Egoism and Altruism in Quaker Abolition

Egoism and Altruism in Quaker Abolition1 Jack Marietta* Divided Quakerism NovelistJimHarrison has remarked thatwriting abook islikeputting your childupforadoption; youareinterested inwhatothers thinkofyouroffspring. The "child" in question here is my 1984history ofthe Quakerreformation in eighteenth-century Pennsylvania. In it I argued that the reform in Quakerism was significantforall ofAmericanhistory and wasnotjustan isolatedepisode in the history of a Protestant denomination. My assertion may appear ironic and unlikely to potential adoptive parents, because at the same time as the reform was significant for all Americans I characterized the change as one of increased Quaker sectarianism. Friends really underwent many changes, which Ibelievecouldallbe regardedas expressionsofawhole, and thewhole was a shift in Quakerism from "Church-like" behavior to sectarianism. The expositorofthose terms Church and sect, ErnstTroeltsch, describedaChurch as a body of persons sharing most of the values and behavior of the larger population in which the Church people lived, whereas sectarians distanced themselves from their neighbors by their peculiar behavior. 2 It was ironic then, thatthe SocietyofFriends, whiledistancingitselffromotherAmericans, would be atleastas importanttoAmericans as earlierFriends had been—say, William Penn who attempted to instruct us all with his "Holy Experiment." In conformity to Troeltsch's characterization ofreligious sects, reformed Friends demanded conduct that set them apart from non-Friends: endogamy, sexual continence, sobriety, and respect for the authority ofthe Society over members (Marietta 6-7). The Society did not, however, fit completely or comfortably into the sectarian model that Troeltsch described. Friends always differed from more thorough sectarians like the Amish, the conservative Mennonites, or more recently, the Christadelphians or the Plymouth Brethren, because they maintained an interest in the "world," an engagement with the world's people, that other sects did not. One need only think of Quaker antislavery or Quaker aid to Native Americans to apprehend those engagements. These benevolent endeavors were coeval with the Society's demands that Quakers distance themselves from non-Quakers—even to the pointthatboth tendencies arose oradvanced in the same years atPhiladelphia Yearly Meeting, 1755, 1758, 1762, and 1776. I maintain that rather than Quakers being pulled in opposite directions—sectarian disengagement and *Jack Marietta is a Professor of History at the University of Arizona. 2 Quaker History benevolent engagement—the two were complementary changes and a shift inthe same direction. Only bydisengaging themselvesfromthepredominantvaluesofAmerican society could Quakersperceive its faults, find the psychic strength tocriticize it as vocally as any identifiable group ever has, and finally mobilize to eliminate theproblem. Anotherway ofstating thispointis thatin ademocratic society, people who do not identify with the majority—do not want its numbers, its praise, or its rewards, and who do not equate the voice of the people with the voice of God in the manner of Jacksonian democrats—may be the only people able to criticize ademocracy in any profound way. Ifsuch people are areligious group, we mightadd that they mustnotbe co-opted into what Robert Bellah has called American civil religion—an amorphous mix of priestly religion and patriotism (Bellah). It is by reason of sectarians' function as prophets that they are able to make theircontribution to American society and history. This was the most significant point I found in the eighteenth-century Quakerreform: thattheirreformwas the source ofreform for the whole nation. Like Jim Harrison, I was curious to learn whether this child would be adopted. I have been interested to discover that some historians recently have lessened the Society's relevance to American life as a whole or its contributions toit. Theyhavequestionedthe Society'sbenevolentimpulses andeffect on American life, especially in the case of the abolition of slavery. Unmistakable reformers like John Woolman and Anthony Benezet still get credit from historians. But their merit is not extended to the Society of Friends, at least not in anywhere near the same degree. The method of the Society's detractors is to Balkanize the reform movement ofthe eighteenth century and to creditordiscreditsomeoftheresulting groups ofFriends. Whatis leftafter thisdeconstructionismostly asmallnumberofaltruisticQuakerabolitionists and, on the other hand, the rest of the Society of Friends. The rest of the Society, such historians contend, did assist in abolition but were really more interested in themselves—in self-cleansing and self-discipline. A critical part of the discrediting process was the shift of Quakerism toward sectarianism during its reformation. Both I and...