Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

While the English Quakers were able to prevent a Test Oath, they too had
no patience with peace or pacifism, and they insisted that the pacifist Quakers
end all evidence of their principled opposition to war by resigning en masse
from the Assembly. Unfortunately, Pemberton and his handful of colleagues
did not believe the fight worth pursuing. With the bulk of their constituency
and even their fellow Quakers swept into a war position, they decided in the
summer of 1756 to abandon the effort and resign, using an additional war
grant to the king as their excuse.
Franklin was overjoyed at the resignation of the "stiff rump" of the Quakers,
his "conquest" of Quaker principle being now complete. Moreover, four
more Quakers resigned in the fall, many others refused to be candidates, and
others refused to vote. Yearly and monthly Quaker meetings urged resignations
upon all Quaker officials. The sect had become politically demoralized;
many members felt it easier to evade the entire issue and passively permit
non-Quakers to pursue the war effort. The result was that Benjamin Franklin
was left in complete control of the Pennsylvania Assembly, the remaining
Quakers now being thoroughly committed to the war effort and to Franklin's
leadership. Thereafter the political issues were constitutional ones: waged
over proprietary rule versus the rights of the Assembly.
Of course, Governor Morris and the proprietary were unhappy at the result
of the crisis, especially at Franklin's near absolute control over the new Pennsylvania
militia and its democratic system of the soldiers electing their officers.
In fact, Morris formed "independent" militia companies in Philadelphia,
under the rule of the proprietary. A near war broke out in the city, in the
spring of 1756, as Franklin, colonel of the Philadelphia militia, marched his
regiment to a meeting of the independents and forced the participants to disperse.
Franklin, however, was not at all interested in a truly voluntary militia.
With the Quakers having been cajoled into establishing the militia, Franklin
soon felt the time ripe to extend the rigorously disciplinary mutiny act to
Pennsylvania. The act made a mockery of the supposedly voluntary nature of
the militia by decreeing a death penalty for mutiny or even desertion. The bill
was temporarily blocked by the Quakers (who had not yet resigned), but an
impassioned plea by Franklin again managed to dissipate their opposition.
With the decks of Pennsylvania cleared for war and coercion, Governor
Morris and the Council in April 1756 declared all-out warfare against the
Indians, including subsidies for scalps of male and female Indians alike.
Morris, and Franklin to some extent, believed that the Indians needed "a
good drubbing." This illegal declaration by governor and Council, bypassing
the Quaker Assembly, was the precipitant of the Quaker bloc's decision to
resign and to leave the prosecution of the war to others. The Scotch-Irish
frontiersmen were, of course, happy to heed the call for murder and terror
against the Indians, and their ministers joined the fight. The pacific German
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