I got the itch the other day to get a birds’-eye historical overview of the war tax resistance movements in America. Here is what I came up with:
- resistance by Quaker-dominated colonial assemblies to requisitions for fortifications and military supplies
- resistance by individual Quakers to militia exemption taxes or bounty taxes
- resistance by individual Quakers to war taxes, including mixed taxes with a military component
- resistance to use of the Continental currency
- Rogerene Quaker resistance of militia taxes
- Restored Israel of Yahweh sect
- the “new monastic” movement
- 19th century non-sectarian Christian pacifists
- World War Ⅰ “bond shirkers” (included Mennonites, political radicals, pacifists, and others)
- the Catholic Worker movement
- the Concord circle (Alcott, Lane, Thoreau)
- Secular anarchist and other “lone wolf” war tax resisters
- Peacemakers
- the Committee for Non-Violent Action
- National War Tax Resistance
- the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
Here is the same diagram with some additional information about the major wars that were at issue in some of these campaigns: