TDIH: George Washington vs. Pacifists

The pacifist Quakers wouldn’t take up arms to help Washington's Army.

On or around this day in 1789, George Washington writes a letter to a minority religious group, the Quakers.

“The liberty enjoyed by the People of these States,” he wrote, “of worshipping Almighty God agreable to their Consciences, is not only among the choicest of their Blessings, but also of their Rights.”

The statement was significant, coming from the former American General. Remember, he was Commander-in-Chief of the army during the American Revolution, but the pacifist Quakers wouldn’t take up arms to help.

Worse, Washington suspected that some of them were actively spying for the British army.

Obviously, Washington’s relationship with the Quakers had been a bit bumpy.

Sometimes, Washington was kind to them. For instance, he’d helped some Quakers get into the city of Boston while he held it under siege: They wanted to assist the poor and needy there. Likewise, he exempted Quakers from the draft, assuming they were “really conscientiously scrupulous.”

On one occasion, a group of Virginia Quakers was drafted and sent to join Washington’s army, but he didn’t question what to do. He simply sent them home.

It seems that Washington genuinely wanted to respect the Quakers’ differing religious beliefs. What a challenge! He was the leader of the military, trying to respect a group so adamantly opposed to fighting. Yet he did it.

Or, at least, he usually did it. At other times, he found himself in conflict with the Quakers—especially the Pennsylvania Quakers.

That group was especially uncompromising in their beliefs. All Quakers were (at least supposed to be) pacifists. But the Pennsylvania Quakers took matters a step further: They not only refused to fight, but they refused to participate in the new government in any form or fashion. They wouldn’t pay American taxes. They wouldn’t hold American offices. They wouldn’t use American money.

Washington seems to have concluded that some of these Quakers secretly wanted the British to win. In 1778, some Quakers were traveling to Philadephia for a religious meeting. Washington promptly wrote his officers, ordering them to put a stop to it. “This is an intercourse that we should by all means endeavour to interrupt,” Washington wrote, “as the plans setled at these meetings are of the pernicious tendency.” He further ordered that the Quakers’ horses be seized.

Surprising that he stopped a religious meeting? Perhaps. But if he thought the meeting was a front for spies, maybe we should be amazed that he did nothing more than undermine a meeting and take some horses.

A decade later, when Washington was elected President, the Society of Quakers wrote Washington a letter. The Quakers assured Washington of their loyalty to him and the new country: “[B]ut as we are a People whose Principles and Conduct have been misrepresented and traduced, we take the Liberty to assure thee, that we feel our Hearts affectionately drawn towards thee . . . .”

By then, Washington’s opinion of the Quakers seems to have improved, and he responded with a gracious letter of his own:

“The liberty enjoyed by the People of these States, of worshipping Almighty God agreable to their Consciences, is not only among the choicest of their Blessings, but also of their Rights—While men perform their social Duties faithfully, they do all that Society or the State can with propriety demand or expect; and remain responsible only to their Maker for the Religion or modes of faith which they may prefer or profess.”

So said the soldier to the religious group that refused to fight.

How wonderfully AMERICAN.

More information on George Washington’s views on church and state can
be found in my book with Joseph C. Smith, Jr., HERE.