William Penn's Legacy: Quaker Politics in Colonial Pennsylvania

Introduction: Challenging the Conventional View of Colonial Politics

The conventional view of political life in the American colonies prior to the Revolution is one of instability and turmoil, characterized by political infighting and conflicts over dominance. Alan Tully, in his book William Penn's Legacy: Politics and Social Structure in Provincial Pennsylvania, 1726–1755, presents a completely different view of politics in the Province of Pennsylvania. His view, based on the study of a thirty-year period in Pennsylvania history, is that the political world was one of peace, regularity, and order. "This penchant for avoiding contentious politics was something most Pennsylvania politicians shared. They preferred to keep political relationships low-keyed and controlled, in a subsidiary relationship to many of their other concerns."

Tully theorizes that a number of institutional safeguards, informal political practices, and behavioral standards helped resolve conflict before it became violently disruptive. He argues that society did not become divisive, as some have suggested, but rather remained cohesive because of the forces of political convention, economic interdependence, and social inbreeding.

William Penn: Founder, Quaker, and Democratic Pioneer

William Penn was born on October 14, 1644. He was the founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the North American colony of Great Britain that became the state of Pennsylvania. The democratic principles he set forth served as an inspiration for the United States Constitution.

Although born into a well-to-do Anglican family, Penn joined the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, at the age of 25. The Quakers obeyed their "inner light," which they believed came directly from God, refusing to bow to the authority of the king and endorsing pacifism. These were times of turmoil, just after Cromwell's death, and the Quakers were suspect because of their heretical ideas and their refusal to pay respect to the king or swear an oath of loyalty to him. Penn's religious views were extremely distressing to his father, Sir William Penn, who had earned an estate in Ireland through naval service and hoped that his son's charisma and intelligence would win him favor at the court of Charles II.

Penn was educated at Chigwell School, Essex, where he had his earliest religious experiences. His religious views thereafter effectively exiled him from English society. He was expelled from Christ Church, Oxford for being a Quaker, and was arrested several times.

The persecution of Quakers became so fierce that Penn decided it would be better to found a new, free Quaker settlement in North America. Some Quakers had already emigrated there, but the New England Puritans were as hostile toward Quakers as the people back home, and some had been banished to the Caribbean.

In 1677, Penn's opportunity came when a group of prominent Quakers, Penn among them, received the colonial province of West New Jersey — half of the current state of New Jersey. That same year, two hundred settlers arrived and founded the town of Burlington. Penn, who remained in England, drafted a charter of liberties for the settlement guaranteeing free and fair trial by jury, freedom of religion, freedom from unjust imprisonment, and free elections.

King Charles II of England had a large outstanding loan with Penn's father, and settled it by granting Penn a large area west and south of New Jersey on March 4, 1681. Penn called the area Sylvania — Latin for "woods" — which Charles renamed Pennsylvania. Although Penn's authority over the colony was officially subject only to that of the king, he implemented a democratic system with full freedom of religion, fair trials, elected representatives, and a separation of powers — ideas that would later form the basis of the American Constitution. The freedom of religion Penn established brought not only English, German, and Dutch Quakers to the colony, but also Huguenots (French Protestants) and Lutherans from Catholic German states.

From 1682 to 1684 Penn resided in the Province of Pennsylvania, then returned to England. He visited America once more in 1699. Penn had wished to settle permanently in Philadelphia, but financial problems forced him back to England in 1701. He attempted to sell Pennsylvania back to the Crown, but while negotiations were still underway he suffered a stroke in 1712, after which he was unable to speak or care for himself. Penn died on July 30, 1718, and was buried beside his wife in the cemetery of the Quaker meetinghouse at Jordans. His will left the bulk of his American lands to his sons, although the next fourteen years were marked by a series of court challenges to the will. This turmoil carried over into public life in the colony: "Throughout the 1720s, proprietary control of land settlement was at a minimum in Pennsylvania. The reason for this laxity was simple enough; no one knew where authority lay."

The Quaker Party and Political Stability in Pennsylvania

After the dispute over the will was settled, his family retained ownership of the colony of Pennsylvania until the American Revolution.

A Quaker party emerged in Pennsylvania during the late 1730s, its development encouraged by Thomas Penn's determination to exact proprietary dues, and by the central tension between the Quaker party and the proprietary interests of the Penn family. The Quaker party dominated provincial politics during the 1740s and 1750s. "Aside from two incidents of open disagreement — in Philadelphia in the 1720s and in Bucks County in the 1740s — when a small number of Friends supported the executive, Pennsylvania's Quakers refused to allow their political differences to become public disputes."

The party endured and eventually saw the competing proprietary party reduced to acquiescence. "In the much-noticed 1742 Philadelphia election, proprietary managers reverted to the old practice of trying to place two or three spokesmen in the House, but the results of the election manifested the futility of any tactics not based on cooperation with the popular Quaker leaders."

The party's capacity to endure grew from the ideology of civil Quakerism, which stressed religious tolerance, equal rights, low taxes, and the limitation of military burdens. "The high level of political participation by Quaker religious leaders was not without reason. Despite being dissenters and advocates of separation of church and state, Friends felt that their sect rightly enjoyed a particular prominence in Pennsylvania and that society should be directed by closely cooperating centers of religious and civil authority."

The Quaker party's hegemony in the assembly lasted for most of the proprietary period, being only temporarily disturbed by the voluntary secession of strict pacifists in 1756. By contrast, the proprietary interest was so weak that it scarcely deserved the name of "party." Its weakness made it a failure in the internal political context of the colony. Writing about the election of 1742 and the failure of the proprietary-executive faction, Tully argues that part of the problem was a false optimism within the party's ranks: "Prior to the election they had seen evidence of substantial support among Pennsylvania's freemen because they had wanted to see it, not because it had actually existed. Nothing had occurred to change voters' opinion that the proprietary and the governor, rather than the Spanish, posed the greatest threat to individual rights, liberty, and property."

Conclusion: Evaluating Tully's Thesis

Tully has presented a compelling argument that stability and order reigned in Pennsylvania during the period from 1726 to 1755. His support through detailed accounts of the activities of the time is extensive. Appendix I.1, showing the religious composition of the assembly by year, provides strong evidence of Quaker party dominance. Appendix II.1, the profile of Chester County assemblymen, supports this further and indicates that most assemblymen were drawn from the wealthier segments of society. In this society, wealth was equated with social standing, supporting Tully's contention that the colony's leaders were bound together by economic interdependence and social interaction.