to legislate at all. Commons Gilbert White (1720–1793), British naturalist 3 April 1853 The last two Tribunes I have not looked at… | |
| 4 May 2008 | …These excerpts can also be found in the book American Quaker War Tax Resistance. William Fordyce Mavor (1758–1837), in his Historical Account of the Most Celebrated Voyages, Travels, and Discoveries from the Time of Columbus to the Present Period (1797, pages 300–3) s… | |
| 1 February 2010 | …Senate, and was elected to Congress in 1812, serving two terms. The late Mrs. John Fox, of Doylestown, was his niece, daughter of his Brother Gilbert. Newtown, the county seat of Bucks county from 1725 to 1813, is situated in a delightful country, six miles from the Delaware and twenty-five from Philadelphia. The population is about 1500. It was to this place Washington brought the captured… | |
| “Letter to the Liberals” by Leo Tolstoy | …the seventeenth century. He was eventually defeated and captured, and was executed in Moscow in 1671. — Translator Pugatchef headed the most formidable Russian insurrection of the eighteenth century. He was executed in Moscow in 1775. — Translator The series of reforms, including the abolition of serfdom, which followed the Crimean War and the dea… | |
| We Won’t Pay! | …1672 letter to the governor of New York explaining why the writers were refusing to pay defense requisitions. “Sufferings in Jamaica” A chronicle of what happened to Jamaican Quakers who refused war requisitions in the 18th century, from Joseph Besse’s A Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers, for the Testimony of a Good Conscience (1753… | |
| 31 October 2012 | …w that we have money and came in here and told us: ‘From this moment you must pay us taxes’,” Kukali’s son Issam said. The Beit Sahour civil disobedience campaign sparked international protests. The residents adopted the slogan of the 18th Century American revolution against British colonial rule: “No taxation without representation”. Less than a month ago Israeli Defence Minist… | |
| 23 May 2008 | …ng goods to make up the tax. This comes from Caroline Hazard’s Thomas Hazard son of Rob’t, call’d College Tom: A Study of Life in Narragansett in the ⅩⅧth Century: [Tom Hazard’s] principles of non-resistance… were very firm; there is no indication that he took any part in the struggle,… | |
| 16 May 2008 | …16 May 2008 I finally tracked down a copy of a rare tract published around 1715 with the typically-loquacious 18th century title of TRIBUTETOCÆSAR, How paid by the Beſt Chriſtians,And to what Purpoſe.WITH Some Remarks on the late vigorous Expedition againſt CANADA.… | |
| 11 January 2005 | …Britons to also stop using tobacco, coffee, and cotton clothing (much of it woven in the mills of staunchly antislavery Manchester). Nonetheless, a boycott of sugar was potentially a powerful weapon because the country consumed so much of it. In the eighteenth century, sugar was Britain’s largest import.… ¶ Everyone could understand the logic of the sugar boycott, even children.… Quietly but subversively, the boycott added a new dimension to British… | |
| 9 August 2005 | …legally enslaved to him, most of whom were auctioned off on Jefferson’s death to pay his debts. The New York Times Book Review last Sunday highlighted the little-known examples of eighteenth century American slave holders, like Robert Carter, who did what Jefferson insisted he couldn’t do — they emancipated the people they held in slavery. One author wonders why we have heard so little of these p… | |
| 4 April 2008 | …1672 letter to the governor of New York explaining why the writers were refusing to pay defense requisitions. “Sufferings in Jamaica” A chronicle of what happened to Jamaican Quakers who refused war requisitions in the 18th century, from Joseph Besse’s A Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers, for the Testimony of a Good Conscience (1753… | |
| Excerpts from H.D. Thoreau’s journals (1854) | …force of the State, if need be, is at the service of a slaveholder, to enable him to carry back a slave, not a soldier is offered to save a citizen of Massachusetts from being kidnapped. Is this what all these arms, all this “training,” has been for these seventy-eight years past? What is wanted is men of principle, who recognize a higher law than the decision of the majority. The marines and the militia whose bodies were used lately were not men of sense nor of pr… | |
| 17 September 2005 | …dence of the general sense of mankind, as to the practical necessity there is that all men’s important contracts, especially those of a permanent nature, should be both written and signed, the following facts are pertinent. For nearly two hundred years — that is, since 1677 — there has been on the statute book of England, and the same, in substance, if not precisely in letter, has been re-enacted, and is now in force, in nearly or quite all… | |
| 13 December 2012 | …r the Friends’ Intelligencer advised readers how to structure their estates and bequests so as to avoid the “United States ‘war tax’.” French farmers in the 17th and 18th centuries used (and shared among themselves) every legal trick they could discover (and several less legal ones besides) to reduce or… | |
| 30 May 2008 | …today’s and tomorrow’s entries, as I’ll be off the grid for a few days. In Lillian Schlissel’s Conscience in America: A documentary history of conscientious objection in America, 1757–1967 (1968) is an excerpt from a letter to the Pennsylvania Assembly from 1795 that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere, and the author of which re… | |
| Excerpts from H.D. Thoreau’s journals (1852) | …) Samuel Ayer (1654–1708) Joseph Bartlett’s narrative of captivity can be found as an appendix to Sketch of the History of Newbury, Newburyport, and West Newbury, from 1635–1845 (1845) by Joshua Coffin René Hertel de Chambly (1675–1708) A brother of… | |
| 24 April 2008 | …We Won’t Pay!: A Tax Resistance Reader is complete and I’ve finished patting myself on the back for a job well done, I’ve started to work on a spin-off project: a reader that concentrates on war tax resistance by American Quakers from the 17th through the 19th century. I planned to take the existing sections of this material from We Won’t Pay! and add a littl… | |
| 12 November 2005 | …Bush took office (and he did take it), his government has borrowed $1.05 trillion. That is to say, over one thousand billion. Remember how many a billion is? $1.05 trillion is more than the total borrowed by every administration between 1776 and 2000 ($1.01 trillion). The mind implodes. Half of this nation’s debt in 224 years, the other half since Junior Bush got the top job. Remember how far away the sun is? We have spent enough d… | |
| 1 March 2013 | …to military tax payment on the part of CFS employees will be accepted as an appropriate stance, in keeping with the Friends Peace Testimony established and upheld by Quakers since its original expression in 1660.” At present, the letter is in the hands of the IRS. Regardless of the outcome, the school… | |
| 1 December 2009 | …9 Bibliography The following excerpt from John Thomas Ball’s The Reformed Church of Ireland (1537–1886) concerns resistance to mandatory tithes by Irish Catholics in the 1830s. The value of the tithes levied at this time in Ireland may be reckoned at about six hundr… |