The revolutionary movement in Pennsylvania 1760-1776

Preface

This study is the result of work done while the author was senior fellow in American history at the University of Pennsylvania. The opinions formed at that time have been changed in some instances by the use of material found in the Library of Congress, and it is hoped that the conclusions reached may be of interest to students of the American revolution.

No attempt has been made to write a history of Pennsylvania. Only such facts and tendencies in her provincial life have been pictured as serve to make clear the foundation and growth of the revolutionary movement within that State. Much less has there been any desire to enter the broader field of the conflict between Great Britain and her colonies in America. The movement within the State and the movement within the nation were closely connected, but an effort has been made to introduce no phase of the broader struggle except such as excited particular interest in Pennsylvania. For this reason the press and pamphlet utterances of revolutionary leaders have been cited only when they found expression in Pennsylvania newspapers or were freely circulated within that colony.

Pennsylvania was a miniature picture of the British Empire. The same differences of race, religion and economic interest which divided the empire into two nations, were prominent in the Quaker colony. This study is an effort to set forth the extent of those differences, to trace the development of a revolutionary party within the colony, and to picture the circumstances attendant upon the final conflict between the radical and conservative forces in 1776. In this way only can the attitude of Pennsylvania during the international struggle be understood. The leaders of the revolution in the Quaker . colony were more eager to obtain independence within their

4 Preface.

own State than to throw off the British connection. The national movement furnished the opportunity for which the dissatisfied people throughout the province had been waiting, and the result was a double change of government. Errors, both of fact and of judgment, have undoubtedly crept into this study, and for these the indulgence of the reader is asked. The purpose of the work has been to show the interdependence of the colonial and national revolutions, and if this has been done the author is content.

A short list of references will be found in a note at the beginning of each chapter, and a somewhat more comprehensive list of the authorities upon which reliance has been placed is given in an appendix. The author wishes to thank Professors John Bach McMaster and Herman V. Ames, of the University of Pennsylvania, and Mr. John W. Jordan, of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Each of these gentlemen has saved him from many errors, and has been an inspiration and a help to him in his work. Finally, acknowledgment is gratefully made to Provost Charles C. Harrison, of the University of Pennsylvania, who alone made this study possible.

C. H. Lincoln.

Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. , May I, igoi.

Table Of Contents

Chapter. Page

I. The Foundation of the Revolutionary Movement 7

II. The Influence of the German and Irish Immigration 23

CHAPTER I. The Foundation of the Revolutionary Movement

Authorities.

The history of the Friends in Pennsylvania has been considered so frequently as synonymous with the history of the province that nearly all the authorities given in the appendix will be found helpful in connection with this chapter. Especial attention may be called to the Penn manuscripts in the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and in Washington, the Memoirs of that Historical Society, the Philadelphia colonial press and the Shippen Papers [Thomas Balch, Philadelphia, 1855].

The best secondary accounts of the Quaker government are in Shepherd : History of Proprietary Government in Pennsylvania [Columbia University Studies, Vol. 6, 1896]. Sharpless: A Quaker Experiment in Government [Philadelphia, 1897].' Gordon: History of Pennsylvania [Philadelphia, 1829], and in those portions of Greene: The Provincial Governor [Harvard Historical Studies, Vol. 7, 1898], which deal with Pennsylvania. It is impossible to really understand Pennsylvania history, however, without reading the controversial literature of the period, especially the press and pamphlet arguments, and this remark holds true for the subjects discussed in succeeding chapters. The chief newspapers are mentioned in the appendix and a good list of the provincial pamphlets is given in Hildeburn : Issues of the Pennsylvania Press.

It is beginning to be recognized, even by those who have not speciahzed in colonial history, that taxation without representation was not the cause of the American revolution. It was only an effective cry by which the forces hostile to Great Britain might be united. Much nearer the truth is the statement that a separate people came to America in the seventeenth century and that early divisions were intensified by the successive waves of immigration which characterized the colonial period and were fostered by the utterly dissimilar environments of England and America. Every advance in the development of law and theology in the new world was a step toward independence, and every necessity for co-operation and mutual effort was an advance toward democracy and union.

8 TJic Rcvolutio7iary Movement in Pennsylvania.

> In America the backbone of the theory on which resistance was justified was abstract right. American statesmen considered the colonies as communities poHtically distinct from Great Britain, and although their inhabitants were Englishmen, although they were closely united to England by relationship and by commercial ties, yet they were not a part of England and the House of Commons was in no sense their representative body. The Crown, in union with the colonial Assemblies, was the only recognized ruler in American affairs. The founders of the American States had possessed all the rights of Englishmen and they brought those rights to the new world. The fact that the people remaining behind had not insisted upon their privileges until after the American migration was unimportant because they had existed before. The very reason why the Puritans came to New England or the Quakers and Presbyterians to Pennsylvania was that their interpretation of the Constitution was not recognized in Great Britain nor their religious organization sanctioned. In America they at once gave formal expression to their religious and political creed. Contract and Godgiven rights were the foundation upon which their whole religious experience was built. Their only hope of God's favor was the acceptance of an eternal covenant with Him and their political ideas, drawn from writers like Buchanan and Lanquet, Sidney, Harrington and Milton, emphasized the same principles. When, therefore, Locke published his essays on the principles of government he was accorded a very different reception in P^ngland and in America. Englishmen saw in the work an excu.se for the revolution of 1688, and the Tories saw nothing more. The Whigs found there an assertion of principles which might in time be made realities and for whose advancement they should work. Thus far popular liberty had grown with the increase of popular power and the Whigs labored to complete that process. Their ideal

TJic Foundation of the Revolution. 9

was not, however, the breaking down of class Hnes but the recognition of more classes, an ideal widely different in theoiy, and productive of remarkable differences in practice from the one put forward by Harrington, Penn or Locke himself

In America conditions were different. In many colonies the original emigrants were all of one class and succeeding additions had been by individual, rather than by anything approaching tribal migration. In such cases the individual was absorbed into the body of the community and all stood on a plane of equality. In other States, like Pennsylvania and Maryland, where successive groups of people had been introduced, a liberal policy had admitted the new comers into the joint stock company already formed. Where political power was retained by the first settlers, it was by disproportionate representation and not by political disfranchisement. In no colony was an aristocracy of birth formally , recognized, a spiritual aristocracy selected by God dwarfing all other distinctions. In America, therefore, the work of Locke was considered as no mere excuse for the revolution of 1688, no mere announcement of what should be sought in the future, but the statement of an historic fact. Following the lead of earlier writers, he had given an elaborate explanation of the original English Constitution for which they and their fathers had fought during years of persecution. This was the Constitution which they would not abandon, which could not be taken from them without their own consent, and which they had brought with them to the new world.

To their minds the Tudor and Stuart absolutisms might have deprived their brethren who had remained in England of the benefits of this Constitution for a time, but the principles upon which the colonial governments were founded had been finally recognized in England. The English people had repented and had come back to the true view and by so doing had justified the colonial attitude. England and the American colonies,

10 TJie Revolutionary Movcmc7ti in Pennsylvania.

united by a king and council which each accepted for itself, could move along together. Each people by an original contract had formed a new society in a wilderness, the one in the fifth the others in the seventeenth century, " No circumstance," said Jefferson, " has occurred to distinguish materially the British from the Saxon emigration." ' Each colony had made a compact with a king or a proprietor who represented him, in which were stated the conditions according to which society should be regulated. The English and Irish might not have those conditions stated in any one document, and the Americans might have charters, but that fact constituted no essential difference. Each nation was morally justified in maintaining its rights.

In Pennsylvania these compacts were openly called agreements between proprietor and people, and government in the form of a joint stock company was thus openly recognized. As ,y Logan wrote as early as 1704: "This people think privileges their due and all that can be grasped, to be their native right "^ "Government in general," remarked Lord Sommers, "as ordained and instituted by God, is circumscribed and limited by him, to be exercised according to the laws of nature, in subserviency to his own glory and the benefit of mankind. All rulers are confined by the almighty and supreme Sovereign, to exert their governing power for the promoting his service and honour, and to exercise their authority for the safety, welfare and prosperity of those over whom they are established. Though there were no previous compacts and agreements between Princes and people as to these, yet Princes would be obliged to observe them, for-as-much as they are settled and determined by the law and appointment of the divine legislator.". . ."God having in the institution of magis-

' A Summary View of the Rights of British America. Philadelphia and Williamsburg, 1774.

^ Perm Logan Corres. I, 299.

The Foundatio7i of the Revolution. ii

tracy confined such as shall be chosen rulers, within no other limits in reference to our civil concerns, save that they are to govern for the good of those over whom they come to be established; it remains free and entire for the people at their first erection of, and submission to government, to prescribe and define what shall be the measures and boundaries of the public good, and unto what rules and standard the magistrate shall be restrained." . . . What power " he cannot derive from some concession of the society must be acknowledged to remain vested in the people." ..." No civil government is lawful, but what is founded upon compact and agreement between those chosen to govern and those who condescend to be governed." " Force or conquest give no just nor legal title over a people . . . until they, by some consent, either tacit or explicit, declare their acquiescence " (p. 36). " In all disputes between power and liberty, power must always be proved, but liberty proves itself; the one being formed on positive law, the other upon the law of nature." The author then quotes Bracton (p. 57): "The king doth no wrong inasmuch as he doth nothing but by law." ..." He hath originally subjected himself to law by his coronation oath " (p. 63). " Magna Charta being only an abridgment of our ancient laws and customs, the King that swears to it, swears to them all, and is not admitted to be the inteipreter of it." The people have authority to set aside their governors, " for, as the whole body natural may cure its head when out of order, so may the body politic cure or purge their heads, when they are pernicious or destructive to the body politic." And as " the body natural, if it had ability to cut off its aching or sickly head, and take another, I doubt not but what it would do it ; and all men would confess it had authority sufficient, ... so may the body politic choose another head and govern in the room of its destructive one " (p. 98). " The doctrine of absolute passive obedience is a treasonable,

12 The Revolutionary Movemenl in Pemtsylvania.

slavish and pernicious doctrine, by disarming the people of all their civil rights and taking away self-defence, which is the law of God and nature," ^

This feeling of independence was particularly strong in Pennsylvania. Constantly in the discussions between the Whigs and the Loyalists it was asserted that the founders of the colony had created a new society in America as Montesquieu considered the Saxons to have founded the English state, and that all rights possessed by any man at any time, remained to him unless they had been expressly surrendered. This feeling was strengthened by the early history of the colony. Either by seizure or by purchase the colonial immigrants had acquired the rights to the soil formerly possessed by the Indians and were therefore independent. It was idle to speak of Pennsylvania as an extension of English soil when neither the English religion nor the English government was extended to the colony or considered as essential to its well-being. In the preface to the charter of 1682 Penn had distinctly declared that he had no intention of establishing any particular form of government in the province except such as the well-being of its inhabitants demanded. His sentiments were strikingly like those of Burke nearly a century later, and as the Irishman was defending the resistance of the American colonies, so the Quaker was laying the foundation on which that resistance was based.

Penn favored no one form of government. " I do not find a model in the world that time, place and some singular emergencies have not necessarily altered ; nor is it easy to frame a civil government that shall serve all places alike. I know what is said by the several admirers of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, which are the rule of one, a few and of many, and are the three common ideas of government,

' The Judgment of Whole Kingdoms and Nations. By John Sommers. Philadelphia, 1773. Several other editions were printed in America.

The Foundation of the Revolution. 13

when men discourse on the subject. But I choose to solve the controversy with this small distinction, and it belongs to / all three : Any governnmit is free to the people under it {zvhaiever be the frame) ivhere the laws nUe and the people are a party to those lazus, and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy and confusion. ... I know some say, let us have good laws and no matter for the men who execute them : but let them consider that though good laws do well, good men do better."

In questions of religion the departure from English precedent was no less marked. The religious toleration of Pennsylvania led inevitably toward a respect for the opinions of others, and democracy has no firmer foundation than this. Every argument advanced against the established church of England and its policy was an aid to the democratic movement within the colony, and at no time were those arguments more numerous than during the decade immediately preceding the revolution.

Racial differences also, favored the growth of a democratic theory of government. If the support of all creeds was necessary to prevent Episcopal domination, so the support of all races was needed to successfully oppose English political control, and in no colony were so many nationalities represented as in Pennsylvania. In 1755 Provost Smith of the University declared in a letter to Rev. Thomas Barton : " We are a people thrown together from various quarters of the world, differing in all things — Language, Manners and Sentiments." There were in the colony immigrants from the whole northern coast of Europe as well as representatives from the British Islands and southern Germany. The English were the original holders of power, but only during a few years did they form a majority of the people. By ingenious political management the English counties retained control of the Assembly until the revolution, but it was only because of gross inequality of representation. With the intense preaching of

14 TIic Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania.

majority rule and the emphasis placed upon the individual at that time, this inequality was realized throughout the whole province. At once the arguments which had been used against English misrule were turned against minority control and misgovernment within the province, and a colonial revolution accompanied and supported the international movement. It was this uprising of the discontented elements in Pennsylvania which threw the colonial aristocracy into alliance with England and, in conjunction with his religious faith, changed the Quaker from a patriot to a loyalist. Not until the eastern leaders realized that American independence meant the recognition of new forces within the colony, did the counties of Philadelphia, Chester and Bucks refuse to support the revolutionary movement. Until 1775 all races in Pennsylvania had cultivated that spirit of self-reliance which is the foundation of our national life, and none more diligently than the Society of P'riends. Even when national independence meant Quaker subordination, there were many among that denomination who sunk their individual interest in the general good. This is not the view usually accepted. It is generally assumed that the part played by the Friends was wholly in favor of maintaining the old order. The reluctance of that sect to enter an armed conflict with Great Britain is well known and it seems a direct contradiction to assert that the movement for independence in the colony was largely due to Quaker influence. Yet if the reasons which have been assigned for the development of a spirit of self-reliance in America are the true ones, we should expect the founders of Pennsylvania to have been urgent advocates of separation from England. Such, indeed, was the case and it is only by confusing American independence with the Revolutionary War that the part taken by the Friends is misjudged. No people were more heartily opposed to outside control of any kind than were the rulers of Pennsylvania. No denomination

The Foundation of the Revolution. 1 5

furnished abler arguments to maintain the truth of the American contention than those which Dickinson advanced in behalf of his colony. If, as was contended, the formal declaration of 1776 was the announcement of a fact and not the assertion of an intention, it will be difficult to find a colony which had more stoutly maintained that fact than had the Quaker State of Pennsylvania.

In no less degree than the Puritans, the Friends came to America to found a permanent settlement, governed according to their own ideals, and in which neither proprietary nor parliamentary interference was to be tolerated. It was to retain colonial independence that the Quaker influence fought the Penn government so bitterly during the long period preceding the Stamp Act, and in the same spirit English interference was resented. Love of power led the original settlers to be jealous of the newcomers, who were gradually obta'ining control throughout the western counties of the State, and the same motive explains in part the Quaker attitude during the revolution, but the political experience furnished by the uninterrupted proprietary struggles of seventy years, and the theory of political independence upon which the Friends had insisted, were no small factors in equipping the whole colony for the dispute with England. The claims urged against the governor varied but slightly from those advanced against England or from the grievances which the revolutionists within the State declared that they had suffered from their eastern rulers. We cannot, therefore, understand the conflict between democracy and aristocracy in 1776 if we fail to consider the conflict between Quaker and proprietor during the preceding years.

The Penn family was interested in the colony of Pennsylvania in two ways. First of all there was the desire of the elder Penn to found a State which should have justice as its governing motive, and improvement in the religious and eco-

1 6 The Revolutionary Movemeyit in Pennsylvania.

nomic welfare of its inhabitants as its result. Second in importance to this in the mind of the founder, but of primaryinterest to his successors, was the acquirement of the greatest possible revenue from the proprietary lands. The people of the province, as eager as Penn for their own prosperity, were thoroughly hostile to the desire for revenue shown by the later proprietors. They considered it essential that the policy of the colony should be directed by men conversant with colonial needs, and willing to attend to them. From the beginning the original settlers wished the colony controlled for themselves, and at once made a determined effort to have power secured them by the Constitution. In this they were largely successful, and a frame of government was obtained which practically left it to themselves to determine whether or not control of the legislature should ever pass, by legal means, to the later comers.

The next step was to attain master}^ over the proprietor and the governor who represented him. The chief matters in dispute between the opposing interests centred around the questions of paper money and the taxation of proprietary lands. Each dispute involved the whole question of sovereignty, for if there was property in the State which the Assembly could not tax, or if that body could not determine the financial policy of the government, its authority was clearly inferior to that of the governor. Yet further, if the executive was subject to instructions from England, and was therefore compelled to act in the interests of absentee landlords rather than for the welfare of the colony, local self-government was impossible. On these questions the first struggle for independence was to be fought. An abandonment of the right to govern themselves was not only contrary to the legal and religious conceptions of the Friends, both of which laid great emphasis on individual initiative and communal independence, but it was also a departure from the teachings which Penn

TJic Foundation of the Revolution. 17

had given the colonists for their guidance. In the preface to the charter of 1682, he had urged the importance of the individual in determining the success of a State, and in 1687 he had published for circulation in Philadelphia a book containing " Magna Carta," the " Confirmation of the Charters " of 1297 and the " De Tallagio non Concedendo," which more narrowlylimited the king than did the others. These laws were given them, he said, that " every man that is a subject to the crown of England may understand what is his right and how to preserve it from unjust and unreasonable men. ... I have ventured to make it public hoping it may be of use and service to many freemen, planters and inhabitants of this country, to whom it is sent and recommended, wishing it may raise up noble resolutions in all the freeholders in these new colonies not to give away anything of Liberty and Property that at present they (or of right as loyal suljjects ought to) enjoy, but take up the good example of our Ancestors, and understand that it is easy to part with or give away gr^at privileges but hard to gain them if once lost."

From the outset the Assembly, acting in the name of the whole people, followed Penn's advice and, supported by the self-reliant spirit of its constituency, obtained under Lloyd practically all the rights and privileges of an independent government. At least as early as 1701, when conditions in England were very unstable, the question arose as to the source of authority in the colony. In " An Essay upon the Government of the English Plantations" [London, 1701], " An American " stated that " no one can tell what is law and what is not in the plantations. Some hold that the law of England is chiefly to be respected, and, where that is deficient, the laws of the several colonies are to take place ; others are of opinion that the laws of the colonies are to take the first place and that the law of England is of force only where they are silent ; others there are who contend for the laws of the colonies, in conjunction with those that were in force in England at the first settlement of the colony, and lay down that as the measure of our obedience, alleging that we are not bound to observe any late acts of parliament in England except such only where the reason of the law is the same here that it is in England." Taking advantage of this uncertainty, the Assembly increased its opposition to proprietary influence and Penn, who did not know whether or not the reigning house in England was soon to be displaced, felt himself obliged to remain on good terms with the colonists and assented to most of their claims.

By the middle of the eighteenth century the colonists, in referring to the disputes of 1701-12, urged that Penn had never intended to continue indefinitely his control of the province. In the charters and constitutions he had retained no great share in determining the colonial policy, and in 1712 he had tried to relieve himself of all the trouble connected with its supervision. His object, so it w^as claimed, had been secured by that time. The colony had become self-sustaining and competent to control its own concerns so that, saving the rents from his own land, the great proprietor would have been willing to withdraw. (This was Franklin's argument in 1764.) All friends of the province had been of the same opinion and it was merely because the Crown would not adequately compensate him for his trouble and expense, or indeed because the Crown was not sufficiently vigorous to take any action, that Penn had not retired early in the century.^

Later proprietary policy had strengthened the impression that monetary return was the main wish of the Penn family. When the younger members of that family came into control they had shown themselves willing to sell their rights in the colony and it was only because the people were represented

' The opinions of Penn at that time are in the second volume of the Penn- Logan Correspondence and in Pennsylvania Archives, 2d. Ser., Vol. 7.

The Foundation of the Revolution. 19

as opposed to Crown government that the negotiations had been abandoned. Whatever might have been the opinions of the proprietors, the dominant party in the Assembly had no intention of submitting to any outside authority. Lloyd's victory over Logan had but illustrated the fact that practical independence, under whatever name, was the Quaker ideal. The question of proprietor versus king was unimportant, the real question was colony versus either.

As first comers and the framers of the original compact of government the Friends felt a sense of ownership in the colony, and had no disposition to admit others into that possession. Recognizing that the Constitution of 1701 had been practically forced upon Penn by themselves, the Quakers considered that they had the right not only to exclude the later immigrants from power, but also to decrease as much as possible the influence of the governor himself. In other colonies there were disputes between governor and Assembly, but the position of landlord held by the proprietor of Pennsylvania made the disputes in that colony exceptionally bitter.^ If the Assembly could make the governor responsible to the legislature, the proprietors had no means of safeguarding their interests in the colony. On the other hand, if the proprietors in England, by giving instructions to the governor, could prevent the passage of all acts which subjected their lands to the common burden of taxation, then the province was not only paying the governor one salary, but it was paying the proprietor another by freely protecting property whose revenue went abroad. The dissatisfaction over this seeming injustice was increased by the harshness with which the English owners demanded the payment of their rentals, often at a time when the cultivator was hard pressed to earn a live-

^ On this subject Lewis Morris, president of the New Jersey council wrote : " The rendring governors and all other officers intirely dependent on the people is the general inclination and endeavor of all the plantations in America."

20 The Rcvohitiojiary Movement in Pcnnsylvmiia.

lihood for himself and family. Thus, in 1755 the proprietor wrote to his collector : " Braddock's defeat and the consequent uneasiness must not put a stop to your demanding our arrears in the town and by degrees in the countr}\ I desire you will say nothing about it in conversation, as it only raises discontents. We are only taking the same methods any common landlord does, and shall continue to do it until ever)^ man pays regularly once a year"^ It was no doubt true that such were the methods of common landlords, but the proprietors of Pennsylvania were not common landlords. They were the heads of the provincial government, and their action as collectors of rentals reacted upon their popularity as governors. Their rule became hateful, and all proposals to limit their power were readily accepted by the people.^