The Quaker Warner Mifflin (1745–1798) achieved considerable fame as an antislavery activist, and especially for manumitting his own slaves in 1774 and 1775. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur praised him in the French edition (1784) of Letters of an American Farmer, August von Kotzebue’s play Die Quäker (1812) took him as its subject, and John Greenleaf Whittier praised him as “one of the truest and noblest men of any age or country.” He is much less widely known as an opponent of war; but he did travel in 1777 to meet with George Washington and William Howe to present a testimony against war, just before the Battle of Germantown; that testimony was far less popular, even in his supportive community, than his testimony against slavery.
In the following selection from his 1796 memoir The Defense of Warner Mifflin Against Aspersions Cast on Him on Account of His Endeavours to Promote Righteousness, Mercy, and Peace among Mankind, he explains his reasons for taking no part in the popular Revolutionary War—even to the extent of avoiding paper money, which seemed to him “one of the Engines of War.” His refusals cost him dearly. Being a pacifist between wars, says the movement slogan, is like being a vegetarian between meals. As even Mifflin’s restrained, temperate account makes clear, being a pacifist in the middle of one can be a riskier business, given that one is, as Mifflin puts it, “acting so as to be declared an Enemy to [one’s] Country.”
THE late Revolution now began to make its appearance and as I was religiously restrained from taking any part therein, I had the epithet of Toryism placed on me by interested holders of Slaves, insinuations were thrown out that my labouring for the freedom of the blacks, was in order to attach them to the British interest, notwithstanding I had liberated mine on the ground of religious conviction, before this revolutionary period arrived—Added to this, on the issue of the Bills of Credit by Congress, I felt restricted from receiving them, lest I might thereby, in some sort defile my hands with one of the Engines of War; from whence I was further dipped into sympathy with the condition of the blacks, in acting so as to be declared an Enemy to my Country, and like them, thrown out from the benefit of its Laws, and this for no other Crime, but yielding to the impulses of divine Grace or Law of God written in my heart, which I ever found the safest ground to move upon—Abundant threats were poured out, that my house should be pulled down over my head, that I should be Shot, Carted &c; this proved a fiery tryal, my soul was almost overwhelmed lest I should bring my family to want, and it might be through a deception. I left my house in the night season and walked into a field in the bitterness of my soul, and without any sensible relief returned back, on stepping into the door I espied a Testament, and opening it in the 13th Chap. of Revelations, found mention there made of a time, when none should buy or sell, but those who received the mark of the Beast in the right Hand or forehead: and it fixed in my mind, that if I took that Money after those impressions, I should receive a mark of the bestial spirit of War in my right hand; and then the penalty which is annexed in the ensuing Chapter must follow—I then resolved through the Lords assistance, which I craved might be afforded, let what would follow, never to deal in any of it, this afforded me some relief, and finding my Wife so far united with me as to refuse it likewise (saying though she did not feel the matter as I did, yet through fear of weakening my hands, she was most easy not to touch it) I became much strengthened and resigned to suffer what might be allotted, feeling at times the prevalence of that power, which delivers from all fear of the malice of Men or infernal spirits, and reduces the soul into perfect subjection to the holy will and ordering.
The War advancing with increasing distress, gloomy prospects opened, and close provings seemed at the door of such who were measurably redeemed from the spirit of party. Not only our Testimony against War, in the support of which our religious Society have been oft brought under tryals; but that against pulling down or setting up of Governments was brought to the Test. As there are those, who from full experience know, that it is not a cunningly devised Fable, but the Truth of God revealed in the heart, through his Light and good Spirit, that shews us we are called to raise the pure Standard of the Prince of Peace, above all party rage, strife, contention, rents and divisions, in the spirit of meekness and wisdom; and in quietness and confidence, patiently to suffer what may arise for the promotion of this peaceable Government of the Shiloh; in and through an innocent life and conversation; wherein the language is felt of “Glory to God in the highest, on Earth peace and good will to Men”: And this was the experience of many, I am bold to assert it, even during the late cruel War, when thousands of Men were endeavouring in its fierce and voracious spirit to destroy one another—Such have been my own sensations, when at one view I have beheld both parties, and had to risk a passage through them—I counted none my enemy, I felt no fear from any thing on my part in thought, word, or deed; many times concluding, I should have had no objection for the two contending Generals to have known my whole heart and conduct, having at an early period of that Calamity been convinced, it would not do for me, even in idea, to wander without the boundaries of my professed principles; or I could not expect to be sustained by the secret aid of the God of the faithful, whose everlasting Arm of help, with humble gratitude I may acknowledge, hath been stretched out for my strengthening and confirmation in a variety of instances.