Politics and Peace Testimony in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania

Politics and Peace Testimony inMid-Eighteenth-Century Pennsy 1 vania Alan Tully OnJune 4, 1756, six Quaker legislators resigned from the Pennsylvania Assemblypleading that they could not provide the "services in a military way"that their constituents demanded during wartime. Four months later fourothers followed suit.1 This "Quaker withdrawal from government" has attracteda great deal of historical attention. Some observers have pointed to the event as illustrative of the limitations, if not the hypocrisy and utter failure,of pacifists in government. 2 Others have been more sympathetic, foremostamong them those Quaker historians who have depicted the withdrawalasthe great early American example of principle conquering expediency .From the founding of Pennsylvania through the French and Indian War,these historians maintain, Quaker politicians succeeded in remaining true to their pacifist beliefs: when war was finally thrust upon them and theycould no longer uphold their pacifism, they withdrew from politics ratherthan compromise those beliefs.3 Recentlyit has become apparent that the traditional historiography dealing withthe Quaker crisis requires revision. Most importantly, we have come to realize that the withdrawal from government was a genuine, long-range withdrawalonly in the minds of a sprinkling of Pennsylvania Friends. Others acceptedvoluntary withdrawal from government during wartime in order to preventtheir permanent disqualification by the British and thus to ensure a returnto legislative power once the war had ended. Most, however,continued Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 13, Number 2, Fall 1982 160 Alan Tul{v to participate in elections in support of the dozen or so Quakers who refused to step down from office. Given the continued role Friends and the Quaker Party played in provincial politics between 1755and 1775,it is difficult tofind a significant Quaker withdrawal from public affairs.4 Two authors in particular have tried to inake some sense of the Quaker experience in the light of this knowledge. Hermann Wellenreuther has reexamined first- and second-generation Pennsylvania Quaker spokesmen and has found, not convinced and consistent pacifists, but men torn apart bythe contradictory postulates of a personalized peace testimony and a testimony on government that enjoined Quakers to wield civil authority. As the first half of the eighteenth century progressed, the tensions these contradictions generated grew more intense. With the coming of the French and Indian War, they became too great to endure and a redefinition of Quaker doctrine had to take place. 5 Jack Marietta, the second of the two writers, has directed his attention to the events of the withdrawal rather than to its ideological origins. Acknowledging and then furthering the argument that the withdrawal was limitedin scope, Marietta nonetheless emphasizes the importance of the crisis. The newly articulated version of the pacifist ethic which was emerging from the trials of war was an essential component of a rejuvenated Quakerism. The future lay with the small minority of conscientious Friends whose pacifism, concern for Indians and slaves, and determination to deal with worldly Quakers would shape the Society of Friends. 6 Both Wellenreuther and Marietta have done much to place the Quaker withdrawal in a clearer light. But despite their focusing on the relationship between the Society of Friends and politics, both treat the events of the midto late-1750sas a major watershed-in Wellenreuther's case as the culmination of a period of conflict between evolving Quaker principles, in Marietta's case as a point of departure for Quaker reformation. Both of these accounts make sense from the point of view of the history of the Society of Friends. Neither, however, provides an analysis which answers the most important political question about the events of 1756-how could Quakers continue to play such a dominant role in government in the wake of a "withdrawal"'/ This essay is an attempt to suggest an answer. * * * Pacifism has alwaysbeen associated with Quakerism, but during the seven· teenth and eighteenth centuries it was not always clear what Quakers felt commitment to that principle entailed. The peace testimony Pennsylvania Friends drew on as a guide for their pacifism was advice that their English predecessors had elaborated in the latter half of the seventeenth century as an expression of their wish not to be directly involved in or responsible for violent actions of...