QUAKERS, THE ORIGINS OF THE PEACE TESTIMONY AND RESISTANCE TO WAR TAXES
Whoever can reconcile this, “resist not evil,” with “resist violence by force,” again, “give also thy other cheek,” with “strike again”; also “Love thine enemies,” with “spoil them, make a prey of them, pursue them with fire and the sword,” or, “Pray for those that persecute you, and those that calumniate you,” with “Persecute them by fines, imprisonments and death itself,” whoever, i say, can find a means to reconcile these things may be supposed also to have found a way to reconcile god with the devil, Christ with Antichrist, Light with darkness, and good with evil. But if this be impossible, as indeed it is impossible, so will also the other be impossible, and men do but deceive both themselves and others, while they boldly adventure to establish such absurd and impossible things.
robert Barclay, 16781
Introduction: Nonviolence and the Society of Friends
robert Barclay’s words, quoted above, have been echoed by Quakers since the seventeenth century and can still be found in the books of discipline and faith published by the religious society of friends today. Barclay’s statement followed the spirit of a letter sent in January of 1661 which had been signed by george fox and many other prominent Quakers (fox et al. 1660). it was intended to reassure the recently restored monarch, Charles ii, of the harmlessness of the friends, as they called themselves. the declarations made in this letter were not intended to demonstrate a quiet acquiescence on matters of conscience; on the contrary, they were issued as a testimony to the fact that
War and Peace: Essays on Religion, Violence and Space. Ed. Bryan S. Turner. London, UK.: Anthem, 2013.
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their battle and their weapons were spiritual, not “carnall.” After that date, many different Quaker preachers – women and men – elaborated, embellished and disseminated these core beliefs. in a letter of the previous year, 1660, margaret fell, one of the “mothers in israel” of the early Quaker movement, had given the king her own version of this doctrine. in her letter we read, “this wee declare, that it is our principle life and practice to live peaceably with all men, And not to act any thing against the king nor the Peace of the nation, by any plots, contrivances, insurrections, or carnall weapons to hurt or destroy either him or the nation thereby, but to be obedient unto all just and lawfull Commands” (glines 2003, 281 cited in dandelion 2007, 43). the Peace testimony, as it came to be known, resonates through the many extant diaries, testaments and pamphlets that Quakers have produced during their 350-year existence. in the contents of these statements we can determine the way in which the early Quakers endorsed a separation of matters of public rule and matters of individual conscience. the difficulty in the years between 1660 and 1689, however, centered primarily on the fact that individual conscience was still defined as a question of government, and the establishment of a unified church was regarded as a particularly desirable means to guarantee stability and order. the doctrine of nonviolence eventually became one of the fundamental tenets of Quaker belief; it was often preached and frequently written up as an appeal to the spirit in every person to be expressed with zeal, and with sufficient legal liberty to allow individuals to follow the dictates of their own conscience. Quakerism emerged in the middle of the seventeenth century as a popular movement where women figured prominently. it was without a doubt radical in its disregard of social and sexual hierarchies, and, in spite of the oft-made claim of noninterference in worldly matters, the early friends were as clearly preoccupied with questions of social justice as of individual salvation. they engaged, if the anachronism can be excused, in a form of civil disobedience that prompted them in spite of severe persecution to refrain from taking oaths, paying tithes and removing their hats in the presence of their betters. the period under discussion in this essay saw the Quaker movement become an organized denomination; this article seeks to explore the various forms this doctrine took before it became fully codified in the course of the eighteenth century. in contradiction to the now accepted orthodoxy that Quakers were defeated into quietism after the restoration, this chapter seeks further to demonstrate how the movement evolved to include refusing to pay taxes for war purposes. moreover, it asks whether taxation destined for military use presented early Quakers with the kind of ethical dilemmas we see it pose for Quakers in our own time. it explores whether Quakers’ reticence to pay tithes in the seventeenth century can be considered a precedent to resistance
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towards paying war taxes from the eighteenth century onward, and equivalent to the form in which present-day friends have objected to paying war taxes.
Historians and the Quaker Peace Testimony much research was done in the years between the late 1950s and early 1980s in Britain on the radical religious sects – including the Quakers – that emerged in the middle decades of the seventeenth century, in particular the groundbreaking work of historians W. Alan Cole, Christopher hill and, more recently, Barry reay. this body of work changed the way in which the years of the civil wars and Commonwealth had been traditionally understood, but it was also deeply colored by its own historical specificity. Although most of this work remains exciting and inspiring, some of its fundamental tenets need to be reexamined.2 the tenet that concerns this article is these theorists’ evaluation of the Quaker Peace testimony. for these historians the Quaker Peace testimony came into being only after the restoration in 1660 as a reaction to the political defeat of the Commonwealth, and was, therefore, motivated by a kind of social and political self-defense. they share one key assumption – perhaps the most problematic one – that pacifism is politically passive.3 As a result, if pacifism was a survival strategy after the restoration, then Quakers became passive after that date too. Christopher hill unequivocally confirms this equation when he wistfully tells us:
But treachery lurked in the inner light. in time of defeat, when the wave of revolution was ebbing, the inner voice became quietist, pacifist […] Once the group decided this way, all the pressures were in the direction of accepting modes of expression not too shocking to the society in which men had to live and earn their living. (hill 1991, 370)
it is not unlikely that on some level the desire to appease the new monarch was one of the motivations for this doctrine; if this was the case, it didn’t work. Quakers were brutally persecuted in the years following the restoration even after their Peace testimony had been publicly declared. moreover, their passivity was anything but quiet: it did not prevent them from preaching, meeting, writing and holding fast to their unorthodox beliefs. it is true that the friends became organized and developed an administrative structure that encouraged uniformity, but, again, quietism and passivity don’t seem to be the right adjectives. hill in particular, has an unmistakable sympathy for antiestablishment views and tends to be wary of words such as organization, discipline and faith, all of them words that are central to Quakerism. two other aspects need to be reinscribed into our evaluation of the Peace testimony. first,
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the religious motivations of the Peace testimony have been anachronistically downplayed; and, second, the concept of pacifism is also understood in this body of work from a modern perspective to the detriment of the ways it was experienced and understood in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.4 thus, the commonly accepted and oft-repeated dogma that Quakers lost their revolutionary fervor – and their soul even after the restoration (Braithwaite 1955, 521) – in a quietist and pacifist disappearance from the public sphere in the course of the eighteenth century needs to be reconsidered.5 here we will try to relocate pacifism in two contexts, in the seventeenth century and in our own time, before we can decide whether it is indeed quietist. some work on this account has already been undertaken and most likely will continue in the years to come.
Pacifists and Quakers on Pacifism from a different perspective, there is another significant body of scholarship on the Peace testimony. it shares with the scholarship mentioned above the tendency to downplay religion and to impose the specific concerns of its own historical moment. unlike the scholars mentioned above, however, this perspective regards Quaker pacifism not precisely as a form of defeatism but as the logical outcome of the progress towards liberal humanism. it places their pacifism in the midst of a global historical trend that includes such diverse movements as secular conscientious objectors during the two world wars in Europe, secular tolstoyans, and the beliefs of and movement inspired by gandhi. the historian Peter Brock is perhaps the most prolific and noteworthy proponent of this perspective. he writes from the standpoint of a non-Quaker conscientious objector briefly imprisoned during the second World War, who then served by performing alternative service. After the war Brock worked as a volunteer with Quaker relief in western germany and in Poland.6 in his work on Quaker pacifism and regarding hill’s, Cole’s and reay’s shared opinion that Quaker pacifism did not exist before 1660 and, therefore, was politically motivated, Brock has reservations. in order to address these reservations, he cites many cases of Quakers voicing objections to bearing arms both in Britain and the colonies during the 1650s, including george fox himself and other early pacifists such as William dewsbury (1990, 9–23). finally, and not surprisingly, the largest body of work comes from religious scholars, some but not all of whom are Quakers. Accordingly, in the early decades of the twentieth century we find the landmark work on the Peace testimony of margaret E. hirst. hirst’s work antecedes the work of the historians we have been discussing in this section, and it is feasibly to her work and that of geoffrey f. nuttall, that emphasize religious experience over
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political and social factors, that hill especially was reacting.7 At any rate, hirst, like Brock, gives numerous examples of Quaker belief in pacifism before the restoration (1923, 55).8
The Quaker Peace Testimony do you bear a faithful testimony against bearing arms or paying trophy money, or being in any way concerned in privateers Letters of marque, or in dealing in prize goods as such?
twelfth Query of the London yearly meeting 17589
Early in his journal george fox, who in 1650 had been imprisoned in derby for blasphemy, had his first recorded opportunity to proclaim his newly held convictions about weapons and war. fox tells how while he was in prison some soldiers tried to recruit him out of jail for the militia to fight on the royalist side.
i told them i lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars, and i knew from whence all wars did rise, from the lust, according to James his doctrine. And still they courted me to accept of their offer, and thought i did but compliment with them, but i told them i was come into the covenant of peace, which was before wars and strifes was. (fox 1952, 65)
this was one of the two recorded instances before the restoration that attest to fox’s conversion to pacifism.10 the episode in derby in 1650 has marked the official point of departure for fox’s and Quaker’s pacifism generally even though there is an earlier episode narrated by William dewsbury in his diary, where he explains how he arrived at his own conviction regarding the sinfulness of war in 1645:
[t]he word of the Lord came unto me and said, Put up thy sword into thy scabbard […] then i could no longer fight with a carnal weapon, against a carnal man, for the letter, which man in his carnal wisdom had called the gospel, and had deceived me; but then the Lord caused me to yield in obedience, to put up my carnal sword into the scabbard and to leave the Army. (Cited in hirst 1923, 43)
there are other episodes such as these that delineate the process by which the early friends arrived at the Peace testimony, but it was primarily george
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fox’s letter of 1661 to the king, mentioned above, that made these principles official. this letter became the basis of all future Quaker testimonies of peace. in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as we have seen in fox’s and dewsbury’s cases, pacifism was understood primarily as a question of conscientious objection to bearing arms. Later on, especially in the nineteenth century, friends became more active in the political arena by stressing conflict resolution before war. As Britain did not have conscription until World War i, the question of participating in militias had been the main arena in which Quaker resistance to violence and their beliefs were tested. Over the years, however, the question of how to define pacifism and what being a pacifist entails has been discussed by many and has developed to include active engagement in resolving conflict. Accordingly Wolf mendl, in the 1974 swarthmore Lecture Prophets and Reconcilers; Reflections on the Quaker Peace Testimony, stressed that peace does not mean absence of conflict and concluded that “Our responsibility is to participate in it [conflict] constructively and not to abolish it” (99). for mendl, conflict is natural and therefore trying to imagine a world or even a person that is conflict-free is the wrong way to approach the question of the definition of pacifism. the three principal fields of action that mendl recognizes are: the development of institutions to create a world system based on nonviolent conflict resolution, the study of the causes of war and violence to deepen our understanding of conflict and how best to approach it, and the application of nonviolent techniques to existing conflict situations (1974). in our time, the Peace testimony has seen friends engage primarily in war relief. moreover, as conscription presently does not exist in either Britain or the united states, the matter of conscientious objection has shifted to the problem of taxation for war purposes, and it is to this issue that we turn our attention in the following section.
The Question of War Taxes margaret E. hirst tells us in her study of Quaker pacifism that from the start the question of taxation for war purposes was accepted in counter-distinction to conscription. she writes, “this distinction of taxation by the government and the exaction of direct military service has been accepted by most later friends” (1923, 73). hirst informs us of this acquiescence after discussing a journal entry about a poll tax that has been paid on behalf of both george and margaret fell fox and, further, a letter by george fox where he states:
so in this thing, so doing, we can plead with Caesar and plead with them that hath our custom and hath our tribute if they seek to hinder us from our godly and peaceable life and then [if payment be not made] might
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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, that one man should not take another man’s estate from him? (Cited in hirst 1923, 78)
in her view, hirst follows the Quaker historian William Braithwaite’s assessment. in his magisterial work on early Quakerism Braithwaite includes an anecdote that provides an unambivalent endorsement of his position. he tells us that, in a conversation between thomas story and Peter the great of russia in 1697, story upheld the view that friends could pay taxes in the following words:
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. (Braithwaite 1961, 601–2)
Of particular interest in story’s words is the conviction that subjects have no share or say in the way governments are run. it is an extreme application of Jesus’s separation between worldly and heavenly affairs, and it is hard when reading his words not to agree with Christopher hill’s view that the radical sects were not just defeated after the restoration, but that by the end of the century they had capitulated to a survivalist Realpolitik. On the other hand, during the 1690s and beyond, story, who had become an itinerant preacher and had traveled extensively in the American colonies and the West indies, was regularly preaching against slavery, demonstrating the incompatibility of Christian values with slave holding. Abolition would become one of the chief causes endorsed, and in some cases initiated, by Quakers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.11 thus, although the separation of heavenly and earthly realms accompanied by a doctrine of nonintervention in the latter is consistent, it wound up being very narrowly defined. if a specific governmental policy infringed in any way on questions of conscience it was no longer understood as a secular matter. in view of this fact, we find in george fox’s
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works a consistent argument in favor of upholding governmental authorities if they perform their work justly.12 A just magistrate, for example, is divinely appointed to punish evildoers while a corrupt magistrate is an agent of the antichrist and a lawful target for disobedience. But how is the particular status of the magistrate evaluated? it is determined by the inner conviction and the individual conscience of the true believer. in light of this position towards what pertains to Caesar, it becomes very difficult to defend outright the standard view of Quaker disengagement with the world; particularly so in the American colonies where the legal disabilities under which dissenters lived in England throughout the eighteenth century did not apply. if, in England, dissenters were barred from holding office, Quakers in the colonies were solicited and actively served in government (Weddle 2001, 144–52). in fact, it can be further argued that in England the inability of Quakers to participate in the political arena allowed them to champion unpopular causes (abolition, education of slaves, prison reform, sexual equality and, much later, universal suffrage) using their by-then well-established reputation for uprightness and their not inconsiderable wealth. returning to the question of war and taxation, thomas story in 1711 held fast to his position on the matter in Pennsylvania, where he was a staunch defender of the traditional view on taxation. According to Brock, in order to put down the revolt by some local Quakers who refused to pay the tax levied to raise money for Queen Anne’s war efforts against the french, story invoked as precedent fox’s position on taxes – which he dutifully paid – during the Anglo–dutch Wars of the previous century, alleging that the responsibility for the war lay with the government of each country not with either English or dutch friends (Brock 1990, 186–7). in the American colonies the question of taxation for war seems to have been a more pressing issue and more frequently debated than in England. in America it was raised on numerous occasions throughout the eighteenth century. in England, on the other hand, it seems only to have become a hotly debated issue at the end of the century with the advent of the napoleonic Wars.13 greaves, however, presents us with some evidence of earlier Quaker objections to taxation for war. he states that as early as 1660 friends had discussed the question of paying taxes destined for war: “John Whitehead, William Ames, and eight other Quakers sent Charles and his Council an affirmation of their obedience to magistracy and their readiness to pay taxes but not to contribute toward warfare” (grieves 1992, 247).14 nevertheless, after this date, as we have seen, the question of withholding taxes seems to have been settled. it did not return until the middle of the eighteenth century in the American colonies with John Woolman and Anthony Benezet.15 it is important to point out that holding on to these beliefs had made it well-nigh impossible for friends to
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reconcile bearing witness to their principles with the pressing and worldly issues of running a colony. “it was, in particular, the emphatic testimony against war and against slavery,” hirst tells us, “that had stripped the society of so many members, not a few among them friends of standing and influence” (1923, 194). the passing of the militia Bill in 1755 saw the Pennsylvania Quakers declare against war taxes (hirst 1923, 376–8). from that period the issue would continue to resurface through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and remains very much a pressing issue for friends today.
Quakers and the Question of War Taxes in the Last 40 Years since the Vietnam War, which was the last time the united states had a draft, the issue of conscientious objection to bearing arms in war has shifted from the issue of direct participation to the question of paying taxes destined for the military. many friends have expressed their belief that contributing to war either directly or indirectly is explicitly against god’s will. hence, the refusal to pay taxes that prolong and perpetuate war has been argued in courts on numerous occasions.16 the case of daniel taylor Jenkins was decided in 2007. in 2005, the tax Court had dismissed Jenkins’ case and Jenkins then presented an amended petition in which he claimed that the religious freedom restoration Act (rfrA) and the first and ninth Amendments of the united states Constitution afforded him a right to retain the unpaid portion of his taxes on the basis of religious objections to military spending until such taxes could be directed to nonmilitary expenditures. the tax Court had also imposed a penalty of $5,000 based on its conclusion that the petitioner’s arguments were frivolous within the meaning of the statute. during the appeal of this decision Circuit Judge José A. Cabranes elucidated the court’s conclusion in the following words:
Although we do not doubt the sincerity of the petitioner’s religious convictions, we conclude that his legal arguments are without merit. it is well settled that the collection of tax revenues for expenditures that offend the religious beliefs of individual taxpayers does not violate the free Exercise Clause of the first Amendment. (Jenkins v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Service 2007)
moreover, Judge Cabranes cited United States v. Lee as a precedent. in Lee the principal argument rested on the premise that it is in the best public interest to sustain a sound tax system and that, therefore, maintaining a well-functioning tax system takes precedence over individual religious belief. in conclusion, the final decision upheld the view that “religious belief in conflict with the
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payment of taxes affords no basis for resisting the tax” (Jenkins v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Service 2007; emphasis in original). the decisions in Jenkins’ case rested on the 1999 case of Adams v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, where, in the court of appeals, Circuit Judge rendell affirmed the government’s case. the final argument adduced in Adams was the threat to the viability of the government’s proper function if objections to the ways in which taxes are distributed are allowed to prevail. On this point Judge rendell provided the following rationale:
On matters religious, it [the tax Act] is neutral. if every citizen could refuse to pay all or part of his taxes because he disapproved of the government’s use of the money, on religious grounds, the ability of the government to function could be impaired or even destroyed […] there are few, if any governmental activities to which some person or group might not object on religious grounds. (Adams v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Service 1999)
in the earlier case of friend rosa Covington Packard, the portion of the taxes she had refused to pay the internal revenue service had been placed in an escrow account, the Peace Escrow fund, established in 1991 by the Purchase new york Quarterly meeting of the religious society of friends, where the taxes withheld from the federal government and the corresponding interest on those taxes are held until the government should requisition the funds and allocate them to purposes not connected to the military.17 this was likewise the procedure taken by Jenkins with his taxes (new york yearly meeting 2010.). As we have seen thus far, the united states judiciary has not been sympathetic to the fact that friends have not literally reneged on their fiscal responsibilities but have “paid,” if not to the government directly, the full amount of their taxes. the judiciary has continued to see the situation as more or less a question of tax liability and evasion. Because the different courts with a few minor exceptions have not contemplated as a procedural possibility the establishment of a fund where taxes can be withheld and earmarked for governmental activities not related to the defense budget, the organization Conscience and Peace tax international has sponsored a bill in order to frame this issue as a legislative matter instead.18 On 17 march 2011, a bill called the religious freedom Peace tax fund Act of 2011 was introduced to the Committee on Ways and means.19 the purpose of the bill is:
to affirm the religious freedom of taxpayers who are conscientiously opposed to participation in war, to provide that the income, estate, or gift tax payments of such taxpayers be used for nonmilitary purposes, to create
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the religious freedom Peace tax fund to receive such tax payments, to improve revenue collection, and for other purposes. (conscience and Peace tax international n.d.)
the bill highlights the need for consistency by extending the law to cover questions of taxation given that federal law recognizes conscientious objection to participation in war in any form based upon moral, ethical or religious beliefs with provision for alternative service, but does not provide “for taxpayers who are conscientious objectors and who are compelled to participate in war through the payment of taxes to support military activities” (h. r. 1191). in fall 2011, the new york Quarterly meeting posted on its webpage the statement of conscience of David Bassett of the farmington-scipio regional meeting.20 in his statement Bassett declares that,
[s]ince the Vietnam War era, i and my wife have been conscientiously opposed to paying military taxes. While the Us government recognizes sincere conscientious objection to military service, it continues to require its citizens to pay for war, through federal taxes. this, in conscience, i cannot do. thus i must (as my wife and i have done since 1970) act against the law (i.e., engage in nonviolent civil disobedience) by not voluntarily paying that portion of my (our) federal taxes which pays for the nation’s current military expenses. Our government continues each year to extract those moneys, plus penalty and interest from our financial accounts, in this way denying our freedom of religious expression. (“farmington-scipio”)
this statement of conscience presented to the meeting and recorded in its minutes is a clear example of the ways in which friends today continue to express their sufferings. it is not just individuals who have objected to paying war taxes. Quaker organizations have also supported individual friends’ refusals to pay taxes destined for military purposes. therefore, on the new york yearly meeting’s webpage we find that this organization refused to pay the federal telephone tax imposed to help finance the Vietnam War. furthermore, in most if not all of the books of discipline and faith published for the use of their members, Quaker organizations have fully endorsed the belief in nonviolence and the need to resist the imperatives of war.21 in Britain, the religious society of friends issued the following statement regarding the gulf War:
since its beginnings in the seventeenth century, [Quakerism has] borne witness against war and armed conflict as contrary to the spirit and
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teachings of Christ. We have sought to build institutions and relationships which make for peace and to resist military activity. the horrific nature of modern armaments makes our witness particularly urgent. the gulf War involved the substantial use of expensive modern weapons and technology, demonstrating that today it is the conscription of our money rather than our bodies which makes war possible. (yearly meeting of the religious society of friends (Quakers) in Britain. 24.20.)
this same organization, the London yearly meeting, describes its own legal proceedings to redress the grievance posed by the question of war taxes.
in march 1982 meeting for sufferings considered the request by some London yearly meeting employees that the part of their income tax attributable to military purposes should be diverted to non-military uses. tax was withheld from October 1982 until, in June 1985, the Appeal Court ruled that the action was unlawful. meeting for sufferings then decided to pay the tax withheld since the law had been tested as far as possible. At the same time it made a submission to the European Commission of human rights on the grounds of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; in July 1986 the Commission ruled the case inadmissible. (yearly meeting of the religious society of friends (Quakers) in Britain. 24.19.)
Some Conclusions Peter Brock tells us that the Quaker Peace testimony was the result of a “proto-democratic revolution.” he affirms that friends became some of the most “stubborn upholders of the freeborn Englishman’s rights, whether at home or across the Atlantic. When a man’s religion forbids him to bear arms, so [Quakers] argued, the state infringes his liberties requiring him to pay a ‘tax’ or perform some alternative service in exchange for permission to follow conscience, since to follow conscience without impediment is a free man’s inalienable right” (1972, 477). this argument, as we have seen above, has been appealed to frequently with some degree of success. friends have been successful as regards conscription, but have failed repeatedly regarding taxation. the right of free Exercise guaranteed by the first Amendment has been invoked numerous times in tax cases in the last 40 years with little success. When the religious freedom restoration Act (rfrA) was passed in 1993, many friends felt a new way of arguing their case had been given them. this has also not come to pass. in fact, the rfrA has made no difference in the way their cases have been decided.
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in the past, Quakers had on occasion accepted the paying of “mixed” taxes, meaning taxes devoted to all areas of government, but had refused to pay taxes explicitly destined to the military. in many of the recent cases, friends have paid a part of their taxes and withheld that portion they have estimated to be destined by the government to war activities. the courts have dismissed this strategy and imposed penalties. these penalties are dutifully recorded by the Quaker organizations in their books of sufferings. Books like these have been kept by every Quaker meeting since the seventeenth century. But we know that the early Quakers, while conscientious objectors to bearing arms, did not object to paying taxes. taxes became an issue only in the eighteenth century in the American colonies. to offer a historical counter to hirst’s observation that, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was the rigor and difficulty of holding fast to the Peace testimony and the Quakers’ objections to paying taxes that saw their numbers dwindle, in the middle of the twentieth century it was precisely these two fundamental tenets that attracted many new members (heron 1995, 45 cited in Ceadel 2002, 25). Admittedly, their numbers again declined in Britain and the united states after World War ii. the question of taxation is central to the friends’ testimony and will not begin to be resolved until a court rules in their favor. this kind of antiwar activism may not have the revolutionary fervor that the early Quakers displayed during the turbulent decades in the middle of the seventeenth century in England, but it makes evident an unwavering commitment to a religious principle that, in principle, could have a considerable impact on how the American Constitution is interpreted. taxation is without any doubt one of the most charged subjects in American politics and it is not surprising that since the eighteenth century this has been one of the focal points of Quaker activism. What is more, Quaker pacifism, with its principles of bearing witness and civil disobedience as methods of registering opposition, has had a vital and influential second life in the West since the 1950s, within the context of the Cold War and afterwards. Quaker protests against nuclear development and weapons testing in the 1950s (primarily by the united states, Britain and the soviet union) evolved in the 1970s into the worldwide environmental movements we have today. Bearing witness, simply put, consists of recording moral or ethical opposition or disapproval by calling attention to an event through a person’s presence. this method of protest was employed by Albert Bigelow in 1958. Bigelow, a Quaker, sailed in a boat called the Golden Rule to the Eniwetok and Bikini atolls in the marshall islands where the united states had planned a series of nuclear bomb detonations. in a letter to then-president dwight Eisenhower, the friends Committee for non-Violent Action Against
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nuclear Weapons, of which Bigelow was a member, stated its intention to protest and bear witness against planned nuclear tests in the Pacific: “four of us, with the support of many others, plan to sail a small vessel into the designated area in the Pacific by April 1st. We intend, come what may, to remain there during the test period, in an effort to halt what we feel is a monstrous delinquency of our government in continuing actions which threaten the wellbeing of all men” (quoted in Bigelow 1959, 42). the Golden Rule never arrived at its destination and Bigelow and the other three crewmen were arrested and jailed in honolulu. notwithstanding, the voyage of the Golden Rule inspired various similar protest ventures, including the voyage of the Phoenix, a later Quaker attempt (hunter 1979, 8; Zelko 2004, 201–2). the most famous and the most enduring imitator of Bigelow and the Golden Rule has been Greenpeace. the Greenpeace sailed from Vancouver, British Columbia, to protest nuclear tests in Amchitka in the Aleutian islands in 1971. unlike the Golden Rule, the crew of the Greenpeace included several members of the Canadian media: robert hunter, a journalist with the Sun, Ben metcalfe with the CBC and irving stowe with the Georgia Straight (hunter 1979, 10). As hunter succinctly expresses it: “Whereas the Quakers had been content to try to ‘bear witness,’ Greenpeace would try to make everybody bear witness – through news dispatches, voice reports, press releases, columns, and, of course, photographs” (hunter 1979, 10; Brown and may 1991, 14; Weyler 2004, 104). the Amchitka campaign was ultimately successful, primarily because it appropriated and reinvented the act of bearing witness as an effective strategy not just for greenpeace, but for many environmental organizations since. there were many Quaker connections at the beginning of the movement: the Palo Alto and Oregon American friends service Committee provided some of the funding for the expedition, and four of the movement’s founders – irving and dorothy stowe and Jim and marie Bohlen – were active Quaker pacifists. greenpeace still references the Quakers on its webpage today: “the Quakers are a religious movement founded by the English, non-conformist, itinerate preacher george fox in the 17th Century. A Quaker protest inspired the first greenpeace voyage and the Quaker philosophy of ‘Bearing Witness,’ a form of non-violent resistance whereby someone protests simply by being at an objectionable scene, was adopted by greenpeace” (greenpeace, “the Quakers”). the continuing recourse to Quaker practice can be seen in Greenpeace Witness, a recent coffee-table book published by the organization that collects photographs documenting most of its campaigns to date as a powerful testimony of the effectiveness of bearing witness. interestingly, this media-driven form of bearing witness has also limited greenpeace’s choice of which environmental issues to address.22 nevertheless, greenpeace now counts more than 6 million members worldwide and has an annual budget of
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over 200 million dollars (greenpeace 2011, 46). Arguably, this is the medium where Quaker pacifism has had its greatest and most enduring influence. due to its huge membership and considerable funds, greenpeace has of necessity become more organized and also more corporate. since the early 1990s, greenpeace has added a science unit, a media unit, a lawyer, a political unit and a specialist actions unit (rose 1993, 289). for some, greenpeace may have lost its freshness and subversive appeal, its revolutionary fervor, as Christopher hill deemed the Quakers had done following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, on similar grounds (1991, 370). What i hope to have laid out in this article is that establishing a movement’s successes and its capacity to effect change is not an all or nothing proposition and cannot be judged without taking into account its myriad incarnations over time.
Notes 1 Apology for the True Christian Divinity (1765), 491 2 Weddle (2001, 245–53) engages in a detailed assessment of the shortcomings of this position in the context of Quakers in the American colonies, specifically during king Philip’s War. she rightly concludes that these historians’ evaluation of Quakerism as passive is too categorical, and overgeneralizes in a way that fails to account for the myriad individual and group experiences of friends both in Britain and its colonies before and after the restoration (252–3). 3 for a reevaluation that expressly refutes the position of these historians on several grounds, see greaves (1992, 237–59). 4 hugh Barbour is a good example of a historian who has addressed this particular tendency. in his 1964 study he tells us that in the years of fierce persecution after the restoration many Puritans, now more properly called dissenters, urged each other to be meek and resist hating their persecutors. this was not the case with friends, he explains, who “wrote fiery tracts and letters to and about their tormentors and made persecution a contest, and a means for growth in power.” (210) for Barbour, dissenting was not about quiet resistance to oppression, since oppression was a sign of the Antichrist and clearly a target for the “Lamb’s War” – the war of the godly against the ungodly. therefore, the choice for Quakers was either persecution or conversion (210–13). 5 there is no doubt that in its beginnings the movement was far more socially and politically subversive and radical. But quietism and conservatism seem to gloss over too many complex issues. Another historian who has questioned this assessment is Phyllis mack, who finds this polarization between radical and conservative simplistic. mack regards the way in which the society of friends developed in the 1660s and 1670s as a complex synthesis between radical ideas and the practical need to codify the movement in order to guarantee its survival (mack 1992, 273–80). 6 Brock’s Pacifism in Europe to 1914 (1972) and The Quaker Peace Testimony 1660 to 1914 (1990) are his two most pertinent books on the subject of Quaker pacifism. interestingly, The Quaker Peace Testimony 1660 to 1914 is the primary source used by friends to give a historical overview in their amicus curiae for the case of Packard v. the United States (discussed later in this chapter). 7 nuttall was not a Quaker but a Congregational minister.
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8 in this category we find the more recent works of horace g. Alexander (1982) and Wolf mendl (1974). hirst’s study remains the most comprehensive of these. 9 hirst (1923, 195). 10 it could be argued – and it has been – that it is probable fox used pacifism as an excuse to refuse to serve on the royalist side since his loyalties lay with the parliamentarians, but in his defense it can be countered that he also refused to serve during the Commonwealth as well, as can be documented in a 1657 letter to Oliver Cromwell. 11 Anthony Benezet (1718–84) is a good example of a Quaker abolitionist. he became an educator and devoted considerable energy to emancipation and abolition. At his death he willed his estate to support the education of African Americans and indians (gerona). it is worth mentioning that not all Quakers at the time were averse to slave holding. the issue was hotly debated and by the end of the eighteenth century the belief in slavery as immoral and inconsistent with Christian belief became official. 12 “One of Quakerism’s foundation principles,” greaves tells us, “deals with this issue in deceptively simple terms: ‘Obedience and subjection in the Lord belongs to superiors […]; but where rulers, Parents or masters or any other commandeth or requireth subjection in any thing which is contrary to god, or not according to him, in such causes all people are free, and ought to obey god rather than man’” (1992, 246). the words are Edward Burrough’s (1660, 5). 13 this point is also made in henry J. Cadbury’s additional notes to Braithwaite’s history. 14 greaves cites from a document in the Library of the religious society of friends: spence mss, vol. 3, nos. 4, 100, 107. 15 John Woolman, in a manner that characterizes the Quaker belief in following individual conscience, tellingly voices his discomfort with paying taxes in these words: “i was told that friends in England frequently paid taxes, when the money was applied to such purposes. i had conferences with several noted friends on the subject, who all favoured the payment of such taxes, some of whom i preferred before myself, and this made me easier for a time. yet there was in the deeps of my mind a scruple which i never could get over, and at certain times was greatly distressed on that account. i all along perceived that there were some uprighthearted men, who paid such taxes, but could not see that their example was a sufficient reason for me to do so” (cited in mendl 1974, 16). 16 Listed here are the most relevant cases involving friends and the payment of taxes devoted to the war effort; they are listed in order from the oldest to the most recent (i am grateful to gerald neuman for helping me to track down these cases, and to Elizabeth Wang for advice on proper documentation practices): (i) supreme Court of the united states. united states v. American friends service Committee et al. no. 73–1791. 29 October 1974. (ii) united states Court of Appeals, sixth Circuit. Bruce and ruth k. grAVEs, Petitioners-Appellants, v. Commissioner of internal revenue, respondent-Appellee. no. 77–1188. submitted 6 July 1978. decided 7 July 1978. (iii) united states Court of Appeals, sixth Circuit. dr. marjorie E. nELsOn, PlaintiffAppellant, united states of America, internal revenue service, defendant-Appellee. no. 85–3724. Argued 5 June 1986. decided 15 July 1986. (iv) united states Court of Appeals, second Circuit. gordon m. BrOWnE and Edith C. Browne, PlaintiffsAppellants, v. united states of America dba internal revenue service, defendantAppellee. no. 98–6124. Argued 26 february 1999. decided 14 may 1999. (v) united states Court of Appeals, third Circuit. Priscilla m. Lippincott AdAms, Appellant v. Commissioner of internal revenue. no. 98–7200. Argued 14 January 1999. decided
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4 march 1999. (vi) united states Court of Appeals, second Circuit. rosa Covington PACkArd, Petitioner- Appellant, v. united states respondent-Appellee. 1997. (vii) united states Court of Appeals, second Circuit. daniel taylor JEnkins, PetitionerAppellant, v. Commissioner of internal revenue service, respondent-Appellee. docket no. 05–4756-ag. Argued: 22 february 2007. decided: 6 march 2007. 17 “the total amount of delinquent tax for the two years involved in this case [Packard] was about $7,950, while the penalties assessed and then seized totaled about $1,465, approximately another 18%. the penalty amounts which the petitioner sought to recover by this refund action had been collected from her by levy, along with the principal amount of taxes due. the irs deemed them delinquent, because in obedience to her Quaker religious conscience, she had refused to pay. instead of making payment to the internal revenue service, however, she had placed the full amounts due in an escrow account managed by her Quarterly meeting of the religious society of friends, in trust for the united states, as her letters disclosed” (Packard). 18 in United States v. American Friends Service Committee (1974), in which the supreme Court decided against this friends organization on questions of taxation, the one dissenting opinion came from supreme Court Justice William O. douglas, a strong advocate of first Amendment rights, who “stated that the first Amendment’s free exercise clause permits no exceptions” (cited in sagafi-nejad 2011, 101). Otherwise the courts in their decisions have been remarkably consistent. 19 this bill is sponsored by representative John Lewis, democrat of georgia (for himself, Jesse Jackson Jr of illinois, raul grijalva of Arizona, Lynn Woolsey of California, Pete stark also of California and rush holt of new Jersey). they are all democrats with liberal records. 20 i am grateful to nancy Black for directing me to david Bassett’s testimony. 21 “resistance to the war system is vital. We support the testimony of those who have refused to pay war taxes. the world’s governmental investment in the technology of war dwarfs any similar investment in the technology of peace. We also continue to work for disarmament, and to root out the seeds of war in unjust economic and social practices. Building a peace system calls for us to educate ourselves and others and to be part of efforts to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technology of peace” (new york yearly meeting 2001, 51–2). 22 in his analysis of the different challenges facing the maturing organization Chris rose (1990), program director for greenpeace uk, observes that media success and media opportunities have also begun to limit the organization’s involvement with less photogenic issues as well as estranging it from less glamorous grassroots activism. As a response to this self-identified problem, greenpeace has added to its strategy of bearing witness different approaches, including exposés and investigations into environmental wrongdoing as well as work on enforcing solutions to identified problems such as ozone depletion and household appliances (rose 1990, 292).
References Alexander, horace g. 1982 [1939]. The Growth of the Peace Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends
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