Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Quakers →
17th century Quakers
The folks at the NWTRCC national office have kindly allowed me to borrow a copy of Barbara Andrews’s Tax Resistance in American History.
This unpublished study, which Andrews submitted as her senior project while studying for a Bachelor of Arts degree from Goddard College, is — as far as I can tell — the only work of its kind.
Andrews drew on extensive research, interviews with living tax resisters, and the archives of the Swarthmore Peace Collection to come up with an unsurpassed history of tax resistance in the United States (and in those colonies that would become the United States).
My “Tax Resistance Reader” project continues to balloon (what I originally imagined as a 300–400 page book is now starting to look like it will weigh in closer to 600 pages).
Thanks to Andrews’s study, I have been able to locate some more interesting bits.
Here’s Benjamin Fletcher, who had temporarily taken over the governorship of Pennsylvania from William Penn, trying to convince the Quaker assembly of Philadelphia in that they should pony up some money for military defense:
I have sundry things to offer to your Consideraton, but shall only insist upon two at present.
1st.
You know that government, if it be not supported, becomes precarious, void, and ends in nothing.
2nd.
Gentlemen, here is a letter directed to me as governor of this province, from her Majesty, whereof you shall have a copy.
The province of New York has been a long time burdened with a troublesome war, (if it may be called a war, for indeed the French and Indians in Canada are a pitiful enemy, if they could be brought to fight fair, but the wood, swamps and bushes gives them the opportunity of vexing us.)
You will see by this letter their Majesties’ commands, and what is expected from you towards the assistance of that province.
Gentlemen, if there be any amongst you that scruple the giving of money to support war, there are a great many other charges in that government, for the support thereof, as officers salaries and other charges, that amount to a considerable sum: Your money shall be converted to these uses, and shall not be dipped in blood.
The money raised there for the support of the government shall be employed for the defense of the frontiers which do give you protection.
I would have you consider the walls about your gardens and orchards; your doors and locks of your houses; mastiff dogs and such other things as you make use of to defend your goods and property against thieves and robbers are the same courses that their Majesties take for their forts, garrisons and soldiers, etc. to secure their kingdoms and provinces, and you as well as the rest of their subjects.
I speak the more to this matter because I have their Majesties’ command, which lies now here before you.
Now that 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 .
I planned to take the existing sections of this material from We Won’t Pay! and add a little more context and a handful of additional works.
But the more I researched, the more I found, and so this is turning out to be a bigger project than I’d anticipated.
I’ll share some of what I find here on The Picket Line as I uncover it.
Today, some excerpts from Isaac Sharpless’s book about the Pennsylvania colony: A Quaker Experiment in Government.
There was a difficult balancing act in Pennsylvania, where Quakers for the first time held political power and were able to try to turn their ethical principles into guidelines for social organization.
The English government, under which the colony was founded, was sporadically tolerant of and persecutory towards the Quakers — and so the colony felt the need to mollify the mother country and assure it of their loyalty and harmlessness.
From time to time, the demands of the crown would conflict with Quaker principles.
In , a requisition was made on Pennsylvania for eighty men with officers for the defense of New York.
The Council advised calling together the Assembly, but not until harvest was over.
The Assembly united with the Council in refusing the bald request, reminding the Governor of Fletcher’s promise that the last appropriation should not “be dipped in blood,” but should be used “to feed the hungry and clothe the naked” Indians, and suggested the such of it as had not been used as promised should go towards the present emergency.
The Council finally offered two bills, one to make an appropriation, and one to demand a return to Penn’s Frame of Government, which was held in abeyance since his return to power.
As the Governor had to take both or neither he dissolved the Assembly.
he was willing to make the required concession, and urged that the money was needed in New York “for food and raiment to be given to those nations of Indians that have lately suffered extremely by the French, which is a fair opportunity for you, that for conscience cannot contribute to war, to raise money for that occasion, be it under the color of support of government or relief of those Indians or what else you may call it.”
The Assembly made the necessary vote and the Constitution of was obtained in payment.
The next time the pacific principles of the Assembly were tried was in , when the English Government asked for £350 for the purpose of erecting forts on the frontiers of New York on the plea that they were for the general defense.
Penn, who was then in the Province, faithfully observed his promise “to transmit,” but declined to give any advice to the Assembly.
The members were evidently greatly agitated, and repeatedly asked copies of his speech, which was in fact only the King’s letter.
After some fencing two reports appeared.
One, from the Pennsylvania delegates, urged their poverty, owing to taxes and quit-rents, also the lack of contributions of other colonies, but added plainly, “We desire the Proprietor would candidly represent our conditions to the King, and assure him of our readiness (according to our abilities) to acquiesce with and answer his commands so far as our religious persuasions shall permit, as becomes loyal and faithful subjects so to do.”
The other answer came from the Delaware portion of the Assembly, excusing themselves because they had no forts of their own.
When the Assembly met, a month later, Penn again referred to the King’s letter, but nothing was done, and the matter was not pressed.
Governor Evans made several attempts to establish a militia, but the Assembly refused any sanction, and the voluntary organizations were failures.
Lewis Morris, a colonial official in New Jersey and New York, noted that Quakers outside of Pennsylvania at this time, who were being subjected to military taxes, were refusing to pay and having their property seized by tax collectors — “generally above ten times the value, which, when they came to expose to sale, nobody would buy, so that there is or lately was a house at Burlington, filled with demonstrations of the obstinacy of the Quakers, there was boots, hats, shoes, clothes, dishes, plows, knives, earthenware, with many other things and these distresses amount, as is said, to above 1,000£ a year, almost enough to defray the charges of the government without any other way.”
Sharpless again:
The military question came up in in a more serious form.
An order came from the Queen to the various colonies to furnish quotas of men at their own expense towards an army to invade Canada.
New York was to supply 800, Connecticut 350, Jersey 200, and Pennsylvania 150. In transmitting the order Governor Gookin, who evidently anticipated difficulty, suggested that the total charge would be about £4,000. He says, “Perhaps it may seem difficult to raise such a number of men in a country where most of the inhabitants are of such principles as will not allow them the use of arms; but if you will raise the sum for the support of government, I don’t doubt getting the number of men desired whose principles will allow the use of arms.”
This was too manifest an evasion for the Assembly to adopt.
Its first answer was to send in a bill of grievances.
The opportunity was too good to be lost, and David Lloyd, then Speaker, made the most of it.
In the meantime the Quaker members of the Council met some of their co-religionists of the Assembly “and there debated their opinions freely and unanimously to those of the House, that notwithstanding their profession and principles would not by any means allow them to bear arms, yet it was their duty to support the government of their sovereign, the Queen, and to contribute out of their estates according to the exigencies of her public affairs, and therefore they might and ought to present the Queen with a proper sum of money.”
The Assembly the next day sent an address to the Governor which said, “Though we cannot for conscience’ sake comply with the furnishing a supply for such a defense as thou proposest, yet in point of gratitude of the Queen for her great and many favors to us we have resolved to raise a present of £500 which we humbly hope she will be pleased to accept, etc., etc.”
To this the Governor replied that he would not sign the bill.
If the Assembly would not hire men to fight, there was no scruple which would prevent a more liberal subscription to the Queen’s needs.
The Assembly was immovable, and asked to be allowed to adjourn, as harvest time was approaching.
The Governor refused consent, when the House abruptly terminated the whole matter.
Resolved, N.C.D., That this House cannot agree to the Governor’s proposal, directly or indirectly, for the expedition to Canada, for the reasons formerly given.
Resolved, N.C.D., That the House do continue their resolution of raising £500 as a present for the Queen, and do intend to prepare a bill for that purpose at their next meeting on , and not before.
The House then adjourned without waiting for the Governor’s consent.
The Governor sadly admitted that nothing could be done with such an Assembly, and gave a rather facetious but truthful account in a letter to London, two months later.
“The Queen having honored me with her commands that this Province should furnish out 150 men for its expedition against Canada, I called an Assembly and demanded £4,000; they being all Quakers, after much delay resolved, N.C, that it was contrary to their religious principles to hire men to kill one another.
I told some of them the Queen did not hire men to kill one another, but to destroy her enemies.
One of them answered the Assembly understood English.
After I had tried all ways to bring them to reason they again resolved, N.C, that they could not directly or indirectly raise money for an expedition to Canada, but they had voted the Queen £500 as a token of their respect, etc., and that the money should be put into a safe hand till they were satisfied from England it should not be employed for the use of war.
I told them the Queen did not want such a sum, but being a pious and good woman perhaps she might give it to the clergy sent hither for the propagation of the Gospel; one of them answered that was worse than the other, on which arose a debate in the Assembly whether they should give money or not, since it might be employed for the use of war, or against their future establishment, and after much wise debate it was carried in the affirmative by one voice only.
Their number is 26 [Eight from each county and two from Philadelphia].
They are entirely governed by their speaker, one David Lloyd.”
The service performed by “one David Lloyd” to the integrity of the Quaker testimony against war is strikingly revealed in this letter.
The Assembly, more emphatically than the official records show, took effective measures to maintain their position with perfect consistency.
The issue came up again :
In a… request was made by the government, and in response £2,000 was voted for the Queen’s use.
This money never aided any military expedition, but was appropriated by a succeeding Governor to his own use, and the fact was used as an argument in against similar grants.
“We did not see it,” Isaac Norris says, in , “to be inconsistent with our principles to give the Queen money notwithstanding any use she might put it to, that not being our part but hers.”
This dodge of granting money “for the Queen’s use” when military requisitions were requested, as a way of avoiding making direct military expenditures, became a habit, but its dodgy nature was pretty clear.
This would come back to bite Quakers later, when they would be reminded how flexible their principles could be.
[B]eginning with , the gradual alienation of the Indian tribes made a disturbed frontier ready to be dangerous at the first outbreak of war, and new conditions prevailed.
Hitherto the relation of the Friends to these inevitable military solicitations had been largely that of passivity.
They would not interfere with the movements of those who desired to form military companies.
If the Governor chose to engage in the arming and drilling of voluntary militia, he had his commission from the Proprietors, and they from the Charter of Charles Ⅱ.
It was no matter for the Assembly.
The meeting organizations would endeavor to keep all Quakers from any participation in these un-Friendly proceedings, and the Quaker Assemblymen had their own consciences to answer to, as well as their ecclesiastical authorities, if they violated pacific principles.
When it came to voting money in lieu of personal service, the legislators had a difficult road to follow.
If the government needed aid, it was their duty, in common with the other colonies, to supply it.
Even though the need was the direct result of war, as nearly all national taxes are, they were ready to assume their share of the burden.
Caesar must have his dues as well as God, and a call for money, except when coupled directly with a proposition to use it for military attack or defense, was generally responded to, after its potency as an agent in procuring a little more liberty was exhausted.
They would not vote money for an expedition to Canada or to erect forts, but they would for “the King’s use,” using all possible securities to have it appropriated to something else than war expenses.
The responsibility of expenditure rested on the King.
There were legitimate expenses of government, and if these were so inextricably mingled with warlike outlay that the Assembly could not separate them, they would still support the Government.
It is easy to accuse them of inconsistency in the proceedings which follow.
It was a most unpleasant alternative thrust before honest men.
The responsibility of government was upon them as the honorable recipients of the popular votes.
Great principles, the greatest of all in their minds being freedom of conscience, were at stake.
Each call for troops or supplies they fondly hoped would be the last.
Their predecessors’ actions had secured the blessings of peace and liberty to Pennsylvania for sixty years, and if they were unreasonably stringent, their English enemies held over their heads the threat to drive them from power by the imposition of an oath.
Then the persecutions of themselves and their friends, which their forefathers had left England to avoid, might be meted out to them, and the Holy Experiment brought to an end.
Nor is it necessary to assume that their motives were entirely unselfish.
They had ruled the Province well, and were proficients in government.
Their leaders doubtless loved the power and influence they legitimately possessed, and they did not care to give it away unnecessarily.
They tried to find a middle ground between shutting their eyes to all questions of defense on the one side, and direct participation in war on the other.
This they sought by a refusal for themselves and their friends to do any service personally, and a further refusal to vote money except in a general way for the use of the government.
If any one comes to the conclusion that during the latter part of the period of sixteen years now under consideration the evasion was rather a bald one, it is exactly the conclusion the Quakers themselves came to, and they resigned their places as a consequence.
The iniquities of others over whom they had no control brought about a condition where Quaker principles would not work, and they refused to modify them in the vain attempt.
For a time rather weakly halting, when the crucial nature of the question became clear, and either place or principle had to be sacrificed, their decision was in favor of the sanctity of principles.
Entwined in the debates over military requisitions were power struggles and political battles between the Governor and the Assembly, between England and its colonies, and between poorer rural Pennsylvanians on the western frontier (who were more threatened both by hostile Indians and by taxes) and wealthier urban Quakers in the east (who held political power).
A voluntary company was… organized and supplied by private subscriptions.
This took away from their masters a number of indentured servants, whose time was thus lost, and in voting £3,000 for the King’s use the Assembly made it a condition that such servants such be discharged from the militia and no more enlisted.
The Governor refused to accept it, and in wrath wrote a letter to the Board of Trade not intended for home reading, berating the Quakers for disobedience, stating how they had neglected following his advice to withdraw themselves from the Assembly, but had rather increased their majority there.
He advised that they be refused permission to sit there in the future.
A copy of this letter was secured by the Assembly’s agent in England, and great was their indignation.
The disturbances culminated in an election riot in Philadelphia in in which both sides used force, the Quaker party having the best of it and electing Isaac Norris.
They re-elected their ticket, with the aid of the Germans, and controlled the Assembly by an overwhelming majority.
To show their loyalty they voted a considerable sum for the King’s use, but refused Governor Thomas any salary till he had given up his pretentious show of power and signed a number of bills to which he had objected.
After this he worked very harmoniously with them till .
the Governor asked them to aid New England in an attack on Cape Breton.
They told him they had no interest in the matter.
He called them together again in harvest time to ask them to join in an expedition against Louisburg.
A week later came word that Louisburg had surrendered, and the request was transferred to a call for aid in garrisoning the place, and in supplying provisions and powder.
The Assembly replied that the “peaceable principles professed by divers members of the present Assembly do not permit them to join in raising of men or providing arms and ammunition, yet we have ever held it our duty to render tribute to Cæsar.”
They therefore appropriated £4,000 for “bread, beef, pork, flour, wheat or other grain.”
The Governor was advised not to accept the grant, as provisions were not needed.
He replied that the “other grain” meant gunpowder, and so expended a large portion of the money, There is probably no evidence that the Assembly sanctioned this construction, though they never so far as appears made any protest.
Again in aid was asked of the Assembly towards an expedition against Canada.
After forcing the Governor to yield the point as to how the money should be raised, they appropriated £5,000 “for the King’s use.”
This “or other grain” anecdote comes from Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, which makes much of the flexible principles of Quaker politicians.
There seems to have been quite a folklore of Quaker hypocrisy at the time, frequently showing Quakers relying on the letter-of-the-law of their principles or the spirit-of-the-law depending on which would be most materially advantageous.
Again and again did successive Governors call for military appropriations.
As often did the Quaker Assembly express a willingness to comply provided the money was obtained by loans to be repaid in a term of years rather than by a tax.
The governors said their instructions prevented their sanction to this proceeding, and except when the necessity was urgent refused to permit the bill to be enacted into a law.
The Assembly frequently reminded the Governor that they were unable to vote any money for warlike purposes, and personally would contribute nothing in the way of service, but that they were loyal subjects of the King and acknowledged their obligations to aid in his government.
Had they granted regular aid, war or no war, their position would have been greatly strengthened, but being given “for the King’s use” in direct response to a call for military assistance, knowing perfectly how the money was to be expended, they cannot be excused from the charge of a certain amount of shiftiness.
The effect, however, was to save their fellow-members in the Province from compulsory military service, and from direct war taxes.
They thus shielded the consciences of sensitive Friends, preserved their charter from Court attack, broke down the worst evils of proprietary pretensions, and secured large additions of liberty.
Whether or not the partial sacrifice of principle, if so it was, was too high a price for these advantages, was differently decided in those days, and will be today.
An unbending course would but have hastened the inevitable crisis.
That they paid these taxes unwillingly and were generally recognized as true to their principles is evidenced by many statements of their opponents.
In the Council writes to the Governors of New York and Massachusetts asking for cannon for the voluntary military companies then forming through Benjamin Franklin’s influence, and says, “As our Assembly consists for the most part of Quakers principled against defense the inhabitants despair of their doing anything for our protection.”
Again later Thomas Penn writes on the same subject: “I observe the Assembly broke up without giving any assistance, which is what you must have expected.”
This belief that the Quakers in the Assembly would not do anything for the armed defense of the Province was general both in England and America.
Then came the French-and-Indian War:
In the Governor, at the instance of the Proprietors, who anticipated the French and Indian troubles on the western frontier, endeavored to induce the Assembly to pass a bill for compulsory military service for those not conscientious about bearing arms. He evidently did not expect much.
“As I am well acquainted with their religious scruples I never expected they would appropriate money for the purpose of war or warlike preparation, but thought they might have been brought to make a handsome grant for the King’s use, and have left the disposition of it to me, as they have done on other occasions of like nature,” he wrote to Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia.
“But,” he added, “I can see nothing to prevent this very fine Province, owing to the absurdity of its constitution and the principles of the governing part of its inhabitants, from being an easy prey to the attempts of the common enemy.”
This was after the Assembly had voted £10,000, but coupled the grant with conditions the Governor would not accept.
While they were debating the question Braddock came into the country as commander of the combined forces in an expedition against Fort DuQuesne.
Pressure came down strong and heavy on the Quaker Assembly.
Their own frontier was invaded.
Their own Indians, as a result of the wicked and foolish policy of their executive, were in league with the invaders.
All classes were excited.
To aid the great expedition which at one stroke was to break the French power and close the troubles was felt to be a duty.
Franklin diligently fanned the warlike spirit, procuring wagons for the transfer of army stores, and was extremely valuable to the expedition at some cost to himself.
The Governor wrote to Braddock telling him they had a Province of 300,000 people, provisions enough to supply an army of 100,000, and exports enough to keep 500 vessels employed.
They had no taxes, a revenue of £7,000 a year and £15,000 in bank, yet would neither establish a militia nor vote men money or provisions, notwithstanding he had earnestly labored with the Assembly, and he was ashamed of them.
He does not explain that they had repeatedly offered sums of money, but that he would not accept the conditions.
As Braddock himself admitted, Pennsylvania had supported him quite as liberally as Virginia.
This was partly done by private enterprise and partly by appropriations of the Assembly, to reward friendly Indians, to open a road to Ohio, and to provision the troops.
Braddock was defeated.
The Indians were let loose on the frontiers.
Daily accounts of harrowing scenes came up to the Council and Assembly.
Settlers moved into the towns and many districts were depopulated.
Strong were the expressions of wrath against the Quakers, who were held responsible for the defenseless state of the Province.
[“The people exclaim against the Quakers, and some are scarce restrained from burning the houses of those few who are in this town (Reading).”
— Letter of Edmund Biddle]
This was hardly a just charge, even from the standpoint of those who favored military defense, for the Assembly had signified its willingness to vote £50,000, an unprecedented amount, to be provided by “a tax on all the real and personal estates within the Province,” which the Governor refused to accept.
While the matter was in abeyance the time for the new election of Assemblymen came around, and both parties, except the stricter Quakers, who were becoming alarmed, put forth their greatest exertions.
The old Assembly was sustained, the Friends, with those closely associated with them, having twenty-six out of the thirty-six members.
The new House went on with the work of the old.
They adopted a militia law for those “willing and desirous” of joining companies for the defense of the Province.
This is prefaced by the usual declaration: “Whereas this Province was settled (and a majority of the Assembly have ever since been) of the people called Quakers, who though they do not as the world is now circumstanced condemn the use of arms in others, yet are principled against bearing arms themselves,” explaining also that they are representatives of the Province and not of a denomination, they proceed to lay down rules for the organization of the volunteers.
After the Proprietors had given their £5,000 the Assembly also voted £55,000 for the relief of friendly Indians and distressed frontiersmen, “and other purposes,” without any disguise to the fact that much of it was intended for military defense, though it was not so stated in the bill.
Before this was done, while they were still insisting on taxing the Penn estates, in answer to the charge that they were neglectful of public interests, secure in the confidence of their constituents just most liberally given, they say: “In fine we have the most sensible concern for the poor distressed inhabitants of the frontiers.
We have taken every step in our power, consistent with the just rights of the freemen of Pennsylvania, for their relief, and we have reason to believe that in the midst of their distresses they themselves do not wish to go further.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Their position definitely was, We will vote money liberally for defensive purposes, but we will take care to secure our rights as freemen, and we will not require any one to give personal service against his conscience.
The money was largely spent in erecting and garrisoning a chain of forts extending along the Kittatinny hills from the Delaware River to the Maryland frontier.
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
— Benjamin Franklin
So now I know the context of that frequently-quoted maxim!
Interesting!
Now we’re in the midst of the time when the tension between Quaker principles and political compromises was reaching the breaking point.
John Woolman’s journal reflects that individual Quakers were beginning to adopt war tax resistance against the taxes of the Quaker legislature.
The Friends Quarterly Meeting at Philadelphia tried to hold things together:
[I]t is remarkable that for sixteen years successively, more than half of which was a time of war, a set of men conscientiously principled against warlike measures have been chosen by those, of whom the majority were not in that particular of the same principle; and this we apprehend may be chiefly attributed to the repeated testimonies we have constantly given of our sincere and ready disposition to provide for the exigencies of the Government, and to demonstrate our gratitude for the favors we enjoy under it by cheerfully contributing towards the support of it according to our circumstances in such manner as we can do with peace and satisfaction of mind.
That this has been the constant practice of our assemblies, the records of their proceedings will evidently show.
We consider that in the present situation of public affairs, the exigencies being great, the supplies must be proportioned thereto; and we only desire that as we cannot be concerned in preparations for war, we may be permitted to serve the government by raising money and contributing towards the Public Exegencies by such methods and in such manner as past experience has assured us are least burdensome to the industrious poor, and most consistent with our religious and civil rights and liberties, and which our present Proprietaries, when one of them was personally present, consented to and approved, and to which no reasonable or just objection has ever since been made.
And a number of Quakers petitioned the Assembly, saying that they would be unable to willingly pay the proposed war taxes.
Sharpless again:
In twenty Friends, including Anthony Morris, Israel and John Pemberton, Anthony Benezet, John Churchman, and others, representing the most influential and “weighty” members of the Yearly Meeting, addressed the Assembly.
They say they are very willing to contribute taxes to cultivate friendship with Indians, to relieve distress, or other benevolent purposes, but to expect them to be taxed for funds which are placed in the hands of committees to be expended for war, is inconsistent with their peaceable testimony, and an infringement of their religious liberties.
Many Friends will have to refuse to pay such a tax and suffer distraint of goods, [this afterwards happened in numerous cases] and thus “that free enjoyment of liberty of conscience for the sake of which our forefathers left their native country and settled this then a wilderness by degrees be violated.”
“We sincerely assure you we have no temporal motives for thus addressing you, and could we have preserved peace in our own minds and with each other we should have declined it, being unwilling to give you any unnecessary trouble and deeply sensible of your difficulty in discharging the trust committed to you irreproachably in these perilous times, which hath engaged our fervent desires that the immediate instruction of supreme wisdom may influence your minds, and that being preserved in a steady attention thereto you may be enabled to secure peace and tranquility to yourselves and those you represent by pursuing measures consistent with our peaceable principles, and then we trust we may continue humbly to confide in the protection of that Almighty Power whose providence has hitherto been as walls and bulwarks round about us.”
As the Assembly was composed, this was an earnest plea from the responsible Friends to their fellow religionists to stand uncompromisingly by their principles.
It was not very kindly received.
The reply indicated that the signers had no right to speak for others than themselves, that they had not duly considered the customs of the past, particularly the grant of £2,000 in , and the address “is therefore an unadvised and indiscreet application to the House at this time.”
Four members of the Assembly dissent from this reply.
On the other hand we have a strong petition sent to the King, signed by numerous influential men in Philadelphia, stating that the Province was entirely bare to the attack of enemies, “not a single armed man, nor, at the public expense, a single fortification to shelter the unhappy inhabitants.”
… “We have no hopes of seeing the grievances redressed here while a great majority of men whose avowed principles are against bearing arms find means continually to thrust themselves into the Assembly of this Province.”
They ask the interposition of royal authority to insist on proper defense being provided.
The attorneys for the petitioners before the Board of Trade made the most sweeping and unfounded charges, full of errors of fact and unconcealed animus, and ending with the recommendation “that the King be advised to recommend it to his Parliament that no Quaker be permitted to sit in any Assembly in Pennsylvania or any part of America,” and that this result should be produced by the imposition of an oath.
In the minds of the Friends the crisis was reached when the Governor and Council (William Logan, son of James Logan, only dissenting) in declared war against the Delaware Indians, the old allies and friends of William Penn, but now in league with the French and killing and plundering on the frontiers.
They were quite sure that peaceful and just measures would detach the Indians from their alliance, and that war was unnecessary.
The lines were becoming more closely drawn, and the middle ground was narrowing, so that it was impossible to stand upon it.
Either the principle of the iniquity of war must be maintained in its entirety, or war must be vigorously upheld and prosecuted.
Some Friends with Franklin took the latter position, but the great majority closed up their ranks around the principle of peace in its integrity.
In six of the old members of the house, James Pemberton, Joshua Morris, William Callender, William Peters, Peter Worral and Francis Parvin, resigned their seats, giving as their reason, “As many of our constituents seem of opinion that the present situation of public affairs calls upon us for services in a military way, which from a conviction of judgment after mature deliberation we cannot comply with, we conclude it most conducive to the peace of our minds, and the reputation of our religious profession to persist in our resolution of resigning our seats, which we now accordingly do, and request these our reasons may be entered on the minutes of the house.”
In several other Friends declined re-election, and after the next House assembled four others, Mahlon Kirkbride, William Hoyl, Peter Dicks and Nathaniel Pennock, also resigned.
“Understanding that the ministry have requested the Quakers, who from the first settlement of the Colony have been the majority of the Assemblies of this Province, to suffer their seats during the difficult situation of the affairs of the Colonies to be filled by members of other denominations in such manner as to perform without any scruples all such laws as may be necessary to be enacted for the defense of the Province in whatever manner they may judge best suited to the circumstances of it; and notwithstanding we think this has been pretty fully complied with at the last election, yet at the request of our friends, being willing to take off all possible objection, we who have (without any solicitation on our part) been returned as representatives in this Assembly, request we may be excused, and suffered to withdraw ourselves and vacate our seats in such manner as may be attended with the least trouble and most satisfactory to this honorable House.”
The places of all these Friends were filled by members of other religious denominations, and Quaker control over and responsibility for the Pennsylvania Assembly closed with and was never resumed.
It was that a number of Quakers composed an “epistle of tender love and caution” to their fellow-Friends recommending war tax resistance.
Sharpless again:
was one of difference and perplexity among Philadelphia Friends.
On the one side were the men of spiritual power, whose voices exercised the prevailing influence in the meetings for business.
On the other were the disciples of Logan, who being manifestly out of sympathy with well-established Quaker views, urged the necessity of vigorous defense, caught the surrounding warlike spirit, and with personal service and money aided Franklin and the militia.
Between the two stood the “Quaker governing class,” who controlled the Assembly, who, while admitting and commending the peaceable doctrines of Friends, considered their own duty accomplished when they kept aloof from personal participation and supplied the means by which others carried on the war.
This third section was the product of long experience in political activity.
To these men and their predecessors was owing the successful administration for decades of the best governed colony in America.
They were slow to admit any weakness in their position, but it was becoming increasingly evident that it was untenable.
There was actual war, and they were, while not personally responsible for it, indeed while opposing vigorously the policy which had produced it, now a component part of the government which was carrying it on.
Would they join their brethren in staunch adherence to peace principles, and thus give up their places in the state as John Bright did afterwards when Alexandria was bombarded?
Would they join Franklin, their associate in resisting proprietary power, and throw aside their allegiance to the principles of William Penn, whom they professed greatly to honor?
The question was answered differently by different ones as the winter and spring passed away.
Pressure was strong on both sides.
The Governor writing to London says: “The Quaker preachers and others of great weight were employed to show in their public sermons, and by going from house to house through the Province, the sin of taking up arms, and to persuade the people to be easy and adhere to their principles and privileges.”
This was an enemy’s view of a conservative reaction which was going on within the Society, which was tired of compromises, was willing to suffer, and could not longer support the doubtful expediency of voting measures for others to carry out, of which they could not themselves approve.
We have seen how in the early winter the Assembly rebuked what they considered the impertinence of the protest of a number of important members of the Meeting against a war tax.
The Meeting mildly emphasized the same difference in their London epistle of :
The scene of our affairs is in many respects changed since we wrote to you, and our late peaceful land involved in the desolations and calamities of war.
Had all under our profession faithfully discharged their duty and maintained our peaceable testimony inviolate we have abundant sense to believe that divine counsel would have been afforded in a time of so great difficulty; by attending to which, great part of the present calamities might have been obviated.
But it has been manifest that human contrivances and policy have been too much depended on, and such measures pursued as have ministered cause of real sorrow to the faithful; so that we think it necessary that the same distinction may be made among you as is and ought to be here between the Acts and Resolutions of the Assembly of this Province, though the majority of them are our Brethren in profession, and our acts as a religious Society.
We have nevertheless cause to admire and acknowledge the gracious condescension of infinite goodness towards us, by which a large number is preserved in a steady dependence on the dispensations of divine Providence; and we trust the faith and confidence of such will be supported through every difficulty which may be permitted to attend them, and their sincerity appear by freely resigning or parting with those temporal advantages and privileges we have heretofore enjoyed, if they cannot be preserved without violation of that testimony on the faithful maintaining of which our true peace and unity depends.
The Friends who refused to pay the tax thought it peculiarly hard that they were forced to suffer heavy losses through the action of their fellow-members of the Assembly.
These Assemblymen and their friends pointed out on the other hand that these taxes had been paid in the past, and that it was ultra-conscientiousness which prevented the willing support of the government in this hour of peril.
The question was a difficult one.
Quakers had hitherto refused a direct war tax and paid everything else, even when war expenditures were mingled with others.
The stricter Friends considered that this tax, though disguised, was of the objectionable sort, while others did not so place it.
The difference accentuated itself by condemnatory criticisms, and in the Yearly Meeting appointed a committee of thirty, who reported that it was a matter for individual consciences to determine, and not for the Meeting’s decision.
“We are unanimously of the judgment that it is not proper to enter into a public discussion of the matter; and we are one in judgment that it is highly necessary for the Yearly Meeting to recommend that Friends everywhere endeavor to have their minds covered with frequent charity towards one another.”
The Meeting unanimously adopted this report.
This appeal seems to have been successful, and we hear no more of the difference.
John Fothergill wrote of a lack of faith in the practicality of pacifist government at the time:
That the majority of the present Assembly were of our Profession who from their known principles could not contribute to the defense of the Country now grievously harassed by the Indians under French Influence in a manner that most people here and even many in Pennsylvania thought necessary it seemed but common justice in our Friends to decline accepting a trust which under the present Circumstances they could not discharge, and therefore advised that we should use our utmost endeavors to prevail upon them neither to offer themselves as candidates nor to accept of seats in the Assembly during the present commotions in America.
For should any disaster befall the Province and our Friends continue to fill the Assembly, it would redound to the prejudice of the Society in general, and be the means perhaps of subverting a constitution under which the province had so happily flourished.
And James Pemberton wrote:
Our situation is indeed such as affords cause of melancholy reflection that the first commencement of persecution in this Province should arise from our brethren in profession, and that such darkness should prevail as that they should be instruments of oppressing tender consciences which hath been the case.
The tax in this country being pretty generally collected and many in this city particularly suffered by distraint of their goods and some being near cast into jail.
The House has been sitting most of the time since the election, and have as yet done little business; they have had under their consideration a militia law, which hath been long in the hands of a committee, and is likely to take up a great deal more of their time; also a bill for raising £100,000 by a land tax of the same kind as yours in England; if these pass it is likely Friends will be subjected to great inconvenience.
As the former now stands, as I am told, the great patriot Franklin, who hath the principal direction of forming the bills, has discovered very little regard to tender consciences, which perhaps may partly arise from the observations he must have made since he has been in that House of the inconsistent conduct of many of our Friends.
That it seems to me he has almost persuaded himself there are few if any that are in earnest relating to their religious principles, and that he seems exceedingly studious of propagating a martial spirit all he can.
Later, he wrote: “The number of us who could not be free to pay the tax is small compared with those who not only comply with it but censure those who do not.”
Once the pacifist Quakers were out of the Assembly, they could try to apply their principles outside of the existing formal political structure.
Sharpless:
The French were busy in the north, and could not do more to aid the Pennsylvania Indians than furnish them with supplies.
Hence it seemed possible to detach the Delawares and Shawnese from the hostile alliance.
For this purpose the “Friendly Association” was formed.
This was composed of Quakers, now out of the government, but anxious to terminate the unfortunate warfare.
They refused to pay war taxes, but pledged themselves to contribute in the interests of peace “more than the heaviest taxes of a war can be expected to require.”
While this Association was objected to by the State authorities as an unofficial and to some extent an impertinent body, and charged with political motives, it succeeded in a remarkable way in bringing together the Indians and the Government in a succession of treaties, which finally resulted in the termination of the war and the payment to the Indians of an amount which satisfied them for the land taken by the Walking Purchase and other dubious processes.
Representatives of the Association, either by invitation of the Indians or of the Governor, were invariably present, and their largesses to the Indians much smoothed the way to pacific relations.
In addition to extra-governmental activism of this sort, there 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 , 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 strenuously engaged for several years after in pressing on its members the desirability of abstaining from civic business.
This was done under the plea that, as matters were, it was impossible to hold most official positions without administering oaths or voting war taxes.
The former violated Quaker principles directly, and the latter enjoined on their brethren a service against which their consciences rebelled.
In the interests, therefore, of liberty of conscience, the meetings urged on the members not to allow themselves to be candidates for judicial or legislative positions, and in time were largely successful.
In a report came in to the Yearly Meeting from a large and influential committee advising against furnishing wagons for the transport of military stores, and warning against allowing “the examples and injunctions of some members of our Society who are employed in offices and stations in civil government” [The distinction between the ecclesiastical and political Quakers is further indicated in the following: “Thou knows that we could not in every case vindicate our Assembly who had so greatly deviated from our known principles and the testimony of our forefathers.”
— Israel Pemberton to Samuel Fothergill, .] to influence anyone against a steady support of the truth.
They also recommend that the Yearly Meeting should “advise and caution against any Friends accepting of or continuing in offices or stations whereby they are subjected to the necessity of enjoining or enforcing the compliance of their brethren or others with any act which they may conscientiously scruple to perform.”
In any case, Quakers would never again regain political power to the extent that it would present these same sort of controversies and opportunities for compromise.
One of the earliest records I have of something like Quaker war tax resistance
in the Americas comes out of Jamaica, which isn’t the first place I would have
looked for such a thing.
. William Davis, of Port-Royal, because
he refused to appear in arms, and also to provide his servants with arms and
ammunition had taken from him by George Carter, sergeant to Henry Moleworth’s
Company, by virtue of a warrant granted by Robert Phillips, ensign, several
quantities of pewter and other goods worth £4 for only £1 demanded. The said
William Davis had a few weeks before been robbed by pirates, and at the time
of taking away these goods the sergeant said, He would not leave him a
dish to eat on; and accordingly never returned any of the goods, but
told him, If he would pay the sum demanded, he might have them
again. But as he could not in conscience do that, he suffered the loss
of the whole.
. On , a sergeant with a party of
musketeers, authorized by warrant from Captain Joseph Jennings, came and
demanded 10s of the said
William Davis for not appearing in arms, which he refusing to pay, they took
away an iron boom for a mast, weighting 38
lb. which they offered to
sale, but finding nobody that would buy it, they brought it again, and the
said William was free to receive it, the property of it not being altered.
The same day they took away a jack with a line and weight, which he had
before sold for 25s but
they sold it for 15s of
which, when they would have returned him
3s he refused to receive
it, because the goods sold were not his property.
. On Robert Newman, a
sergeant, with a corporal and some soldiers, came and demanded of the said
William Davis 10s for not
buying arms, and not sending his servant to exercise military discipline,
which he refusing to pay, they took away an hammock, the property of another
person who had left it with him, which they sold in the market-place for
15s, and offered to return
him 5s, which he would not
receive, the goods sold being none of his property. This was done by force of
a warrant granted by Thomas Barratt, ensign to the company.
. On William Neate,
corporal, and others, with a warrant from Joseph Jennings, a captain of the
militia, came and demanded of the said William Davis
10s for not appearing
personally in arms, and 10s
more for not accoutring and sending his servant to the muster, which he
refusing to pay, they took from him six silk handkerchiefs and other shop
goods worth £2.10s.6d.
Again on , the said William Davis had taken from him, for
not appearing in arms, by Cornelius Campion and William Neale, sergeants,
with a warrant under the hand of
Capt. Joseph Jennings, twelve
yards of speckled linen, at 1s.10d per yard,
and seven handkerchiefs at 1s.3½d each, the whole
amounting to £1.11s.½d. But this, though their
demand was but 20s, did
not satisfy them, but they came again, and took three more handkerchiefs
worth 3s.9d…
… John Pike, of Port-Royal, joiner, for
not bearing arms, and for refusing to contribute towards the charge of their
feasts used on their field-days, for a demand of
10s had taken from him by
Daniel Burton and one Ellison, sergeants to
Capt. Henry Ward, four
frying pans worth 18s.9d
of which they returned him only 1s.3d.
Thomas Story, an English Quaker convert who lived in America , left an account of Quaker conscientious objection to conscription and military fines in America at that time:
This being , the governor of New England was preparing to invade Canada, a French colony on the same continent; and there being many Friends at that time within that government, who could not bear arms on any account, as being contrary to our conscience, and sentiments of the end and nature of the Christian religion, which teacheth not to destroy but to love our enemies; and the people of New England, willing to take advantage of the occasion to oppress us, made a law to this effect: “That such of the inhabitants of that government, as being qualified or able to bear arms, and being regularly summoned, should refuse, should be fined; and refusing to pay the fine, should be imprisoned, and sold or bound to some of the queen’s subjects within that colony, for so long a time as by their work they might pay their fines and charges.”
On we went to an appointed meeting at Bristol on the Main, where two of our young men, viz. John Smith and Thomas Macamore [another version says “Macomber”] were prisoners; being impressed by virtue of this law, to fight against the French and Indians, under the government of Boston.
The meeting was in the prison, and several of the people came in, and some were tender: after the meeting, having exhorted the young men to faithfulness, we went in the evening back into Rhode Island, and next day to Newport, to their week day meeting; where I was much comforted in the Divine Truth in my own mind, but had no public exercise.
After I was at meetings at Portsmouth and Newport, also at Bristol, where the two young men were prisoners; being in the prison with them, and many other Friends present, we were favoured with a good time in the presence and love of God together; and the same evening had a meeting at the house of one Job Howlands.
The prisoners not being called before the court that day, Thomas Cornwell and I went to Colonel Byfield’s, about a mile from the town, next morning.
When we went in he was very boisterous, reproaching Friends in general as a sort of people not worthy to live on the earth; particularly those of Rhode Island and New England, who would not go out nor pay their money to others, to fight against a common enemy so barbarous as are the Indians; wishing us all in the front of the battle until we had learned better; charging us with many errors and heresies in religion by the lump; instancing only our refusing to fight, and believing a sinless perfection in this life.
When he had a little vented his fury, I, being over him in the Truth, returned upon him and said: “I was sorry we should find him in that temper, and that too in his own house, especially on such an occasion, when we, being strangers, were come only to request a reasonable favor of him, he being judge of the court; and that was to desire him to consider the case of our Friends as a matter of conscience towards God, and not of cowardice, nor of obstinacy against rulers or their laws.”
[H]is anger being much over, he became more calm and friendly, and told us what he intended to do with the young men, our Friends; and that was, to send them to the governor at Boston, that seeing they would not fight nor pay their fine, they might work at the fort till they had paid it by their labor.
We said: “That was hard, it being only a case of conscience with us, in which we ought to obey God and not man, whatever may be the consequence of it.”
Thus conversing together we walked into the town; and notwithstanding his former passion, being now much altered, he took us kindly by the hands in the street, before many people, when we parted.
After this we went to the prison to see the young men, and acquainted them, that we could find little ground to expect any favour; at which they seemed altogether unconcerned, being much resigned to the will of God at that time; and we stayed with them in prison most of that day, they not being called into the court till the next afternoon.
The prisoners being brought into court, Thomas Cornwell and I, and many other Friends went in with them; and though we had our hats on, the judge was so far indulgent as to order us seats, but that our hats should be taken off in a civil manner by an officer.
I said: “We did not keep them on with any disrespect to him or the court, neither did any of us at any time; but our hats being part of our clothing, we know not any harm nor intended any affront to the court by keeping them on: and though religion be not in the hat, yet where it is fully in the heart, the honour of the hat is not demanded, nor willingly given or received by the true disciples of Him who said: ‘I receive not honour from men; but I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.
How can ye believe, who receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?’ ”
The prisoners being at the bar, the judge asked them the reason of their obstinacy, as he called it.
The young men modestly replied, it was not obstinacy but duty to God, according to their consciences and religious persuasions, which prevailed with them to refuse to bear arms or learn war.
But the judge would not, by any means, seem to admit there was any conscience in it, but ignorance and a perverse nature; accounting it very irreligious in any who were personally able and legally required, to refuse their help now in time of war, against enemies so potent and barbarous as the French and Indians; with repeated false charges against us as a people; saying: “Since we could pay to public taxes, which we knew were to be applied to the uses of war, why could we not pay those which were by law required of us, instead of our personal service and to excuse us?”
Then I stood up and desired leave of the court to speak, which was granted; and said: “If the judge please to keep the present business of the court, concerning the prisoners, I would, with leave, speak to the point of law, in the case; but if he thought fit to make it his business to continue to charge us as a people with errors in matters of religion, I should think it mine to answer him in the face of the court; public, and undue charges, laying a necessity for, and excusing as public answers; adding, that I could give the court a distinction and reason, why we could pay the one tax, and yet not the other. not the other.
Most present being desirous to hear these reasons, I began with the example of Christ himself, for the payment of a tax, though applied by Cæsar unto the uses of war, and other exigencies of his government; and was going on to show a difference between a law that directly and principally affects the person in war, requiring personal service, and a law which only requires a general tax, to be applied by rulers as they see cause, and affects not the person.
For though we readily pay such taxes; yet, as the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, his servants will not fight, though they may and ought to pay taxes according to the example of Christ their head.
The judge perceiving how inconsistent this would prove to their present purpose, interrupted me; but several of the justices wished to hear me further on the subject.
There are multiple versions of Story’s journals out there, and they differ.
Another version of the Life has a very different version of this short paragraph, which reads: “The judge interrupted me, saying, I would preach them a sermon two hours long, if they had time to hear me.”
Then Thomas Cornwell, a Friend of good repute and interest in Rhode Island, desired them to be careful what precedent they made upon this law; since neither he nor any of us knew what might be the effect of it, or how soon it might be any of our cases; and that it would be very hard upon us to be sold for servants.
He then demanded a precedent, where, at any time, in any other of the queen’s dominions, any of her subjects ever sold others of them, for the payment of taxes laid by their fellow-subjects, on any pretense whatsoever, where conscience and duty towards God, and Christ the Lord, was the only cause of refusal: adding, that he could never pay any of those taxes, though he should be sold for payment of them.
Truth came gradually over them, and things grew very heavy upon them, though they still persisted in their own way;…
Another version of the Life adds at this point: “and John Smith, one of the prisoners, said to judge Byfield, that he also must come one day to judgment, before a greater judicature, and therefore desired him to be careful what he did.”
…at last the court adjourned till towards the evening, and then ordered the young men to be returned to prison, there to remain till some person or persons appear to pay the sums demanded, or shall tender to take them into service, for such time as the justice and sheriff shall think reasonable; or until the governor, by warrant, shall remove them to the castle near Boston, where they are to work as prisoners for such time as their services will pay the sums now due, with other charges that may become due, and then to be released.
This comes from The Life of Thomas Story, Abridged by John Kendall, Revised and Considerably Enlarged from the Folio Edition Written by Himself by William Alexander Vol. Ⅰ.
(), pages 267–78.
Today I’ll reproduce some excerpts from that book that speak to Quaker tax resistance in the years before the American Revolution.
Some of this I may end up cutting from the book I’m preparing on Quaker war tax resistance because it deals with the tangential (but interesting to me) issue of the Regulator War and the Whiskey Rebellion, both of which were tax rebellions, and in both of which a certain fighting Quaker — Hermon Husband — played a prominent role.
Before the Revolution
Southern Quakers have been pretty uniform in their testimony against war.
Their position met with small respect in any of these colonies.
They refused to train and were fined.
They refused to pay the fine and it was collected by distress or they were imprisoned.
They were alike unmoved by distress or imprisonment.
The officers were forced to abandon persecution by the firm meekness of the persecuted.
Friends were always careful to put their sufferings on record.
Whatever else the Quaker might suffer, he could not bear for the shade of oblivion to come over the record of his testimonies.
They seem to have suffered from militia laws at an earlier period in Virginia than in North Carolina.
The first law that comes under our notice is the one of , which recites that “divers refractory persons” have “refused to appear upon the days of exercise and other times when required to attend upon the public service,” and then imposes on them for each neglect a fine of 100 pounds of tobacco.
The new militia act of makes no exemption of Quakers.
The fine was the same as before.
It was collected by distress, or imprisonment was inflicted, and the records indicate that Friends suffered from the law.
The first trial of this kind in North Carolina dates from .
In the Culpeper rebellion in this colony in , Friends first gave their allegiance to the government of Miller and Eastchurch.
When the party of the people came into power, in accord with their well-known principles of non-resistance, they submitted to it; but declared themselves a “separated people,” and that they “stood single from all the seditious actions” which had taken place in Albemarle in .
“Then some suffering fell upon friends which we not finding in ye old Book, we thought good to insert here; so that it may be seen generations to come,” says the chronicler, writing of the year .
“It was thus, the government made a Law that all that would not bear arms in ye Muster-field, should be at ye Pleasure of ye Court fined, accordingly friends not bearing arms in ye field; they had several friends before ye Court, and they fined them he that had a good Estate a great sum & ye rest according to their estates; and Cast them into prison, & when they were in prison, they went & levied their fines upon their estates; There were nine friends put in prison, viz. William Bundy John Price, Jona Phelps James Hogg John Thusstone Henry Prows Rich.
Byer Saml Hill Steven Handcock.
They were put in prison about .”
This record of persecution comes to us from the manuscript records of the Society.
It is a new one, and one which the author is inclined to attribute entirely to the disordered state of the colony.
The “rebellion” of Culpeper was at an end, but its leaders were still the controllers of the policy of the government, and the persecution may have been due to vindictiveness against the publishers of the protest which we have noticed.
This is borne out by the fact that of the nine Friends imprisoned, the names of three, perhaps of five, were signed to the protest.
There seems to have been no further persecution.
The North Carolina Quakers were prominent in the first part of the “Cary Rebellion,” .
This was a war of words only….
They refused to fight in the Indian war of .
They steadily exhorted each other not to go to this war, and even punished such of their members as paid the five pound penalty attached to the refusal.
As soon as the Government ceased to persecute them, they settled down to quiet and made good citizens.
North Carolina Quakers seem to have had a comparatively easy time.
In theory they were under disadvantages from muster laws, but in reality they suffered little.
In they protest against the tax levied to provide a magazine for each county, for that would be “to wound” their tender conscience.
In they consult London Friends as to paying the tax levied in provisions to support troops.
We do not know the answer.
Committees were appointed from time to time to confer with the authorities on this and similar matters.
They seem to have come to little conclusion.
Muster fines, sometimes collected by distress, are reported at nearly every meeting, but they were small in amount, and the muster law, like the tithe law, seems to have been spasmodically enforced.
In Virginia, on the other hand, Friends had a harder road to travel.
Fines were heavier and were more rigidly collected.
As early as the Yearly Meeting recorded that “Friends are generally fined for not bearing arms and that grand oppression of priests wages, though the magistrates are pretty moderate at present and truth gains ground.”
In Governor Spotswood came in conflict with Friends over this testimony.
He undertook to force assistance from them on the ground that otherwise the lazy and cowardly would plead conscience; some Friends yielded so far as to assist in building forts.
The sense of the Yearly Meeting was “that those Friends who have given away their Testimony, by hiring, paying, or working, to make any fort, or defense against enemies, do give from under their hands to the monthly meeting for the clearing the truth.”
It is to be understood, of course, that there was no recognition or exemption of dissenting ministers in the military acts.
The military law of exempted “ministers,” while that of confined it to ministers of the Church of England.
This indicates that dissenting ministers had claimed exemption under the broader law, and that the Assembly was not willing to recognize them.
The act of , exempted all Quakers from personal service, but required them to furnish a substitute, or to be fined for neglect.
This law, while seeming to be one looking toward recognition of the peculiar views of Friends, was not in reality such.
To a society which condemns war and all its paraphernalia in toto, personal exemption can be no favor.
It was no favor to a Quaker to allow him to send a substitute or pay a fine.
In they record that their sufferings had been “very considerable,” both on account of “militia and priests’ wages,” and are of the opinion that they “are likely to increase greatly on that account.”
In they say “the men in military power act toward us in several counties with as much lenity and forbearance as we can reasonably expect, as they are ministers of the law; though in some places they are not so favorable,” and Friends had been in prison for neglect of military duties during the visit of Bownas.
and the period just preceding it were times of great trial to Friends in this matter.
The English settlers believed that French agents were trying to stir up the Indians, and that in the onslaught against English civilization the Indians would be led by Frenchmen, little more civilized or humane in their conduct of war than the savages themselves.
To guard against this the Assembly of Virginia passed various acts in , , , , , , , for raising levies and recruits, for the better training of militia, and keeping them in readiness.
The Assembly also undertook to increase the number of available troops, and, to fill the quotas of the militia, passed laws in and , requiring the members of the county militia who had no wives or children to stand a draft; but any person drafted might secure a substitute, or be released on the payment of ten pounds.
If they refused they were imprisoned until they agreed to serve, to procure a substitute, or paid the fine.
From time to time it voted various sums to be expended on these matters and on the better defense of the province.
The tax, since it was laid for war purposes, was a source of trouble.
But Friends generally complied in paying this tax without inquiring too closely into the way it was spent.
English Friends wrote that this was their custom, and it was also the custom of the Pennsylvania Friends.
This caused some of the Friends who were not anxious to pose as martyrs to treat the fine for refusing to stand the draft or procure a substitute as a part of the general levy.
This fine when paid also went for war purposes, but the Society as a whole denounced the practice and warned their members against it.
The act of , did not exempt the Quakers.…
Here, a footnote reads: “The next act, for ‘the better regulating and training the militia,’ in prescribing accoutrements says ‘that every person so as aforesaid enlisted (except the people commonly called Quakers, free mulattoes, negroes and Indians),’ etc., which indicates that they were not on the same footing as others, but that this did not mean exemption is shown clearly from their records.
Nor are they included in the list of exempted persons mentioned in section three of the same act.”
…An act of , provided that every twentieth man of the county militia should be drafted and sent to the frontier at Winchester under Col. Washington.
This is followed by another for “better regulating and disciplining the militia,” which exempted ministers of the Church of England, but no dissenting ministers.
Nor were Quakers mentioned in the section directing the accoutrements, as was done in the similar act of .
They were shown no favors, and the Yearly Meeting records of state that seven young men had already been carried to the frontier.
They asked advice of London Yearly Meeting in the case.
They exhorted the men thus tried to remain faithful to their testimony, took up a collection for their relief, and recorded that Friends were “pretty generally faithful.”
In their epistle to London Yearly Meeting in they stated that those Friends were now released who had been imprisoned the year before, that application had been made to the Assembly about this requirement, and that the officers now had a more favorable opinion of Friends.
This was probably the severest trial through which Virginia Friends were called to go because of this testimony.
The North Carolina Quakers also thought it necessary for them to attend the courts-martial in and give the reasons of Friends for not attending musters, and likewise to send a petition to the Governor against the militia law, but it does not appear that they were brought to trial on these points during the French and Indian war.
In Virginia Quakers appointed a committee to petition the Assembly for relief from military fines, etc. This petition may have had influence on the law passed in .
By this law Quakers were exempted from appearing at private or general musters, and were not required to provide a set of arms as all other exempts were.
So far the law is good; it is further provided that the chief militia officer in each county should list all Quakers of military age, and if needed, these would have to go into actual service just as other persons, except that they might furnish a substitute or pay a fine of ten pounds.
But the number of Quakers who were thus required to serve or find substitutes was not to exceed the proportion the whole number of Quakers bore to the whole number of other militia.
The law required also that no Quaker should be exempted from musters unless he produced a testimonial that he was a bona fide Quaker.
This law was a decided gain for the Quaker, although it was not a complete recognition of his position on war.
It recognized this position absolutely in times of peace by exempting him from musters, and even gave him a privilege over other exempts by relieving him from the requirement to furnish a set of arms. But it failed him entirely in time of war.
As early as an attempt had been made in North Carolina to get a law exempting Quakers, but it was opposed by the Council, who offered to substitute in place of the regular equipment of the soldier that of the pioneer — axe, spade, shovel or hoe.
This failed to become law; but by the terms of a special act, which is substantially a copy of the Virginia law of , passed in for five years, Quakers were released from attendance on general or private musters, provided that they were regularly listed and served in the regular militia in case of insurrection or invasion.
From a petition which the Quakers presented to the Governor and the Assembly of North Carolina in , we may conclude that Tryon had in some cases exempted them from the penalty of the laws.
We find also certificates of unity given to some of their members, who were liable to military duty, in .
These certificates seem to have relieved them practically from all militia requirements.
At the beginning of the Revolution, Friends had been exempted from attending musters in Virginia and North Carolina, but not from being enrolled in the militia or from serving in case of insurrection.
I have found no indications that Quakers had been exempted at this time from military laws in South Carolina and Georgia.
They were too weak in both of these provinces to affect their legislation.
There had been some suffering in South Carolina on account of this testimony about the time of the Yemassee war in .
Quakers kept a careful record of all the fines they suffered by distress or otherwise.
These sufferings varied from year to year according to the personal feeling of the officers.
They were heavier in Virginia than in North Carolina; only in do we find an entry in that State of sufferings amounting to £85 and over for tithes and “malissia” fines.…
I have no idea what a “malissia” fine is.
Any clue?
Oh.
I get it.
It’s a phonetic spelling of “militia” by someone who was unfamiliar with the word.
…The chief cause of suffering there was for tithes.
In Virginia, on the other hand, the fines seem to have been about equally divided.
Another footnote here: “They have recorded fines for neglect of military duty in Virginia as follows: , £12 5s.; , £84 11s. 5d.; , £61 1s.; , £131 8s. 1d.; , £59 14s. 8d.; , £10 9s. 2d.; , £16 14s.; , £4 11s. 6d.; , £86 19s. 4½d., mostly military.
From this time there is no distinction between ‘priest’s wages’ and militia fines.
The sums are as follows: , £98 13s. 5d.; , £108 6s. 10d.; , £90 14s.; , £80 13s.; , £103; , £74 12s. 6d.; , £113 11s. 10d.; , £109; , £133; , £67; , £3 5s.”
There has been an extensive belief that Friends were active in the War of the Regulation in North Carolina in .
This belief is founded partly on the charge of Governor Tryon, that the Regulators were a faction of Baptists and Quakers who were trying to overthrow the Church of England.
This charge, like the similar charge made by the aristocracy in North Carolina in , is more easily made than proved.
The Quakers are easily shown from their records not to have been Regulators.
There were, of course, individual Quakers who took part in the Regulation; many more no doubt sympathized with the principles advocated; but no complicity with the events of was tolerated by the meetings in their organic capacity.
The foundation for this charge lies, no doubt, largely in the fact that Hermon Husband, the leader of the Regulators, had been a Quaker.
He had been disowned by the Society, however, but not for immorality, as Governor Tryon states.
Since no North Carolina Quaker is more widely known than Husband, it is desirable that we know as many facts as possible of his life.
Hermon Husband was born , in all probability in Cecil County, Md. His grandfather, William Husband, made a will, .
He writes himself as of “Sissil” County, Maryland; he had cattle, “Hoggs and sheape,” and negroes, and speaks of “the Iron works that belongs to me.”
He had a good deal of land.
William, the father of Hermon, was also of Cecil County.
His will was probated .
He also had negroes, and was not a Quaker.
His son Joseph, born , was the first of the family to turn Quaker.
His convincement influenced Hermon among others.
Hermon became a prominent man among the Quakers of East Nottingham, Md. He once got a certificate to visit Barbadoes.
He was first in North Carolina about , when he removed to Carver’s Creek Monthly Meeting in Bladen County.
How long he remained here we do not know, but on , he presented a certificate of removal to Cane Creek Monthly Meeting.
He returned from Cane Creek to Nottingham in , and, on , presented a certificate of removal from Cane Creek to West River Monthly Meeting, Md. He got a certificate to go back to Cane Creek, , and on , Friends report to Cane Creek that the marriage of Hermon Husband and Mary Pugh had been orderly.
Footnote: “At this period Husband also set up some claims to authorship, as the following title will show: Some | Remarks | on | Religion, | With the Author’s Experience in Pursuit thereof, | For the Consideration of all People; | Being the real Truth of what happened.
| Simply delivered, without the Help of School-Words, or Dress | of Learning.
| Philadelphia: | Printed by William Bradford for the Author.
| .
Octavo, pp. 88. (Hildeburn’s Issues of the Press in Pa.) The copy in Library Company of Philadelphia has the author’s name noted on the title-page in the handwriting of Du Simitiere.
At the end of the tract it is said to have been ‘written about .’ ”
This year a commotion began in Cane Creek Monthly Meeting which led to the disownment of Husband, the suspension of others, and involved the monthly meeting, the quarterly meeting, and even the Yearly Meeting, in a religious wrangle.
The origin of this trouble was as follows: In , Rachel Wright, a member of Cane Creek Monthly Meeting, committed some disorder.
She offered a paper condemning the same.
This seems to have been accepted, and in she asked for a certificate of removal to Fredericksburg, S.C. But some members of the monthly meeting thought she was not sincere in the paper offered and did not wish to give her the certificate.
A wrangle resulted, and the case was appealed to the quarterly meeting, which recommended that the certificate be given.
Husband, evidently a man who was accustomed to speak fearlessly, was thereupon “guilty of making remarks on the actions and transactions” of the meeting; he spoke “his mind,” and was guilty of “publicly advertising the same”; for this he was disowned by Cane Creek Monthly Meeting, .
But in the meantime his party had grown, and a number of Friends signed a paper in which they expressed dissatisfaction with the disowning of Husband.
The quarterly meeting then appointed a committee to advise with the malcontents, of whom the leaders were said to be Hermon Husband, Joseph Maddock, Isaac Vernon, Thomas Branson, John and William Marshill, and Jonathan Cell, “with divers others.”
In , the committee report “that it would be of dangerous consequences to allow them the privilege of active members, or to be made use of as such in any of our meetings of business until suitable satisfaction is made for their outgoings.”
Maddock, Cell and the Marshills felt “uneasy and aggrieved with the proceedings and judgment of this meeting,” and filed notice of an appeal to the Yearly Meeting.
The Yearly Meeting decided that Western Quarterly Meeting did wrong in granting a certificate to Rachel Wright, “if it was to be made a precedent,” and that the minute of the quarterly meeting which suspended from active membership those who had signed the other paper expressing dissatisfaction with the disowning of Hermon Husband should be reversed.
The quarterly meeting thereupon acknowledged itself wrong in the matter of Rachel Wright; Fredericksburg Monthly Meeting was informed of the conditions surrounding the certificate, and the parties under ban were restored to active membership, for we find Joseph Maddock and William Marshill serving as representatives from Cane Creek Monthly Meeting to Western Quarterly Meeting in .
But this did not restore Husband.
He had been formally disowned, and disappears from this time from the records of North Carolina Quakerism.
It is probable that some of these discontented Friends were led by this trouble to join the Regulators.
It does not appear that the trouble was healed, for we find that two men, Joseph Maddock and Jonathan Sell, laid the foundation of the Georgia settlement of Friends in .
They were no doubt the same as the persons who have just been mentioned.
It is probable that they carried a considerable contingent of settlers with them from Cane Creek.
It is now time for us to return to Hermon Husband and the part taken by Friends in the War of the Regulation.
Caruthers, who gives the traditions among the people who knew him, characterizes Husband as a man of superior mind, grave in deportment, somewhat taciturn, wary in conversation, but when excited, forcible and fluent in argument.
He was a man of strict integrity and firm in his advocacy of the right.
He had considerable property, and took the part of the people in their complaints against the extortions of the officers.
He was a member of the Assembly in .
His participation in the Regulation movement brought the Government down on him, and he was imprisoned for more than fifty days, awaiting trial on charges on which the grand jury could not agree to return an indictment.
He was also presented for riot under an ex post facto law, and was six times acquitted by juries in Craven and Orange counties of all offenses alleged against him.
He was expelled from the Assembly, and after the battle of the Alamance, at which he was not present, was outlawed, and a reward of $100, or 1,000 acres of land, was offered for his arrest, dead or alive.
He soon left North Carolina, returned to Pennsylvania, and became prominent in the Whiskey Rebellion in .
Footnote: “I find in the minutes of Western Quarterly Meeting in a notice of the disorderly marriage of ‘Amey Allin now Husbands.’
Was this a second wife of Hermon Husband?
In , William Husband was disowned by Cane Creek for fighting.
Was he a son of Hermon?”
Husband’s career was clearly inconsistent with the unwarlike creed of the Quakers.
His intentions were probably good, but because he had been a Quaker, the Society has had the credit of being a leader in the movement that culminated in the battle of the Alamance on .
Without entering at all into the merits of that struggle, it is sufficient to say that Friends, as a body, had nothing to do with it, and in their official capacity condemned it to the fullest extent.
A few extracts from their records will show this clearly.
Cane Creek Meeting was in the center of the disturbance.
The first mention we find of the troubles is in , when seven members were disowned for attending a “disorderly meeting,” probably one of the mass-meetings with which the country was then alive.
In two Quakers were complained of for joining a body of persons to withdraw from the paying of the taxes.
They were disowned.
In Hermon Cox was disowned for joining the Regulators.
In denials were published against Benjamin and James Underwood, Joshua Dixon, Isaac Cox, Samuel Cox and his two sons, Hermon and Samuel, James Matthews, John and Benjamin Hinshaw, William Graves, Nathan Farmer, Jesse Pugh, William Tanzy, John and William Williams, who all seem to have been Regulators.
Thomas Pugh was also disowned for joining, and Humphrey Williams for aiding them.
Three men were disowned by New Garden Monthly Meeting for joining, and a fourth condemned himself in meeting for aiding “with a gun.”
These are all the cases I have found that indicate the participation of the Quakers in the political and civil troubles of the day.
They remained faithful to the Government.
Governor Tryon made a requisition on them for twenty beeves and ten barrels of flour for his army.
They agreed to furnish the things demanded, but pleaded that they could not do it within the limits of time set.
In Friends asserted their loyalty and attachment to George Ⅲ., and at the beginning of the Revolution the Yearly Meeting, in its letter to the Society in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, gave forth their “testimony against all Plotting, Conspiracies, and insurrections against the king and government whatsoever as works of darkness.”
The Regulation, no doubt, had a bad effect on the Society in this section.
The minutes of Cane Creek Monthly Meeting , fill but two pages, as if outside matters were attracting their attention.
There were, moreover, many removals and few arrivals at Cane Creek.
These troubles caused, no doubt, a considerable exodus of Quakers to Bush River, S.C., and to Wrightsborough, Ga., just as they sent many members of the Sandy Creek Baptist Association from the same section to the banks of the Watauga in Eastern Tennessee.
In , a group of Quakers wrote to the governor of New York to explain why they wouldn’t be giving him money to repair his fort (this from Rufus M. Jones’s The Quakers in the American Colonies, ):
Whereas it was desired of the country that all who would willingly contribute towards repairing the fort of New York would give in their names and sums, and we whose names are under written not being found on the list, it was since desired by the High Sheriff that we would give our reasons unto the Governor how willing and ready we have been to pay our customs as county rates and needful town charges and how we have behaved ourselves peaceably and quietly amongst our neighbors, and are ready to be serviceable in anything which does not infringe upon our tender consciences, but being in measure redeemed of wars and stripes we cannot for conscience’ sake be concerned in upholding things of that nature, as you yourselves well know.
It has not been our practice in Old England since we were a people, and this in meekness we declare. In behalf of ourselves and our friends, love and good will unto thee and all men.
For the governor, this sort of thing took some getting used to.
By , his military funding requests were accompanied by various rhetorical methods to get past these peculiar scruples:
I have sundry things to offer to your Consideration, but shall only insist upon two at present.
1st.
You know that government, if it be not supported, becomes precarious, void, and ends in nothing.
2nd.
Gentlemen, here is a letter directed to me as governor of this province, from her Majesty, whereof you shall have a copy.
The province of New York has been a long time burdened with a troublesome war, (if it may be called a war, for indeed the French and Indians in Canada are a pitiful enemy, if they could be brought to fight fair, but the wood, swamps and bushes gives them the opportunity of vexing us).
You will see by this letter their Majesties’ commands, and what is expected from you towards the assistance of that province.
Gentlemen, if there be any amongst you that scruple the giving of money to support war, there are a great many other charges in that government, for the support thereof, as officers salaries and other charges, that amount to a considerable sum:
Your money shall be converted to these uses, and shall not be dipped in blood.
The money raised there for the support of the government shall be employed for the defense of the frontiers which do give you protection.
I would have you consider the walls about your gardens and orchards; your doors and locks of your houses; mastiff dogs and such other things as you make use of to defend your goods and property against thieves and robbers are the same courses that their Majesties take for their forts, garrisons and soldiers, etc. to secure their kingdoms and provinces, and you as well as the rest of their subjects.
I speak the more to this matter because I have their Majesties’ command, which lies now here before you.
This line of attack would come up again and again in the debates about Quaker war tax resistance to follow.
The Quakers would attempt to prove themselves good citizens, on the one hand, by noting that they believed firmly in rendering unto Cæsar and giving all due respect to the established powers-that-be; but on the other hand, they’d insist that the gospel demanded that Christians not participate in violent measures, but turn the other cheek and so forth, and so they would have to stand aloof when it came to war.
Their annoyed opponents would point out that the establishment of government is all about being the violent measure of last resort, and if you’re going to claim that you are against violence because it is prohibited by God & Conscience, it’s silly to limit that to war.
If you rely on government to protect your property or enforce your laws, you’re relying on violence, of which war is just a subset.
Lewis Morris (), who would later become governor of New Jersey, noted in that Lord Cornbury (Edward Hyde), who was governor of New York at the time and whom Morris disliked, had by that point given up on trying to negotiate:
In the Militia Act the Quakers that could not for conscience, forsooth, bear arms was to pay a certain sum yearly, and forfeitures were laid upon other defaulters, but there was no provision made to return the surplus of the distresses, if any such thing should be.
My Lord [Cornbury] had made a set of officers suitable to his turn, to say no more of them, these were punctual in making distresses, and generally above ten times the value, which, when they came to expose to sale, nobody would buy, so that there is or lately was a house at Burlington, filled with demonstrations of the obstinacy of the Quakers, there was boots, hats, shoes, clothes, dishes, plows, knives, earthenware, with many other things and these distresses amounts, as is said, to above 1,000£ a year, almost enough to defray the charges of the government without any other way.
By , after Morris became a colonial governor himself, his memories of the actions of Lord Cornbury became more sympathetic.
Here’s how he recollects the same event then:
there was a militia act in force here, something better calculated for the purpose than that here now in use, which those called Quakers would by no means, on pretense of conscience, obey.
And while they were unmolested and not distrained on they laughed at those that did.
This made others murmur who were obliged to train and muster and encouraged their refusing to do so, they claiming as much right to an exemption from training as the Quakers.
This being judged at that time inconvenient, the officers were ordered to make distresses pursuant to the act, and (not being Quakers) perhaps put it in execution with more vigor than they should have done.
This was called persecution for conscience sake, and these Quakers grew fond of what they called suffering, and gloried in the doing so, calling it a suffering for the Lords sake.
Stores were filled with distrained goods such as hats, shoes, coats, britches, saddles, bridles etc. but nobody would buy them when offered to sale.
Later, his frustration with the Quakers grew.
Here’s an excerpt from a letter from :
I have attempted in two Assemblies past, to get a bill for the settlement of the militia for our own defense, but without success.
The people called Quakers who are in our Assembly, and chiefly influence there, will by no means be prevailed to came into it; and if they will not do any thing for their own defense, you may easily Judge how unlikely it is they will do any thing in this case.
There is an odd entry made by them in the Journals of the Assembly in which was done at the desire of a Quaker in behalf of himself and other Quakers then members of the house in the following words viz.
The members of this house being of the “people called Quakers have always been and still are for raising of money for the support of her Majesty’s Government; but to raise money for raising of soldiers is against their religious principles; and for conscience cannot agree thereto.”
This principle of conscience whether real or pretended (though contrary to the principles of natural reason and religion) they tenaciously pretend to adhere to; which renders those that are willing to act otherwise, incapable of doing any thing that way…
American Quakers of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries were often
so confident in their war tax resistance that they assumed (and sometimes
said) that it had been a part of Quaker practice since the beginning of the
sect. But some of the earliest Quakers, on the contrary, seemed eager to
demonstrate their willingness to pay all taxes as a way of ingratiating
themselves with the governments they lived under while under pressure from
hostile establishment churches.
The payment of taxes to the civil authority was explicitly covered by
Christ’s words. [George] Fox, during the Commonwealth period, had advised
payment, and wrote as follows about one of the Poll Acts of Charles
Ⅱ.:
To the earthly we give the earthly: that is, to Caesar we give unto him his
things, and to God we give unto Him His things. And so in the other Power’s
days we did not forget on our parts, though they did fail on their’s…
Which, if Friends should not do and had not done — give Caesar his due, and
custom and tribute to them that look for it, which are for the punishment of
evil-doers — then might they say and plead against us; How can we defend you
against foreign enemies and protect everyone in their estates and keep down
thieves and murderers?
In , in conversation with Peter the Great,
Thomas Story said:
Though we are prohibited arms and fighting in person, as inconsistent we
think with the rules of the gospel of Christ, yet we can and do by His
example readily and cheerfully pay unto every Government, in every form,
where we happen to be subjects, such sums and assessments as are required of
us by the respective laws under which we live. … We, by so great an
example, do freely pay our taxes to Caesar, who of right hath the direction
and application of them, to the various ends of government, to peace or to
war, as it pleaseth him or as need may be, according to the constitution or
laws of his kingdom, and in which we as subjects have no direction or share:
for it is Caesar’s part to rule in justice and in truth, but ours to be
subject and mind our own business and not to meddle with his.
Richd Robinson []… was truly
Valiant in bearing his Testimony for ye Truth, both under ye Conventicle Act
& against Tythes & Steeplehouse Assessmts,
&c, and also
for not Paying as sending to ye Malitia, for wch faithfulness upon these
Accounts he suffered Deeply & Chearfully both by Imprisonmt &
Spoiling of Goods for ye Lords sake, who was his Rich rewarder.
He likewise Bare a faithfull Testimony against the paymt of Tythes, and
Bearing or finding a man to the Militia, for he was all along Charged with
finding a man, But allways kept very Clear and never after his convincement
would pay anything directly or Jndirectly, but suffered for the same by
fines & distresses, frequently Jncourraging other friends to stand
faithfull in their Testimony for Truth.
Refusal to pay legally mandatory tithes to the establishment church seemed to
be more common. For example, the same book also mentions the following cases:
a wife of John Watson who also “dyed a prisoner for her Testimoney against Tithes” amongst “Several Sufferings did attend [her companions] for their Testimony Against Tithes, And Several were Cast into Prison for their Testimony against ye Same”
“Robert Atkinson, of Lawerance Holme, [who] was Persecuted for his Consentious Refuseing to pay Tythe malt to George ffletcher, of Hutton, to Sequesteration, & took goods from him to ye value of Sixty pounds and upward, besides 8 or 9 monthes Jmprisonment in Carlisle”
“seurall of the frds of [Kirkbride] Meeting haue been deep Sufferers by Sequesterc̃on and otherwise, for bearing there Christion Testimony agt yt Grevious oppression of Tythe the Nation Groans vnder”
John Richardson, “wth William Bond, Adam Robinson, & Thomas Graham, for refusing to pay tithes were committed to Carlisle prison amongst ye Fellons, into a nasty, stinking place where they were like to be stifled for want of air.… Judgment was given, & goods distrained & sold; great havock was made, but nothing returned, so that their sufferings were heavy, both by rude people and by colour of Law.”
a Quaker convert, “ffrancis Howard, yt had before cast frds into prison for Tythes, and had said yet if he lost all his tythes he would never take yt rigid course to prosecute again”
“Jn , Many ffrds were brought Prisoners to Colchestr Castle for nonpayment of tithes”
Around Colchester, “there was great sufferings Jn ye County upon frds for non paymt of tithes & for speaking Jn Steeplehouses”
A priest got a Chancellors Court warrant against Roger Beck and William Beck “for Tythes, Offerings, or other Ecclesaisticall dues (as they might be called)… to take the sd Roger & William both to Gaol, Butt the same Warrt (partly by the Unwillingness of the Constables to whom the warrt wass directed) was not Executed soe farr as to take Either of them to Gaole” though “Two third part of [Roger’s] Estate were Confiscated, & Ceized for the Use of King Charles the 2d… This Confiscac̃on continued for about ten years, dyring wch tyme the Under-sherriffe (for the tyme being), or his Officers, frequently distreyned, & took away, & kept (or disposed of) a horse, or other Goods from the sd Roger Beck (as ’twas pretended) for the Ualue Confiscated. All wch persecuc̃on & much more, the sd Roger Beck did Undergoe with patience.”
“Richard Addams, of Limington… Layd Down his life in prison for his Testimony against Tythes.”
“Richard Bonwick… was uery often a sufferer in the Case of Tithes… for a little Farme of Ten or twelve pounds a yeare in which he dwelt, and had some times one Cow and some times two att a time taken from him by the priest for Tithes.”
“James Tennant… [was] taken Prisoner for his Testimony against Tythes, fro which he did not decline, but Patiently Endured Close Jmprisonment untill Death.”
“Nichlas Raw stood a faithfull man to ye Truth till his Death, wch was in Prison at Yorke, for his Testimony against yt antichristian Yoke of Tythes.” (a footnote adds a quote from Memory of the Faithful Revived: “Nicholas Raw was committed to prison in the Castle at York, by warrant of two justices, grounded on a Certificate of Contumacy out of the Ecclesiastical Court, in a Cause of Tithes at the Suit of Tobias West, Vicar of Grinton. After above four years and three months close confinement, he died a prisoner in the said Castle, on .”)
a Richard Geldart who “Dyed a Prisoner in Yorke Castle, because for Conscience sake he could not Pay Tythes”
a mention of a bailiff named James Foster who “had taken much goods from friends upon ye Account of Tythes” who died suddenly (under the heading “What Judgements fell vpon persecutors.”)
William Markham was the acting governor of the Pennsylvania colony in
, when the governor of New York (Benjamin
Fletcher) requested assistance against the French who were battling English
colonists and allied Indian nations there.
In , Fletcher had also requested assistance
of Pennsylvania, and, in a nod to the Quakers who controlled the legislature
there, had written:
[I]f there be any amongst you that scruple the giving of money to support
war, there are a great many other charges in that government, for the support
thereof, as officers salaries and other charges, that amount to a
considerable sum: Your money shall be converted to these uses, and shall not
be dipped in blood.
On , Markham conveyed
Fletcher’s new request to the Pennsylvania legislature (excerpt):
…I have received the sd
Gor ffletcher’s
speech to the assembly of newyorke, dated … which I give you, that
thereby you may see the pressures of that province, & the great occasion
they Have of men & monie, & of food & rayment, to be given to
those nations of Indians that Have Latelie suffered extreamlie by the French,
which is a fair opportunitie for you
(yt for Conscience
cannot Contribute to warr) to raise monie for that occasion, be it
undr the Colour of
support of
governmt, or of
reliefe of those Indians, or what else you may call it.
The legislature held out in order to exact concessions from the Governor that
gave more power to the legislature, but eventually approved the funds.
This book may help us find the earliest threads of war tax resistance as they developed in the Society of Friends before that practice became prominent among American Quakers.
(Tithe resistance, and resistance of similar taxes intended for the maintenance of the established church, were common from the earliest days of the Society, though I’m not going to show all of the many examples of this here.)
The first mention of war tax resistance I noticed in the book was from a footnote in the opening chapter, which covers non-Quaker pacifist sects and themes through the history of Christianity:
The Huterites (led by Jacob Hunter [sic]) took refuge in Moravia about .
English Quakers found them at Pressburg in Hungary in .
Their general views were almost identical with the Mennonite Baptists, but they practised communism, and carried their peace principles to the point of refusing payment of war taxes.
A few Churches founded by emigrants exist in South Dakota.
This suggests an avenue for future research (memo to myself…).
Chapter Ⅱ concerns the founding and early years of the Quakers.
It includes this mention of Quakers being fined after being appointed Militia Commissioners under Oliver Cromwell but refusing to equip and man militias:
In Cromwell appointed new Militia Commissioners for the English and Welsh counties, upon whom rested the duty of raising a force.
The horses, arms, and money required were to be obtained from Royalist estates, and used to equip the well-affected, who were formed into regiments and trained.
Those who refused to train were to be fined £20, and the obstinate imprisoned.
The policy of mulcting Royalist estates was soon abandoned, but the militia was maintained throughout the Protectorate, and heavy fines “for not sending a man to serve in the train-bands” soon became a common form of Quaker suffering.
The earliest known instances are found in records for fines and distraints in kind at Colchester in , but it is almost certain that these were not isolated examples.
After the Restoration, when Friends noted their sufferings with great accuracy, these fines are very frequent in all parts of the country.
Here, Hirst quotes from Norman Penney’s The First Publishers of Truth: Being Early Records (Now First Printed) of the Introduction of Quakerism Into the Counties of England and Wales, which reproduces records from the Richmond Monthly Meeting that say of one Richard Robinson:
…[He] was truly Valiant in bearing his Testimony for ye Truth, both under ye Conventicle Act & against Tythes & Steeplehouse Assessmts, &c., and also for not Paying as sending to ye Malitia, for wch faithfulness upon these Accounts he suffered Deeply & Chearfully both by Imprisonmt & Spoiling of Goods for ye Lords sake…
And, in another spot:
He Likewise Bare a faithfull Testimony against the paymt of Tythes, and Bearing or finding a man to the Militia, for he was all along Charged with finding a man, But always kept very Clear and never after his convincement would pay anything directly or Jndirectly, but suffered for the same by fines & distresses, frequently Jncourraging other friends to stand faithfull in their Testimony for Truth.
The “earliest known instances” of militia requisition resistance that Hirst mentions she also footnotes, and references this to Joseph Besse’s A Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers for the Testimony of a Good Conscience, where these instances (amidst others which I’ll reproduce below) are given as follows:
John Furly of Colchester, for refusing to send a Horse and Man, when summoned to serve in the County Militia, suffered by Distress to the Value of 3l. 5s. Also, Arthur Condon, for a Demand of 4s. toward the Charge of the Trained-Bands, had a Coat taken from him worth 20s.
Chapter Ⅲ notes that there is documentary evidence of George Fox’s war tax being paid:
[A]s the military system of the country was reorganized upon a settled basis, Friends inevitably came into conflict with its demands.
Acts were passed levying a poll tax for the maintenance of the war against the Dutch in , and of that with France in .
From the account book kept by Sarah Fell of Swarthmore Hall, which still survives, it is evident not only that the women of the Fell family paid the tax for some property they held jointly with other owners, but that it was also paid by, or on behalf of, their stepfather George Fox.
That line item reads:
li.
s.
d.qr
by mo pd to the Poll money for ffather & Mother
001
02
00
(A note accompanying a reprint of Sarah Fell’s account book says: “It is noteworthy that payment was made of direct war taxes.
Assessments on behalf of ‘Souldiers pay’ and ‘maimed Souldiers’ were also paid, and the Militia.”)
Hirst then notes:
An ancient document in the Friends’ Reference Library endorsed by Fox, “A paper concerning trebet [tribute] by g.f.,” apparently refers to one of these Acts, as it is also endorsed: “This is a copy of a letter sent to some Friends concerning the Poll Act.”
I found this in another source under the title “a paper consaring trebet by gf.” It reads:
Concerning ye in closed: paper: about ye poll act wch then montioned: it is knowne for this cause wee pay tribute or Custome & giue Cesar his due yt wee may Liue a godly and peaceable life vnder theme who are for the punishmt of Evell.
Doers & for ye praise of them that doe well: & soe to the Earthly wee giue ye earthly.
That is to Cesar: we giue vnto him his things & to god wee giue vnto him his things & soe in ye other pouers dayes wee did not forget on our parts though they did faile on theires who went aboute to hinder vs many times from our godly & peaceable liues soe in this thing soe doeing wee can plead with Cesar & plead with them yt hath our Custome & hath our tribute if they seeke to hinder vs from our godly & peaceable life wee haueing not been behind on our parts wch are for ye punishmt of evill doers, then might they say & plead agst us how can wee defend you against foraigne enemyes? & protect every one in theire estates and keep downe theeves & murderers yt one man should not take away anothers estate from him? much more I could say but wee haue not been behind for wee haue giuen vnto Cesar his things & Custome & tribute to whom it belongs for Conscience sake for ye punishmt of evill doers yt wee might liue a godly & peaceable life, though many haue let in evill doers vpon vs whom God hath Judged who pleads our cause vnto whom wee haue given his things.
G.ff.
(This is a Coppy of a letter sent to some friends concerning ye poll Act.)
(That’s hella hard to read, huh?
I’ll put a modern-English version of it below.)
Fox’s argument here is the standard triple-whammy of 1 Peter 2:13–15, Romans 13:1–7, and Matthew 22:15–22, that has been employed by Christians against people trying to assert scriptural support for tax resistance.
If you’re searching for an authoritative word about war tax resistance from the founder of the Quakers, this is probably it, unfortunately.
In another place, Fox writes (around ) a bit more ambiguously, but to much the same effect:
All friends every where, who are dead to all carnal weapons, and have beaten them to pieces, stand in that which takes away the occasion of wars, in the power which saves men’s lives, and destroys none, nor would have others.
And as for the rulers, that are to keep peace, for peace’s sake, and the advantage of truth, give them their tribute.
But to bear and carry carnal weapons to fight with, the men of peace, (which live in that which takes away the occasion of wars,) they cannot act in such things under the several powers; but have paid their tribute.
Which they may do still for peace sake, and not hold back the earth, but go over it; and in so doing, Friends may better claim their liberty.
Hirst notes in Chapter Ⅲ that:
Kent [Quarterly Meeting] Friends were evidently men of small means, for the liabilities laid upon them are curious fractions of the normal claims.
They are brought before the courts for “refusing to send out three parts of an arms,” “not finding arms for the quarter part of a musket,” “not contributing to the quarter part of the charge of finding a musket 30 days at 2s. a day,” and, strangest of all, for “not sending in half a man to a muster with a month’s pay.”
These being some examples of many kept in the records of “sufferings” kept by Friends Meetings.
These particular ones were from , I believe.
Thomas Lurting was seized from a merchant ship around and impressed onto a military vessel, where, as a pacifist Quaker, he refused to do any service.
The captain taunted him, saying “Thou art no Quaker, for here thou bring’st corn,” [he had been on a ship that was shipping grain] “and of it is made bread, and by the strength of that bread, we kill the Dutch; and therefore [thou art] no Quaker — or art not thou as accessory to their death as we?”
Lurting had to explain where he drew the line between direct and indirect
support for the military (he had refused to do any labor on the ship, even
to serve as a rope-hauler, cooper, or doctor’s assistant). He told the
captain: “I am a Man that have, and can feed my Enemies; and well may I you,
who pretend to be my Friends.”
In the Yearly Meeting issued an Epistle reminding Quaker shipmasters that, although the law now commanded all English merchant ships to be armed with guns for their defense, Quakers must not arm their ships.
In this Epistle, the Meeting contrasted this civil disobedience with taxpaying, saying:
You very well know our Christian principle and profession in this matter, both with respect to God and Cæsar, that, because we are subjects of Christ’s kingdom, which is not of this world, we cannot fight (John ⅹⅷ. 36); yet, being subjects of Cæsar’s kingdom, we pay our taxes, tribute, etc., according to the example of Christ and his holy apostles, relating to Christ’s kingdom and Cæsar’s, wherein we are careful not to offend (Matt. ⅹⅶ. 27; ⅹⅻ. 20. Rom. ⅹⅲ. 6, 7).
, a Quaker there complained that the English Army “take their corn, hay, oats, and provision, and pay them little for it,” which seems to distinguish their practice from future Quakers in the United States, who would refuse to accept any payment for goods so seized.
In the chapter on Robert Barclay, Hirst gives this quote from his An Apology for the True Christian Divinity ():
[W]e have suffered much in our country, because we neither could ourselves bear arms, nor send others in our place, nor give our money for the buying of drums, standards, and other military attire.
To which Hirst attaches the footnote: “This is the ‘Trophy Money’; distraints and imprisonments for its non-payment are often recorded among early ‘sufferings.’ ” This, however, is the first mention of resistance of “Trophy Money” in Hirst’s book, and in general Hirst seems to concentrate more on the development of the abstract peace testimony during this period than on the practical ramifications for conscientious objection.
I found some examples elsewhere, however. Here are some from
:
In also were taken for Fines imposed for refusing to defray the Charges of the Militia,
From
l.
s.
d.
83
9
8
Daniel Quare, two Clocks and two Watches worth
11
5
0
Thomas West, Goods worth
14
4
9
John Dew, of Paul’s, Joyner, to the Value of
13
2
6
Samuel Atlee, Pewter worth
13
10
0
Joseph Wilkinson, of Silver-street, Looking-glasses worth
7
2
6
Thomas Lacey, Tobacco worth
24
4
11
Taken also for Claims of Trophy Money,
From
l.
s.
d.
Samuel Atlee, of Bread-street, Pewter worth
0
3
0
John Light, of Dowgate, Pewter worth
0
2
4
Henry Doggett, Goods worth
0
4
6
Here is one from :
Taken also in , for refusing to defray the Charges of the Militia,
From
l.
s.
d.
27
18
1
Richard Jordan, William Chamberlain, John Vaughton, and Thomas Frith, Goods to the Value of
8
5
0
John Marshall, Philip Oyles, and William Holland, of Limehouse, Goods worth
15
15
0
John Eaves, of Shadwell, Goods worth
1
7
6
John Marlow, of Katherine’s, Mariner
1
17
0
Ralph Johnson, of Ludgate-street, and John Cooke, of Grace-church-street, for Trophy Money, Goods worth
0
13
7
Here are two from :
Daniel Bunce, for refusing to pay Trophy Money, had a Lamb taken from him worth 4s. and William Austell of Oare, for the same Cause, Goods worth 2s. 6d.
Refusals to contribute money for the militia go back even further.
There are the “earliest known examples” mentioned earlier, from Colchester in , only about a decade after the Society of Friends began to collect around George Fox.
Here’s another example from Bristol in :
On , Samuel Taylor, Shoemaker and Edward Erberry, Soapboiler, and , Thomas Callowhill, a Shopkeeper, were taken from their Houses by Soldiers, for refusing to contribute toward the Charge of the City Militia…
Hampshire, also in :
William Gill, William Valler, and Elizabeth Streater, for refusing to pay toward the Charge of the County Militia, were imprisoned at Winchester fifteen Days, and afterward had their Goods taken by Distress to the Value of 8l. 5s.
Glocestershire :
Henry Howland of Tewksbury, for refusing to bear Arms, or to pay toward the Charge of the Militia, had an Horse taken from him worth 4l. 8s. The Person who took the Horse acknowledging, “that he did it against his Conscience,” Henry Howland told him, “he might then expect some Judgment would follow;” and it was observed, that the said Person, having ordered his Son to sell the Horse, as he was riding, the Horse ran violently with him against the Arm of a Tree, so that he died of the Blow immediately.
Hampshire in :
[F]or refusing to pay toward the Charge of the Militia, were taken,
From
l.
s.
d.
16
0
0
Elizabeth Streater of Bramshott, Cattle worth
7
0
0
William Valler of Heathly, Cattle to the Value of
9
0
0
London in :
John Hewett, Thomas Gouchman, and Jeremiah Clarke, for refusing to pay towards the Charges of the Militia, had Goods taken from them to the Value of 8l. 10s.
Dorsetshire in :
Sarah Bagg of Bridport, for refusing to pay 2l. 8d. for a Soldier in the Trained Bands, suffered Distress of Goods to the Value of 20s.
London in :
Several others suffered Distress of Goods for refusing to pay to the Charges of the Militia, viz.
Philip Ford, who for a Fine of 4l. 13s. 4d. had his Goods taken away to the Value of 24l. 2s. And Thomas Witehel, who for 40s. Fine, suffered by Distress to the Value of 3l. 13s. Also Thomas Lacey, of Martin’s-lane, who being fined 4l. 13s. 4d. had Tobacco taken from him worth 6l. 17s. For the same Cause Thomas Cobb, of Martin’s-le-Grand, had Goods taken away to the Value of 4l. 2s. 8d. ¾d. And William Ellis, into whose House the Officers coming when his Doors were shut, made a forcible Entrance by breaking an Hatch, and opening the Door with a Sledge, had Pewter taken away worth 4l. 13s. 4d.
Wales in :
For refusing to contribute toward the Charges of the Militia, several Distresses were made, by which were taken
From
l.
s.
d.
3
11
1
David Hitchins, of Tenby, Goods worth
1
16
0
Willian Jenkins, of the same
1
9
0
John Burgess, of Haverford-West
0
2
1
Arthur Bewes, to the Value of
0
4
0
Glocestershire in :
Richard Bowley and Amariah Drewett, for refusing to contribute toward the Charge of the County Militia, had Malt and Hay taken from them to the Value of 4l.
London in :
[S]everal Distresses were made by Warrants from some of the Lieutenancy for refusing to contribute to the Charges of the Militia, by which were taken from Christopher Jacobs, Thomas Mincks, John Stokes, Thomas Barker, Thomas Witham, Simon Marshall, and John Robinson, Goods to the Value of 7l. 6s.
London in :
And for refusing to pay toward the Charges of the Militia, were taken
From
l.
s.
d.
7
2
11
Samuel Wilkinson, of Pelham-street, Goods worth
1
15
0
Robert Chalkley, of Booth-street
1
11
2
John Pantling and Thomas Powel
3
16
9
Cornwall in :
In the following Persons, for refusing to bear Arms, or contribute to the Charge of the County Militia, suffered Distress, by which were taken
From
l.
s.
d.
12
5
0
Richard Tregennow, for 13d. Demand, Goods worth
1
0
0
Samuel Hancock, for 28s. Demand, Goods worth
3
5
0
John Tregellis, of Falmouth, Goods worth
0
14
0
Stephen Richards of the same, Cloth worth
1
2
0
Edward Bealing of Penryn, Goods worth
4
0
0
John Scantlebury, Goods worth
2
4
0
Surry in :
Anne Bax, a Widow of Capel had a fat Bullock taken from her by Distress, worth 3l. for her conscientious Refusal to contribute toward the Charges of the Militia for this County.
And there are other examples where a Quaker is fined for not serving in the militia and/or for not sending a substitute, and the fine is carried out by means of seizure, which probably indicates that the Quaker refused to voluntarily pay the fine.
This takes us up and pretty well covers the first generation of Quakers.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned, Hirst seems more interested in the evolution of Quaker doctrine concerning war, and less with the practice of conscientious objection, so there may be some items we would have found interesting that she did not consider worth noting.
Another way people can assist and show solidarity with tax resisters is by coming to their assistance if their property is seized.
Here are some examples:
Practical support
The War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund was established in .
It helps war tax resisters who have had penalties and interest added to their tax bills and seized by the IRS by reimbursing them for a large portion of these additional charges.
The more people we could recruit to shoulder the penalties and interest of resisters, the lighter the burden for everyone.
With the modest help we could provide, conscientious resisters were able to keep on keeping on.
The penalty fund had the added benefit of making us all tax resisters, not just those who withheld all or a portion of their income taxes.
The base list of supporters has been as high as 800 people sharing the weight.
In nearly every appeal, at least 200 people respond, usually more.
In all we’ve paid out about $250,000 to help resisters stay in the struggle.
The story of the seizure of the Kehler/Corner home was the subject of the documentary An Act of Conscience.
When the home of war tax resisters Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner was seized for back taxes, supporters came from near and far to maintain a 24-hour occupation of the home:
[David] Dellinger and others have come from as far away as California to the Colrain [Massachusetts] house…
Mr. Kehler and Ms. Corner continued to live in the house until they were arrested by Federal marshals last December.
Since then, friends and supporters of the couple have arrived to occupy the almost empty house in week-long shifts marked by the Thursday “changing of the guard” ceremony.
Because the house was sold in a Government auction in , all who go inside risk arrest for trespassing.…
For Bonney Simons of St. Johnsbury, Vt., sleeping on a bedroll in the house is her first official act of civil disobedience.
At 72 years of age, she said, it is time to “put your body where your mouth is.”
Suffragist tax resister Dora Montefiore barricaded her home and kept the tax collector from seizing her property for several weeks in , in what came to be known as the “Siege of Montefiore.”
She noted:
The tradespeople of the neighbourhood were absolutely loyal to us besieged women, delivering their milk and bread, etc., over the rather high garden wall which divided the small front gardens of Upper Mall from the terraced roadway fronting the river.
The weekly wash arrived in the same way and the postman day by day delivered very encouraging budgets of correspondence, so that practically we suffered very little inconvenience…
A woman sympathiser in the neighbourhood brought during the course of the [first] morning, a pot of home-made marmalade, as the story had got abroad that we had no provisions and had difficulty in obtaining food.
This was never the case as I am a good housekeeper and have always kept a store cupboard, but we accepted with thanks the pot of marmalade because the intentions of the giver were so excellent.
Examples like this also proved to be vivid anecdotes that the press could use when describing the siege and the support from sympathizers.
When the U.S. government seized Amish tax resister Valentine Byler’s horses and their harnesses while he was in the field preparing for spring planting, sympathetic neighbors allowed him to borrow their horses so he could continue his work.
Other sympathizers throughout the country who heard about the case sent Byler money — more than enough to buy a new team.
An auctioneer who was dragooned into helping the government sell some of the livestock of a man who had been resisting taxes meant to pay for sectarian education in , donated the fee he had earned for conducting the auction to the resister.
During the water charge strike in Dublin, “local campaign groups successfully resisted attempts to disconnect water and in the couple of instances where water was cut off, campaigners re-connected it within hours.
The first round was won hands down by the campaign and it was back to the drawing board for the councils.”
Similar monkeywrenching is being practiced today in Greece, where activists promptly reconnect utilities of people who have been disconnected for failure to pay the increased taxes attached to their utility bills.
During the Annuity Tax resistance in Edinburgh, people sympathetic to the resisters would bid on and return furniture and other items that had been seized and sold by the tax collectors.
The Rebecca Rioters, on the other hand, were characteristically more direct in their resistance:
Warrants of distress were issued… and the constables proceeded to execute them…
The constables then went towards Talog; but when on their way there they heard the sound of a horn, and immediately between two and three hundred persons assembled together, with their faces blackened, some dressed in women’s caps, and others with their coats turned so as to be completely disguised — armed with scythes, crowbars and all manner of destructive weapons which they could lay their hands on.
After cheering the constables, they defied them to do their duty.
The latter had no alternative but to return to town without executing their warrants.
The women were seen running in all directions to alarm their neighbours; and some hundreds were concealed behind the hedges, intending to appear if their services were required.
The entire district seemed to be aroused, and awaiting the arrival of the constables, who were going to levy on the goods of John Harris of Talog Mill for the amount of the fine and costs imposed upon him by the magistrates.
There could not have been less than two hundred persons assembled to resist the execution of process, and vast numbers were flocking from all quarters, in response to the blowing of a horn, the signal of the Rebeccaites to repair thither.
Various mounted messengers were scouring the country and sounding the trumpet of alarm.…
At Maesgwenllian near Kidwelly, several bailiffs were put in possession for arrears of rent to the amount of £150, but about , Rebecca and a great number of her followers made their appearance on the premises, and after driving the bailiffs off, took away the whole of the goods distrained on.
As soon as daylight appeared, the bailiffs returned, but found no traces of Rebecca, nor of the goods which had been taken away.
A group in Olive Hill, Kentucky in followed the Rebecca model, to an extent, “in a raid… by a band of between 800 and 900 men, who forced Levi White, Collector of Taxes, to give up a stock of goods which had been seized.
The goods were then taken back to the store of Levi Oppenheimer, where the official had seized them.”
Last year in Oaxaca, the PRI said that the would “defend up to the point of injunctions those citizens who suffer from liens imposed as well as judgments in order to prevent the impounding of vehicles, considering it unconstitutional that the police will impound them to stop the driver and remove the unit if the striker does not pay the corresponding [vehicle] tax.”
The IRS auctioned off a portion of Ralph Shinaberry’s property in after he refused to pay a fine for growing more wheat on his farm than his government-assigned quota.
“I don’t believe the Government can tell me how much I can grow,” he said, explaining his resistance.
The winning bidder, Herbert Jessup, told a reporter:
“I have no intention of taking possession of the property.”
When war tax resister Cosmas Raimondi’s car was seized by the IRS in , a handful of families in his parish offered to permanently loan him their car so he could still get around, and many others loaned him their cars temporarily.
“I’ve not had to ask one person,” he said.
In Beit Sahour, when the Israeli occupation authorities seized furniture and appliances from resisters, relatives and others would loan them spares, or camping furniture to use as replacements.
“In Bedfordshire in community pressure persuaded a minister to return goods seized from a Quaker for non-payment of tithes.”
Moral support
When Dora Montefiore was first formulating her “siege” strategy with fellow-activists Theresa Billington and Annie Kenney, they agreed to organize daily demonstrations outside of her home while she was defending it.
Montefiore remembered:
The feeling in the neighbourhood towards my act of passive resistance was so excellent and the publicity being given by the Press in the evening papers was so valuable that we decided to make the Hammersmith “Fort” for the time being the centre of the W.S.P.U. activities, and daily demonstrations were arranged for and eventually carried out. …
The roadway was… ideal for the holding of a meeting, as no blocking of traffic could take place, and day in, day out the principles for which suffragists were standing we expounded to many who before had never even heard of the words Woman Suffrage.
At the evening demonstrations rows of lamps were hung along the top of the wall and against the house, the members of the W.S.P.U. speaking from the steps of the house, while I spoke from one of the upstairs windows.
…shoals of letters came to me, a few sadly vulgar and revolting, but the majority helpful and encouraging.
Some Lancashire lads who had heard me speaking in the Midlands wrote and said that if I wanted help they would come with their clogs but that was never the sort of support I needed, and though I thanked them, I declined the help as nicely as I could. …
The working women from the East End came, time and again, to demonstrate in front of my barricaded house…
When the IRS seized and auctioned off the home and farm of Art Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos in , other war tax resisters and supporters were by their sides:
“I might have cried if I were alone,” Gravalos admitted.
But she was far from alone.
About 75 supporters gathered outside the building and spoke of their solidarity with Elizabeth and Arthur.
About 35 supporters turned up for the second auction, this time held at the IRS office in Lewiston, Maine.
Demonstrators read excerpts from letters to IRS officials and to President Clinton urging them to call off the auction.
In , the IRS levied 78-year-old war tax resister Ruth McKay’s social security checks to recoup the taxes she had been refusing to pay over the previous 20 years.
To show their support of her stand, 40 activists from New Hampshire Peace Action joined her for a vigil at the federal courthouse in Concord, New Hampshire.
When war tax resister Maria Smith’s wages were garnisheed by the IRS in , fifty supporters held a special church service in her honor.
“One of the Valod Vanias,” whose land was seized by the government during the Bardoli satyagraha, “who thus lost all his valuable property, celebrated the event by inviting friends and soldiers of Satyagraha to a party.”
On the other hand, some campaigns have taken the position that sacrifices for the cause are their own reward — that martyrdom is a blessing and that it would be foolish for such resisters to seek or accept recompense.
Nathaniel Morgan was speaking with someone curious about the Quaker stand on war and war taxes, and had this to say:
I told him then that I and my father had refused to pay the income tax on account of war, and had refused it on its first coming out, and withstood it 16 years, except when peace was declared, and that our goods were sold by auction to pay it.
This seemed to excite his curiosity, and made a stand to hear further, on the steps above the engine, going down to the river; asking me if we got anything by that, meaning, was anything refunded by the Society for such suffering.
I immediately replied: “Yes, peace of mind, which was worth all.”
At the upcoming national gathering of NWTRCC at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, I’m going to be presenting a summary of the history of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends (Quakers).
Preparing for this talk has been daunting.
It’s a huge topic, spanning centuries and continents, and there are gaps and biases both in the historical record itself, and in my personal knowledge about it.
I’m also not a Quaker, and so am in the awkward and somewhat suspect position of trying to explain Quaker history to Quakers (I expect many of the attendees will be Quakers, particularly as Earlham College is a Quaker institution) as an outsider.
Indeed I’m not Christian or even religious, so when I read a Quaker testifying that the holy spirit or “the light” or something of that nature is compelling him or her to take a certain course of action, I just have to sort of take it “on faith” that they know what they’re talking about.
So I’m going to ask you to indulge me as I think “out loud” on The Picket Line while I’m trying to organize my notes.
Most of the material I’m working with while assembling this history comes from two sources: the huge stash of documents I assembled into the collection American Quaker War Tax Resistance, and the archives of the Friends Journal.
Both of these sources are biased towards reports of American Friends and Meetings, leaving out much of what may have been happening elsewhere.
They also leave time gaps.
The first stops at ; the second covers .
I’ve tried to supplement this with material from other sources when I could find it.
There seem to me to be some distinct “periods” of Quaker war tax resistance:
War tax resistance has been part of Quaker practice almost from the very
beginning.
George Fox paid his war taxes and counseled Quakers to do so, but Robert Barclay’s Apology published in reports that Quakers “have suffered much… because we neither could ourselves bear arms, nor send others in our place, nor give our money for the buying of drums, standards, and other military attire.”
Quakers ran the colonial legislature in Pennsylvania, founded by Quaker
William Penn.
This allowed them to put their pacifist principles to the test, which they did to some extent.
But most commentators on the period portray the legislature as refusing to enact requested war funding measures mostly as a negotiating gambit, and that they eventually would cough up the war money in thinly-veiled ways.
This led several individual Quakers to pledge to refuse to pay taxes to the Quaker government, which in turn led the London Yearly Meeting to come out against such war tax resistance.
Eventually this tension became too great, and Quakers gave up government control in Pennsylvania.
The conscientious Quaker dissidents in America proved influential and
their ideas spread, even, eventually, to London, where the meeting found itself coping with a new, home-grown challenge to war tax paying.
American Quakers suffered much during the American Revolution for their refusal to give material support to the rebel army, and some dissident Quakers broke off from their meetings because of this.
A purifying and intensifying tendency began to rock the Society of Friends, in the aftermath of the war, which tended to strengthen the testimony against paying war taxes, but ended by splitting the Society.
American Quakers identify with the abolitionist cause, which eventually
becomes a war aim of the Union side in the Civil War.
The society largely maintains its peace testimony and refusal to pay war taxes through the war, at least on an official level, but there is a slackening in how it is practiced and enforced, and in the aftermath of the war both are shadows of their former selves.
War tax resisters are few and fairly quiet for decades.
When war tax
resistance is mentioned, it is as a relic of a former time like “thees” and “thous”.
To the extent that it still remains on the record as a part of Quaker discipline, it is ignored as something belonging to another time.
By and large, Quakers pay even explicit war taxes without complaint.
A war tax resistance movement begins to coalesce in the United States,
but it’s notable how few of its prominent members are Quakers.
Eventually, though, this begins to embolden the remaining American Quaker war tax resisters and to rekindle interest in the Society of Friends.
The cold war nuclear arms race and the Vietnam War cause a resurgence of
war tax resistance in the Society of Friends around the world, from Japan to Norway.
By , pretty much all American Quakers must have confronted the issue of war taxes and made a decision about what to do about it.
Some Meetings began resisting taxes as a group.
War tax resistance becomes a central part of the Quaker peace testimony, and American Quakers who are not resisting in some fashion are on the defensive about it.
The end of the cold war took some of the urgency out of the war tax issue
for some Quakers, and those who still felt a concern about war taxes often looked for magical ways to make the issue go away without having to resort to actual tax resistance — such as “peace tax fund” legislation or increasingly desperate and fruitless legal appeals.
Remnants of the renaissance period war tax resistance stands still exist, but have little vitality or momentum.
Most mentions of war tax resistance in the Friends Journal are seen in the obituaries column.
In some of these periods, to be a Quaker was necessarily to be a war tax resister, as just about every household was subject to some sort of explicit war tax or militia exemption tax and the discipline of Quaker meetings required Friends to refuse to pay such taxes or to risk being disowned.
In other periods, such explicit war taxes had vanished, and the government paid for war through less explicit, less transparent, more general-purpose taxes.
In those periods, Quaker war tax resistance was more a subject for individual decision and debate and there was a less clear-cut orthodox opinion on how Friends should behave.
At the upcoming national gathering of NWTRCC at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, I’m going to be presenting a summary of the history of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends (Quakers).
Today I’m going to try to coalesce some of the notes I’ve assembled about the first period of Quaker war tax resistance — between the founding of the Society of Friends and the establishment of the Quaker colony in Pennsylvania.
The beginnings (~)
George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, was not a war tax resister.
We know this because he explicitly advised Quakers to pay a war tax and also because his daughter kept good records of the family finances, which explicitly list “Souldiers pay” among the expenses.
But the fact that Fox had to write a letter encouraging Quakers to pay war taxes indicates that the question was a live one in the Society from the beginning.
The Quakers did refuse to pay legally-mandated tithes to the establishment church, so a tradition of conscientious objection to taxation was there to draw on, and some Quakers quickly drew the logical conclusion that as pacifists they should also refuse to pay to the priesthood of Mars.
Fox, though, hoped to end the persecution of the Society of Friends by a suspicious government, and thought that by presenting them as both thoroughly pacifist (and thus no military threat to the government) and as willing taxpayers (and thus of direct assistance to the government), he could best make his case.
If Quakers refused to serve in the military and also refused to pay war taxes, he worried, the government might find the Quakers to be more trouble than they’re worth, complaining “How can we defend you against foreign enemies and protect everyone in their estates and keep down thieves and murderers?”
But a number of Quakers must have disregarded Fox’s advice, because as early as you start to see entries in the “books of sufferings” maintained by the Society about the persecution of Quakers for refusing to pay things like “Trophy Money,” the “Charge of the Trained-Bands,” the “Charge of the Militia” and other war taxes of that sort.
In , Quakers became aware of another anabaptist sect, the Hutterites in Hungary, who were also practicing war tax resistance.
In , in Robert Barclay’s influential defense of Quaker principles, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, he states that Quakers “have suffered much in our country, because we neither could ourselves bear arms, nor send others in our place, nor give our money for the buying of drums, standards, and other military attire.”
By this has started to become codified into an official discipline in some places.
One Meeting had this query for its members that year:
Do you bear a faithful testimony against bearing arms, and paying trophy money, or being in any manner concerned in the militia, in privateers, letters of marque, armed vessels or in dealing in prize goods as such?
At the upcoming national gathering of NWTRCC at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, I’m going to be presenting a summary of the history of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends (Quakers).
Today I’m going to try to coalesce some of the notes I’ve assembled about the second, and possibly most important, period of Quaker war tax resistance — between the establishment of the Quaker colony in Pennsylvania and the relinquishment of political control there by Quakers during the French and Indian War.
The Pennsylvania experiment ()
The advance of war tax resistance among English Quakers had ground to a halt.
Quakers in England still would not pay certain explicit war taxes like “trophy money,” nor pay for substitutes to serve in their places in the military, nor buy goods stolen at sea from enemy nations by government-sanctioned pirates, but attempts failed to extend this testimony to other taxes that were clearly designed to pay for war.
For example, Elizabeth Redford tried to convince Quakers to refuse a new tax in on the grounds that it was obviously meant to fund the Seven Years War (the act that enacted the tax was entitled “For granting to his majesty certain rates and duties upon marriages, births, and burials, and upon bachelors and widowers, for the term of five years, for carrying on the war against France with vigour”).
Her meeting brought her up on charges of violating the discipline and declared that whatever the purpose of the tax, it was being raised by the crown for expenses of its choosing and Quakers should not inquire further into what those expenses were but should pay the tax without question.
Several years later, during the War of the Spanish Succession, this got thrown back in Quaker faces.
William Ray, in a letter to Quaker Samuel Bownas, argued that Quakers should stop resisting tithes because they had stopped resisting war taxes: “though the title of the act of parliament did plainly show that the tax was for carrying on a war against France with vigour” he wrote, “since the war against France began your Friends have given the same active obedience to the laws for payment of taxes as their fellow subjects have done.”
Bownas did not deny this, but instead he tried to argue that tithes were different.
Meanwhile, Quaker William Penn was granted a royal charter for a large North American colony, to which many Quakers emigrated and established a colonial government that would be run, to some extent, on Quaker pacifist principles.
I say “to some extent” because it was still a royal colony, under the military protection of the crown, and with an explicit colonial mandate to engage in military battles against enemies of the home country.
The Quaker Assembly of the colony was also subservient in many ways to the crown-appointed governors and to the British government itself.
Occasionally during wartime, that government would appeal to the Pennsylvania Assembly to raise some funds to help out the war effort — to help defend Pennsylvania against pirates, Frenchmen, hostile Indians, and the like.
The Assembly would sometimes respond to such requests with noble-sounding statements of Quaker principle, like this one by Assembly Speaker David Lloyd in : “the raising money to hire men to fight or kill one another is matter of conscience to us and against our religious principles.”
But most commentators on the period, even those who are sympathetic to the Quaker pacifist position, tend to read these statements cynically.
The Assembly used these requests for money as opportunities to try to wrest more control from the governor and from London.
These statements of conscience seemed often not to be principles so much as gambits in the negotiation process.
The Assembly would usually, in the end, grant the requested money, or some amount anyway, but would thinly veil its nature by eliminating any wording about the money being intended for the military and instead would simply decree that it was intended as a gift to the crown from its grateful subjects, “for the Queen’s [or King’s] use.”
This was such a transparent dodge that it became hard for anyone to take seriously the part of the Quaker peace testimony represented in Lloyd’s quote.
On one occasion, according to colonial legislator Benjamin Franklin, the Assembly refused to vote war money, but instead granted funds “for the purchasing of bread, flour, wheat, or other grain” knowing that the governor would interpret “other grain” to include gunpowder.
The Assembly were able to get away with this, in a colony full of ostensibly conscientious Quakers, because the orthodox point of view about war tax resistance in the Society held that only explicit war taxes were to be resisted, while generic taxes that only happened to be for war were to be paid willingly.
So long as the government kept the name of the tax neutral and didn’t detail how it would be spent, a Quaker could pay it without having to worry about it.
But some Quakers were unable to remain blind to the Assembly’s sleight-of-hand.
In , the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting sent emissaries to some of its rebellious Monthly Meetings who were beginning to refuse to pay state taxes on these grounds.
In , William Rakestraw published a pamphlet in which he agreed that “we ought not to ask Cæsar what he does with his dues or tribute, but pay it freely,” but added: “if he tells me it is for no other use but war and destruction, I’ll beg his pardon and say ‘my Master forbids it.’ ” He argued that the latest “for the Queen’s use” grant, in spite of its generic name, should fool nobody: it was meant to fund war, and no Quaker should pay a tax for it.
Thomas Story, who visited the colony from England, defended the orthodox position, and had traveled Pennsylvania encouraging Quakers to pay their war taxes.
During the French & Indian War, Pennsylvania was invaded from the west.
The westernmost European settlers in Pennsylvania were largely non-Quaker, and were impatient for a military defense — they felt that the Quaker pacifists in Philadelphia were using them as a shield.
The Pennsylvania Assembly eventually gave in to their demands.
It organized a volunteer militia and appropriated money for fortifications.
This time it did not use the “for the King’s use” dodge by giving the money to the crown and letting it allocate the funds to war expenses, but instead the Assembly appointed its own commissioners to spend the money, and so became responsible itself for the war spending.
(The legislation itself still tried to put a happy face on things, saying the grant was “for supplying our friendly Indians, holding of treaties, relieving the distressed settlers who have been driven from their lands, and other purposes for the King’s service,” but it was that last clause — “other purposes” — that hid where most of the spending would actually happen: largely building and supplying military forts.)
This compromise pleased few.
Back in London there were calls to ban Quakers from colonial government entirely for their refusal to support the military defense of the colonies.
London Quakers were urging pacifist Quakers to resign from the Pennsylvania Assembly as a way of forestalling complete disenfranchisement.
At the same time, a set of American Quakers felt that this was the last straw and if Quaker legislators were going to abandon their pacifist principles and enact a war spending bill, it would be up to Quaker taxpayers to refuse and resist.
Several of them, including Anthony Benezet, sent a letter to the Assembly announcing that “as the raising sums of money, and putting them into the hands of committees who may apply them to purposes inconsistent with the peaceable testimony we profess and have borne to the world, appears to us in its consequences to be destructive of our religious liberties; we apprehend many among us will be under the necessity of suffering rather than consenting thereto by the payment of a tax for such purposes.”
That petition was not viewed sympathetically by the Assembly.
They reminded everyone that nobody had had any problem paying those “for the Queen’s use” taxes in the past, and that this new tax was really not very different, even though the fig leaf had been removed.
Meanwhile, the anti-Quakers in London got word of the petition which further inflamed them and gave them ammunition in their fight to get Quakers disenfranchised.
The London Yearly Meeting was furious about the petition and it sent two emissaries to the colonies with orders to “explain and enforce our known principles and practice respecting the payment of taxes for the support of civil government.”
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting held a conference in to try to come up with some guidance for Friends on whether or not to pay the new war taxes.
They were unable to reach consensus.
A group of them, including Benezet & John Woolman, sent a letter to quarterly and monthly meetings that set out the reasons why they were choosing to resist.
The Assembly’s attempt to hide its war tax as a “mixed” tax with beneficial spending in the mix did not impress them.
They wrote:
[T]hough some part of the money to be raised by the said Act is said to be for such benevolent purposes as supporting our friendship with our Indian neighbors and relieving the distresses of our fellow subjects who have suffered in the present calamities, for whom our hearts are deeply pained; and we affectionately and with bowels of tenderness sympathize with them therein; and we could most cheerfully contribute to those purposes if they were not so mixed that we cannot in the manner proposed show our hearty concurrence therewith without at the same time assenting to, or allowing ourselves in, practices which we apprehend contrary to the testimony which the Lord has given us to bear for his name and Truth’s sake.
This is one answer to the dilemma many Quakers find themselves in today.
The U.S. government is in a constant state of war and threatens the whole world with its vast nuclear arsenal and its drone assassins.
But it pays for this out of the same budget and with the same taxes as it pays for everything else it buys — including today’s equivalents of “such benevolent purposes as supporting our friendship with our Indian neighbors and relieving the distresses of our fellow subjects who have suffered in the present calamities” — so what is a good Quaker to do?
Benezet, Woolman, and the rest took the position that mixing good spending and bad doesn’t erase the stain from the bad, but stains the good.
The capitulation by the Quakers in the Pennsylvania Assembly was not a compromise that satisfied either the militant Pennsylvanians, the anti-Quaker antagonists in London, or the prominent pacifists in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
In , under pressure from all sides, most Quaker legislators resigned from the Assembly, and the experiment in Quaker government in Pennsylvania came to an end.
Meanwhile, what had become of those London Quaker enforcers who had come across the pond to knock some sense into the war tax resisting faction?
Something unexpected happened: they met with representatives from both the taxpaying and tax-resisting factions, held a two-day meeting on the subject, and ended up agreeing to disagree.
The London representatives, rather than chastizing the resisters, instead recommended that Quakers “endeavor earnestly to have their minds covered with fervent charity towards one another” on the subject without taking a position one way or the other.
That’s not what the London Yearly Meeting had in mind.
But the logic of the war tax resisters’ position, and the sincerity with which they presented it, had an infectious tendency.
Not long after the emissaries returned home, the London Yearly Meeting had been expected to issue a strong condemnation of the resisters who had signed the letter urging Quakers to consider refusing to pay the war tax.
Instead, the topic was dropped from the agenda entirely.
Why?
Because the more Quakers in England heard about the war tax resistance in Pennsylvania, the more sympathetic they became.
The Yearly Meeting authorities decided it was better not to discuss the matter at all rather than risk facing the sort of enthusiasm for war tax resistance that had rocked the Philadelphia meeting.
