Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography, related some stories about the
Quaker peace testimony — and Quaker resistance to pay for military
expenditures — as he saw it (as a non-pacifist) in colonial
Pennsylvania:
With respect to defense, Spain having been several years at war against
Great Britain, and being at length joined by France, which brought us into
great danger; and the labored and long-continued endeavor of our governor,
Thomas, to prevail with our Quaker Assembly to pass a militia law, and make
other provisions for the security of the province, having proved abortive, I
determine to try what might be done by a voluntary association of the
people. To promote this, I first wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled
Plain Truth, in which I stated our defenseless
situation in strong lights, with the necessity of union and discipline for
our defense, and promised to propose in a few days an association, to be
generally signed for that purpose. The pamphlet had a sudden and surprising
effect. I was called upon for the instrument of association, and having
settled the draft of it with a few friends, I appointed a meeting of the
citizens... The house was pretty full; I had prepared a number of printed
copies, and provided pens and ink dispersed all over the Room. I harangued
them a little on the subject, read the paper, and explained it, and then
distributed the copies, which were eagerly signed, not the least objection
being made.
When the company separated, and the papers were collected, we found above
twelve hundred hands; and, other copies being dispersed in the country, the
subscribers amounted at length to upward of ten thousand. These all
furnished themselves as soon as they could with arms, formed themselves into
companies and regimens, chose their own officers, and met every week to be
instructed in the manual exercise and other parts of military discipline.
The women, by subscriptions among themselves, provided silk colors, which
they presented to the companies, painted with different devices and mottos,
which I supplied.
The officers of the companies composing the Philadelphia regiment, being
met, chose me for their colonel; but, conceiving myself unfit, I declined
that station, and recommended Mr. Lawrence, a fine person and man of
influence, who was accordingly appointed. I then proposed a lottery to
defray the expense of building a battery below the town, and furnishing it
with cannon. It filled expeditiously, and the battery was soon erected, the
merlons being framed of logs and filled with earth. We bought some old
cannon from Boston, but, these not being sufficient, we wrote to England for
more, soliciting, at the same time, our proprietaries for some assistance,
though without much expectation of obtaining it.
Meanwhile, Colonel Lawrence, William Allen, Abram Taylor, Esq., and myself
were sent to New York by the associators, commissioned to borrow some cannon
of Governor Clinton. He at first refused us peremptorily; but at dinner with
his counsel, were there was great drinking of Madeira wine, as the custom of
that place then was, he softened by degrees, and said he would lend us six.
After a few more bumpers he advanced to ten; and at length he very
good-naturedly conceded eighteen. They were fine cannon, eighteen-pounders,
with their carriages, which we soon transported and mounted on our battery,
where the associators kept nightly guard while the war lasted, and among the
rest I regularly took my turn of duty there as a common soldier.
My activity in these operations was agreeable to the governor and council;
they took me into confidence, and I was consulted by them in every measure
wherein their concurrence was thought useful to the association. Calling in
the aid of religion, I proposed to them the proclaiming a fast, to promote
reformation and implore the blessings of Heaven on our undertaking. They
embraced the motion; but, as it was the first fast ever thought of in the
province, the secretary had no precedent from which to draw the proclamation.
My education in New England, where a fast is proclaimed every year, was here
of some advantage: I drew it in the accustomed style, it was translated into
German, printed in both languages, and divulged through the province. This
gave the clergy of the different sects an opportunity of influencing their
congregations to join in the association, and it would probably have been
general among all but Quakers if the peace had not soon intervened.
It was thought by some of my friends that by my activity in these affairs I
should offend that sect, and thereby lose my interest in the Assembly of the
province, where they formed a great majority. A young gentleman who had
likewise some friends in the House, and wished to succeed me as their clerk,
acquainted me that it was decided to displace me at the next election; and
he, therefore, in good will, advised me to resign, as more consistent with
my honor than being turned out. My answer to him was that I had read or
heard of some public man who made it a rule never to ask for an office, and
never to refuse one when offered to him. “I approve,” says I,
“of his rule, and will practice it with a small Addition; I shall
never ask, never refuse, nor ever resign an
office. If they will have my office of clerk to dispose of to another, they
shall take it from me. I will not, by giving it up, lose my right of some
time or other making reprisals on my adversaries.” I heard, however,
no more of this; I was chosen again unanimously as usual at the next
election. Possibly, as they disliked my late intimacy with the members of
council, who had joined the governors in all the disputes about military
preparations with which the House had long been harassed, they might have
been pleased if I would voluntarily have left them; but they did not care to
displace me on account merely of my zeal for the association, and they could
not well give another reason.
Indeed, I had some cause to believe that the defense of the country was not
disagreeable to any of them, provided they were not required to assist in
it. And I found that a much greater number of them than I could have
imagined, though against offensive war, were clearly for the defensive.
Many pamphlets pro and con were published on the subject, and some by good
Quakers, in favor of defense, which I believe convinced most of their
younger people.
A transaction in our fire company gave me some insight into their prevailing
sentiments. It had been proposed that we should encourage the scheme for
building a battery by laying out the present stock, then about sixty pounds,
in tickets of the lottery. By our rules, no money could be disposed of till
the next meeting after the proposal. The company consisted of thirty
members, of which twenty-two were Quakers and eight only of other
persuasions. We eight punctually attended the meeting; but, though we
thought that some of the Quakers would join us, we were by no means sure of
a majority. Only one Quaker, Mr. James Morris, appeared to oppose the
measure. He expressed much sorrow that it had ever been proposed, as he said
Friends were all against it, and it would create such discord as
might break up the company. We told him that we saw no reason for that; we
were the minority, and if Friends were against the measure and
outvoted us, we must and should, agreeably to the usage of all societies,
submit. When the hour for business arrived it was moved to put the vote; he
allowed we might then do it by the rules, but, as he could assure us that a
number of members intended to be present for the purpose of opposing it, it
would be but candid to allow a little time for their appearing.
While we were disputing this, a waiter came to tell me two gentlemen below
desired to speak with me. I went down and found they were two of our Quaker
members. They told me there were eight of them assembled at a tavern just
by; that they were determined to come and vote with us if there should be
occasion, which they hoped would not be the case, and desired we would not
call for their assistance if we could do without it, as their voting for
such a measure might embroil them with their elders and friends. Being thus
secure of a majority, I went up, and, after a little seeming hesitation,
agreed to a delay of another hour. This Mr. Morris allowed to be extremely
fair. Not one of his opposing friends appeared, at which he expressed great
surprise; and, at the expiration of the hour, we carried the resolution
eight to one; and as, of the twenty-two Quakers, eight were ready to vote
with us, and thirteen, by their absence, manifested that they were not
inclined to oppose the measure, I afterward estimated the proportion of
Quakers sincerely against defense as one to twenty-one only; for these were
all regular members of that society, and in good reputation among them, and
had due notice of what was proposed at that meeting.
The honorable and learned Mr. Logan, who had always been of that sect, was
one who wrote an address to them, declaring his approbation of defensive
war, and supporting his opinion by many strong arguments. He put into my
hands sixty pounds to be laid out in lottery tickets for the battery, with
directions to apply what prizes might be drawn wholly to that service. He
told me the following anecdote of his old master, William Penn, respecting
defense. He came over from England, when a young man, with that proprietary,
and as his secretary. It was war-time, and their ship was chased by an armed
vessel, supposed to be an enemy. Their captain prepared for defense, but
told William Penn and his company of Quakers that he did not expect their
assistance, and they might retire into the cabin, which they did, except
James Logan, who chose to stay upon deck, and was quartered to a gun. The
supposed enemy proved a friend, so there was no fighting; but when the
secretary went down to communicate the intelligence, William Penn rebuked
him severely for staying upon deck, and undertaking to assist in defending
the vessel, contrary to the principles of Friends, especially as it
had not been required by the captain. This reproof, being before all the
company, piqued the secretary, who answered, “I being thy servant,
why did thee not order me to come down? But thee was willing enough that I
should stay and help to fight the ship when thee thought there was
danger.”
My being many years in the Assembly, the majority of which were constantly
Quakers, gave me frequent opportunities of seeing the embarrassment given
them by their principle against war, whenever application was made to them,
by order of the crown, to grant aids for military purposes. They were
unwilling to offend government, on the one hand, by a direct refusal, and
their friends, the body of the Quakers, on the other, by a compliance
contrary to their principles; hence a variety of evasions to avoid complying,
and modes of disguising the compliance when it became unavoidable. The
common mode at last was to grant money under the phrase of its being
“for the king’s use,” never to inquire how it was
applied.
But if the demand was not directly from crown, that phrase was found not so
proper, and some other was to be invented. As, when powder was wanting (I
think it was for the garrison at Louisburg), and the government of New
England, solicited a grant of some from Pennsylvania, which was much urged
on the House by Governor Thomas, they could not grant money to buy powder,
because that was an ingredient of war; but they voted an aid to New England
of three thousand pounds, to be put into the hands of the governor, and
appropriated it for the purchasing of bread, flour, wheat, or other
grain. Some of the council, desirous of giving the House still further
embarrassment, advised the governor not to accept provision, as not being
the thing he had demanded; but he replied, “I shall take the money,
for I understand very well their meaning; other grain is gunpowder,”
which he accordingly bought, and they never objected to it.
It was in allusion to this fact that, when in our fire company we feared the
success of our proposal in favor of the lottery, and I had said to my friend
Mr. Syng, one of our members, “If we fail, let us move the purchase of
a fire-engine with the money; the Quakers can have no objection to that; and
then, if you nominate me and I you as a committee for that purpose, we will
buy a great gun, which is certainly a fire-engine” “I
see,” says he, “you have improved by being so long in the
Assembly; your equivocal project would be just a match for their wheat or
other grain.”
These embarrassments that the Quakers suffered from having established and
published it as one of their principles that no kind of war was lawful, and
which, being once published, they could not afterwards, however they might
change their minds, easily get rid of, reminds me of what I think a more
prudent conduct in another sect among us, that of the Dunkers. I was
acquainted with one of its founders, Michael Welfare, soon after it
appeared. He complained to me that they were grievously calumniated by the
zealots of other persuasions, and charged with abominable principles and
practices, to which they were utter strangers. I told him this had always
been the case with new sects, and that, to put a stop to such abuse, I
imagined it might be well to publish the articles of their belief and the
rules of their discipline. He said that it had been proposed among them, but
not agreed to, for this reason: “When we were first drawn together as
a society,” says he, “it had pleased God to enlighten our minds
so far as to see that some doctrines, which we once esteemed truths, were
errors; and that others, which we had esteemed errors, were real truth. From
time to time He has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our
principles have been improving, and our errors diminishing. Now, we are not
sure that we are arrived at the end of this progression, and at the
perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge; and we fear that, if we
should once print our confession of faith, we should feel ourselves as if
bound and confined by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive farther
improvement, and our successors still more so, as conceiving what we their
elders and founders had done to be something sacred, never to be departed
from.”
This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the history of
mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and
that those who differ are so far in the wrong; like a man traveling in foggy
weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in
the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on
each side, but near him all appears clear, though in truth he is as much in
the fog as any of them. To avoid this kind of embarrassment, the Quakers
have of late years been gradually declining the public service in the
Assembly and in the magistracy, choosing rather to quit their power than
their principle.
