Pacifism in the United States : From the Colonial Era to the First World War

Pacifism is both an idea and a way of life. This book, in tracing its history in America from colonial times to the start of World War I, deals in equal measure with the theory and practice of pacifism as it evolved in response to the conditions of life in the New World. An introductory chapter on the origins of this pacifist impulse in the religious revival of the Reformation sets the stage for a detailed account of the way the immigrant peace sects maintained, or modified, their views on war and violence in the face of challenges presented by a new and often hostile environment. Almost alone in their testimony to peace in the colonial period, these sects were joined after 1815 by the peace societies which grew up alongside the antislavery and other reform movements of the day. The author unravels the thread of absolute pacifism running through these nondenominational groups, dealing at length with the American Peace Society, the New England Non-Resistance Society, and the League of Universal Brotherhood. A series of chapters on the reactions of those societies and sects to the Civil War, the neglect of pacifism in the postwar period, and the beginnings of a renewal in the years before the outbreak of war in Europe bring the book to a close. This emphasis on the institutional aspects of the movement is balanced throughout by a rich mine of anecdotes about individual pacifists. The author tells of the ordeals of conscientious objectors, of the experiences of settlers living unarmed on the frontier, and of the hardships endured by men fined, imprisoned, and harassed for refusing to compromise their faith in the principle of non-violence. A wide sampling from contemporary books and pamphlets, newspapers and journals, enables the author to bring to light, too, the attempts of pacifists to justify their belief on Biblical, utilitarian, and humanitarian grounds and the dilemmas they encountered in trying to reconcile it with their other concerns. Particular attention is focused in this respect on the Quakers' efforts to merge pacifism with politics in colonial Pennsylvania and on the Garrisonian nonresistants' struggle to harmonize pacifism and militant abolitionism prior to the Civil War. Preface Contents Introduction Part One. Pacifism in Colonial America and the American Revolution 1. The Society of Friends in the Colonial Period outside Pennsylvania 2. The Pacifist as Magistrate: The Holy Experiment in Quaker Pennsylvania 3. Quaker Pennsylvania: The Crisis of 1756 and Its Aftermath 4. The German Peace Sects in Colonial America 5. Quakers and the American Revolution 6. The Smaller Teace Sects in the American Revolution 7. The Peace Testimony of the Early American Moravians: An Ambiguous Witness Part Two: The Peace Sects from the American Revolution to the Civil War 8. The Quaker Peace Testimony, 1783-1861 9. The Witness of the Non-Quaker Peace Sects, 1783-1861 Part Three: Pacifism in the American Peace Movement before the Civil War 10. The Pioneers: Dodge and Worcester 11. The American Peace Society: The First Decade 12. The Genesis of the Garrisonian Formula: No-Government and Nonresistance 13. The New England Non-Resistance Society 14. The Ideology of the New England Non-Resistance Society 15. The Moderate Pacifists and the League of Universal Brotherhood 16. The Ebbing of the Pacifist Impulse Part Four: Pacifism in the American Civil War 17. The Civil War and the Antebellum Pacifists 18. The Quakers in the Civil War 19. Mennonites and Brethren in the Civil War 20. Religious Pacifism outside the Major Historic Peace Sects, 1861-1865 Part Five: Pacifism between the Civil War and the First World War 21. The Quaker Peace Testimony, 1865-1914 22. Non-Quaker Sectarian Pacifism in an Era of Peace, 1865-1914 23. The Reemergence of Nonsectarian Pacifism Conclusion Bibliography Index Called'a pioneer work of the first importance'by Staughton Lynd, this book traces the history of pacifism in America from colonial times to the start of World War I. The author describes how the immigrant peace sects-Quaker, Mennonite, and Dunker -faced the challenges of a hostile environment. The peace societies that sprang up after 1815 form the subject of the next section, with particular attention focused upon the American Peace Society and Garrison's New England Non-Resistance Society. A series of chapters on the reactions of these sects and societies to the Civil War, the neglect of pacifism in the postwar period, and the beginnings of a renewal in the years before the outbreak of war in Europe bring the book to a close. The emphasis on the institutional aspects of the movement is balanced throughout by a rich mine of accounts about the experiences of individual pacifists.Originally published in 1968.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.