Politics, Quaker Style: A History of the Quakers from 1624 to 1718 (review)

Book Reviews67 to make the phrase "fairQuaker" piquant. Forbes' pamphlet adds a bit more to our knowledge of this period. Caroline CherryEastern College Politics, Quaker Style: A History ofthe Quakersfrom 1624 to 1718. By John H. Ferguson. San Bernardino, Calif: Borgo, 1 995. viii + 204 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth, $33, paper, $23. The late John H. Ferguson was a Friend and long-time professor of political science atPennsylvaniaStateUniversity. His works in American political and governmental historyhave beenhighly regarded, some remaining in print through several editions. This book, written in his eighties, surely was an attempt to integrate his Quaker identity and professional expertise. But while Ferguson's work was in political science as it applies to the state government, the politics of early Friends were much more sociopolitical , more akin to the politics of religiously based liberationist movements today: grassroots politics, dealing primarily with the warp and woof of the social fabric. So, while Ferguson offers observations relating seventeenth -century English politics to the largersweep ofEuropean and American political history, these generally do not aid ourunderstanding ofthe intrinsic political meaning of early Quaker witness. Yes, the pacifism, nonviolent resistance, and self-sacrificing witness ofearly Friends did make important contributions to the establishment of religious freedom and multiparty politics in England and America but these were really the secondary effects of a movement that sought nothing less than the kingdom of God on earth. I struggled with the book's limited understanding of the theocentric outlook and biblically infused identity of early Friends. Ferguson's comments on "the Inner Light," early Quaker pacifism, and the authority of the Bible among early Friends are not well developed, suggesting a rather secular understanding of these crucial questions. He defines Quaker attitudes toward the state as "Caesarist," in reference to Jesus' counsel to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" and Paul's admonitions to submit to civil power. In developing this definition, he mistakes early Quakersubmission to civil authority for an uncritical obedience and support for the state. That was clearly not the case, as Ferguson himself shows at other places in the book. Ferguson understands Friends to read the Bible "literally" (p. 1 27) because they followed the counsels of Jesus and Paul concerning the state. It would be more apt to say that they read the Bible seriously. Ferguson introduces the issue of biblical literalism here (and on p. 123) confusingly and anachronistically. There are also problems ofgarbled names and dates, as well as atendency 68Quaker History to make sudden jumps in subject matter and chronology, but I will not enumerate them. The book's final chapter, dealing with Penn's colonial venture, is the most cohesive and enjoyable, probably because it deals with Quaker politics as they entered a truly statist frame of reference, where Ferguson's scholarly strengths lie. Generally, Ferguson's workrelies on secondary sources, except forafew primary Quaker sources, such as Fox's Journal, Barclay's Apology, and some of Penn's works. Unfortunately, Fox's Journal was written many years after the first and most revolutionary decade of Quakerism, and glosses over some of Fox's earliest radicalism. And generally many of the mostsalientlypolitical tracts offirst-generation Friends werenever reprinted, so they are not to be found among the materials drawn upon in this book. Doug GwynPendle Hill Conscientious Objection to Various Compulsions underBritish Law. By Constance Braithwaite. York, Eng.: Sessions, 1995. xiv + 420 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. £1 1.95. This is a very thorough detailing of the incidence of conscientious objection to a variety of legal requirements in England, Scotland and Wales over the past four centuries.* It is exactly the type of book which every historian of conscientious objection needs to have on the shelf, in that it consists of careful lists of those who objected to military conscription, to oaths, to religious education, to vaccination and to compulsory medical care ofchildren, in addition to providing a careful record ofcourtdiscussions and parliamentary debates. Braithwaite is unfortunately representative of the most fiercely empiricist school of British historians and the result is a very dull book in terms of both structure, style and analysis. The structure of the book illustrates the difficulty...