Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

cajoling the Virginia Assembly into appropriating ten thousand pounds for
the war. Now he reconvened the Assembly, which proved eager to pour
good money after bad and granted another forty thousand pounds to be
raised by an annual poll tax of one shilling. He also called up the Virginia
militia, which he placed at the frontier under Colonel Washington's command.
But the liberty-loving people of Virginia showed no disposition
whatever to give up their lives for the sacred cause of grabbing the Ohio
land from the French. Nonviolent resistance greatly slowed the rate of conscription
as well as the fighting elan of the troops. Washington complained
long and loud of the laziness and indifference of the militia officers, especially
of the recruiting officers themselves, who preferred carousal to enforcing
conscription. Of particular significance is Washington's report on the libertarian
spirit of the militia and their dyed-in-the-wool resistance to the draft.
"If we talk of obliging men to serve their country," Washington lamented,
"we are sure to hear a fellow mumble over the words liberty and property a
thousand times." Liberty and property were indeed increasingly becoming
the watchwords of the era, and the colonial application was being made not
only to the distant French but especially to "their" governments at home.
In Pennsylvania, as we have seen, the Assembly was stampeded after
Braddock's defeat into passing a militia law. However, Quakers were exempted
from the draft, and the militia was formed as a people's army with
the officers democratically elected by the men of each company. In this
democratic arrangement, the regimental officers were in turn chosen by the
elected officers of the company. And finally, in a creatively libertarian provision,
no officer or private in the Pennsylvania militia was to be subject to
any articles of war unless he personally declared his consent to them in the
presence of a judge.
Virginia continued to confront the reluctance of the people to have their
bodies or their goods confiscated for purposes of war. Colonel Washington
grumbled that Virginians "should be so tenacious of liberty," and threatened
to resign his command if a tougher militia law were not passed. Furthermore,
the people persisted inordinately in harboring and aiding deserters
from the militia and in refusing to contribute supplies to the army. As Washington
complained, "in all things I meet with the greatest opposition. No
orders are obeyed but what a party of soldiers or my own drawn sword
enforces. Without this, a single horse for the most urgent occasion cannot be
had. To such a pitch has the insolence of the people arrived. ..."
In the fall of 1755, a tighter militia act was passed in Virginia, punishing
those who aided deserters and rewarding informers who had helped round
them up. Still, collection of the militia proceeded very slowly.
The death of Braddock left the veteran warmonger and imperialist William
Shirley in charge of the English forces in America. Governor Shirley
was as impossible to discourage as Dinwiddie, the only difference being
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