Accompany Tax Resistance Campaigns with Petitions to Government
Some tax resistance campaigns have accompanied their resistance with petitions to the government asking it to change its policies or to rescind the tax. Here are some examples:
Some 14,000 American Amish petitioned Congress, putting aside that sect’s usual reluctance to participate in political affairs and asking the government to exempt them from the Social Security program, participation in which they felt was anti-Christian. At the same time, some Amish were actively resisting the tax and suffering from government reprisals. Congress eventually did carve out an exemption for the Amish and certain other sects.
American Quaker meetings frequently petitioned state legislatures when those bodies were considering laws that would force conscientious objectors to pay a fine or to hire a substitute — neither of which Quakers felt they could conscientiously do. Here are two examples: from 1790 and 1810 .
On one occasion, American Quakers successfully petitioned the government to call off unscrupulous tax collectors who were seizing their property to pay such fines, in amounts that far exceeded the amount of the fine, and keeping the surplus (or sometimes the whole amount) for themselves.
In 1755 several Quakers wrote to the Pennsylvania Assembly to tell them they would be unwilling to pay a tax that body was contemplating for “purposes inconsistent with the peaceable testimony we profess.”
African-American entrepreneur Paul Cuffee petitioned the Massachusetts legislature in 1780 and 1781 to complain that he was not permitted to vote, although he was a taxpayer — and he backed this up by refusing to pay. His petition arrived at a time when the state Constitution was in flux, and may have helped influence its drafters to omit a clause restricting voting to white citizens.
The Benares Hartal in 1810–11 , began with “the people deserting the city in a body, and taking up their station halfway between Benares and Secrole, the residence of the European functionaries, about three miles distant. A petition was presented to the magistrate, praying him to withdraw the odious impost, and declaring that the petitioners would never return to their homes until their application was complied with.”
Before launching the Bardoli tax strike, representatives from the Indian civil disobedience movement petitioned the government, asking patiently for the concessions they would later demand via satyagraha.
The Rebecca Rioters, with their pseudonymous campaign of midnight toll-gate destruction, had the government nearly begging them to present a list of grievances they could at least pretend to address. Many groups of Welsh farmers did meet and draft lists of grievances. A London Times reporter gained the confidence of one Rebeccaite assembly, and set out their grievances in the form of a Times article describing the meeting. Another group of farmers met to draft a petition of their grievances which they sent to a government representative via a trusted intermediary. On at least one occasion a group of parishes had petitioned the Turnpike Trust that ran one of the offending toll gates to remove it, before it was destroyed by Rebecca and her daughters.
During the 17th century Croquant tax rebellions in France, the rebels carefully worded petitions to the king that assumed his benevolence and that the tax hikes must have been snuck past his royal highness by deceitful advisors.
In 1723 , nonconformists in Massachusetts successfully petitioned the King to free imprisoned resisters to a tax meant for the establishment church there, and to affirm that Quakers should not have to pay taxes to maintain the ministers of another church.
Abby Smith addressed the Glastonbury town council in 1873 to explain why she would not be paying her property tax to politicians who took advantage of her voteless state. A newspaper obtained and publisher her speech, saying that “Abby Smith and her sister as truly stand for the American principle as did the citizens who ripped open the tea chests in Boston Harbor, or the farmers who leveled their muskets at Concord.” Soon the Smith case became a cause célèbre nationwide.
During the Annuity Tax struggle in Edinburgh, Scotland, “40,000 citizens of Edinburgh petitioned the House of Commons for [the Tax’s] abolition. The town council, the magistrates of Canongate, the Merchant Company, the Anti-state-church and the Anti-annuity-tax Associations, all exerted themselves with the legislature and the government to procure its repeal…”
The hut tax war in Sierra Leone was preceded by petitions from a variety of groups there asking the government to rescind the tax, and explaining why the tax was felt to be particularly offensive. In this case, the petitioning may have backfired, as the government stubbornly pushed forward with the tax, but, forewarned of opposition by the petitions, it “came to the conclusion that the exercise of force, peremptory, rapid, and inflexible, was the element to be relied on in making the scheme of taxation a success.”
How you can resist funding the government → a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns → conduct hartals and business strikes → Benares hartal of 1810–1811
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A few more data points from the house tax hartal in Benares in 1810–11.
Tax resistance movements have often coordinated with labor strikes, business shut-downs, or consumer strikes as a way of further restricting government resources, demonstrating solidarity, and freeing up the time of resisters to engage in more campaign-oriented activities. Here are several examples.
How you can resist funding the government → a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns → petition for redress of grievances
How you can resist funding the government → the payroll / social security tax (FICA) → Amish are exempt
How did the Amish manage to get themselves exempted from the U.S. Social Security system? Also: Crispin Sartwell gives a conference of young Democrats a good talking to, and that’s not all he’s got to say.
From the cutting-room floor: How the Government Gets Your Money (and how the Amish fought back).
Fifty years ago today, Time magazine published an article about Amish resistance to the social security tax in the United States — a civil disobedience campaign that eventually succeeded in forcing concessions from the government.
The new health-care industry law includes concessions to the conscientious objection of the Amish and of people who oppose abortion. Meanwhile conscientious objectors to military taxation still don’t get no respect.
A 1964 article about the Amish resistance to the Social Security taxes in the United States, and a couple other data points about the campaign. They were eventually successful in gaining a partial exemption from those taxes for the Amish, but it took over a decade.
One way a tax resistance campaign can claim victory is by convincing the government to either formally rescind the tax, or to recognize the legal validity of tax resistance. Here are some examples.
In the early Cold War period, the orthodox Mennonite opinion about the scriptural obligation of submission to government, and taxpaying in particular, began to erode. And Mennonites learned, in the pages of “Gospel Herald,” about Christians from other sects who were practicing conscientious war tax resistance. Also: the imposition of the federal Social Security program led to tax resistance from the Amish.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → France → Croquant Rebellion (17th Century)
War tax resisters George Monk and Molly Schaffnit went off-the-grid and back-to-the-land to stop funding the military. Also: Patrick O’Neill on the sentencing of war tax resister Frank Donnelly. And: Murry Rothbard on the 17th century French tax rebellion of the Croquants. Also: the latest news on I.R.S. enforcement efforts. And: The “contumacious” Kate Harvey refuses to pay her taxes or her fines, and other suffragists refuse to license their dogs, in 1913.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → India → Benares hartal of 1810–11
Pickets and other such public demonstrations commonly accompany tax resistance campaigns. Here are some examples that caught my eye.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → India → Gandhi’s campaigns → Bardoli tax strikes
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So what of this legendary Gandhian non-violent revolution? How does it work, or DOES it work, and why did anybody think you could meet British guns and steel batons with unresisting bodies and get anywhere with such a tactic? Don’t tell me they were tax resisters too!
On this day in 1932, the papers reported the arrest of Mohandas Gandhi’s wife, Kasturbhai, for inciting Indians to refuse to pay their taxes.
The British empire in India: people with well-trimmed moustaches in white suits sitting straight in their wicker chairs over tea quietly discussing where to put the cricket field? Nope: massacres and brutality. It’s a myth that Gandhi’s methods only succeeded because his opponents were civilized.
One way tax resisters can foil the plans of the tax collectors is to send up the alarm when they’re on the way. Here are some examples.
Tax resistance by Catalan separatists and by Italy’s Northern league, household tax resisters in Ireland and a council tax resister in England, the story of the Bardoli satyagraha, the I.R.S. seizes a bit of Cindy Sheehan’s rent money, an American alternative currency martyr is profiled, and I.R.S. employees seem to be in a rush to get delinquent accounts off their desks. Also: a few more glimpses at the tax strike of Beit Sahour during the first intifada in 1989.
A variety of tactic that has occasionally accompanied tax resistance campaigns is the renouncing of government privileges and titles. Here are some examples.
Another way people can assist and show solidarity with tax resisters is by coming to their assistance if their property is seized. Here are some examples.
When you’re trying to expand the ranks of tax resisters in your campaign, you need good educational tools. If you can be clear, thorough, and credible in demonstrating how to resist and what the consequences are likely to be, you can eliminate the biggest obstacle to the growth of your campaign. Today I’ll give a few examples of how tax resistance campaigns have dispelled ignorance about tax resistance.
A tax resistance campaign can increase participation by means of a social boycott practiced against non-resisting by-standers. Here are some examples of social boycotts of this sort.
Social boycott can also be a potent tactic to use against tax collectors or collaborators with the tax collection process. Here are some examples.
Tax resisters and tax resistance campaigns have at times made use of barricades, blockades, and occupations to keep tax collectors at bay. Here are some examples.
This may seem a little out-there, but I’d like you to consider radical honesty as a tactic with potential to augment a tax resistance campaign.
A tactic that I’ve encountered on many occasions in my research into tax resistance campaigns is that of disrupting government auctions, particularly those of goods seized from tax resisters. Here are several examples that show the variety of ways campaigns have accomplished this.
A tax resistance campaign can benefit its recruiting efforts, engage public sympathy, and constrain the response of the government, by getting a good spin out in the media. Here are some examples.
Some tax resistance campaigns have had their own anthems or fight songs.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → Sierra Leone → Hut Tax War (1898)
Greg Reagle touts tax resistance on Adam Kokesh’s show, Wendy McElroy ponders tax resistance in light of the Planned Parenthood funding debate, the I.R.S. is noticing more tax evasion and fraud this year, “Bushel Bob” shuts down his produce market to avoid paying war taxes, more Tax Day action reports, 10 reasons not to pay U.S. taxes, and the curious case of the Oath Keepers. Also: A Quaker in 1900 takes pains to avoid revenue stamps. And: a dispatch from the Hut Tax War of 1898.
The report of the official British commissioner investigating the Hut Tax War in the Sierra Leone protectorate blamed the ineptitude, clumsiness, brutality, and extralegal overreach of the colonial government. Which is not what his boss wanted to hear.
One tactic tax resisters have used from time to time is to pack up and leave when the tax collector comes calling, or when arrest is imminent. Also: the tale of James F. Hathaway, who won tax concessions by threatening to go Galt in 1897.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → United States → Massachusetts nonconformists in 1723
One way to win a tax resistance campaign against a government that is stubbornly trying to squeeze money out of you is to appeal to an even bigger, badder government to take your side.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → Wales → Rebecca riots (1839–44)
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Rebecca and Her Daughters
Some additional data points concerning the Rebecca Riots of the 1840s.
Two reports of the tollbooth-destroying Jack-a-Lents from 1735, who, like the Rebeccaites a century later, donned women’s clothing and blackface. Also: a political cartoon compares the Rebeccaites with Irish independence advocates.
Here’s a hand-crafted, semantic XHTML version of Henry Tobit Evans’s 1910 book “Rebecca and Her Daughters: Being a History of the Agrarian Disturbances in Wales Known as ‘The Rebecca Riots’.”
Announcing the publication of “Rebecca Riots!: True Stories of the Transvestite Terrorists who Vexed Victoria.” Also: TEA Partiers and war tax resisters make their plans for tax day.
How the people of China used tax resistance instead of the ballot box to exercise some democratic control over their rulers. Also: I’m starting to create Kindle editions of some tax-resistance-related texts.
Tax resistance campaigns can increase their visibility by adopting particular uniforms, badges, ribbons, or other emblems to identify resisters and those working in concert with the campaign. Today I will summarize some examples of this.
Refusal by juries to convict tax resisters or those associated with tax resistance movements can be a powerful check on government power. Today I will mention a small handful of such cases from tax resistance campaigns of the past.
Another way to support tax resisters as they go up against the legal system is to attend their trials. Today I’ll give some examples.
Many tax resistance campaigns have been challenged by divisions in the movement: either deliberate divide-and-conquer tactics by those who oppose the campaign, or inevitable fractures in an unstable coalition. Here are some examples of how a variety of tax resistance campaigns have met such challenges.
It’s violence week at The Picket Line. Today: some examples of attacks on the apparatus of taxation — including the destruction of parking meters, speed cameras, toll booths, and tax records.
It’s violence week at The Picket Line. Today: some examples of attacks on the homes and property of tax collectors.
It’s violence week at The Picket Line. Today: some examples of violent assaults and intimidation directed at collaborators with the tax system.
It’s violence week at The Picket Line. Today: some examples of violent attacks on police or soldiers who come to the assistance of tax collectors or who take reprisals against tax resisters.
Finishing off violence week at The Picket Line, I give some otherwise-uncategorized examples, and consider cases of when violence has helped tax resistance campaigns succeed.
Not everybody is able to be a tax resister, so it can be useful to inspire those who cannot resist to show solidarity with resisters in other ways, and it can be helpful for tax resistance movements to provide roles that non-resisting sympathizers can play in the campaign. Today I’ll mention some examples.
Tax resistance campaigns have found it useful to identify resonances with popular myths, esteemed tax rebellions of yore, and semi-fictional heroes. Here are some examples.
Sometimes the decisive turn in a tax resistance campaign has come when the resisters have coalesced into a formal group with the authority to organize and coordinate resistance actions. Today I’ll give some examples of this.
Some tax resistance campaigns have used violent threats and other such forms of intimidation to try to force reluctant taxpayers to join the campaign. Here are some examples.
Some tax resistance campaigns have tried to partially or completely secede from the government that is taxing them, or to set up alternative parallel governmental or quasi-governmental institutions to compete with or crowd out those of the established government.
It may sound like a long shot, but have you considered trying to make friends with the tax collector? It’s a strategy that’s so crazy it just might work! Here are some examples of where tax resisters or their allies have tried it.
On this date in 1844 a commission of inquiry into the causes of the Rebeccaite uprising released its report. Here are some excerpts concerning the actions and tactics of the Rebeccaites.
An interactive map of the Rebecca Riots, a new tax rebellion in France, more protest and resistance in Greece, the U.S., South Africa, and New Zealand. Also: an audit of the I.R.S. includes a new estimate of the size of the “tax gap” and shows just how much unpaid tax the agency writes off as “uncollectible” each year.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → women’s suffrage movements → American women’s suffrage movement → Abby & Julia Smith
Tax resistance in the American women’s suffrage movement: notes from Annie Shaw, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Julia and Abby Smith (and their cows “Votey” and “Taxey”).
Remember Julia & Abby Smith and their cows “Votey” and “Taxey”? Here’s the story in their own words.
A review of Kevin Carson’s “Studies in Mutualist Political Economy.” Also: another bar-chart visualization of federal discretionary budget priorities. And: Julia & Abby Smith’s house still stands (and is a national historic landmark).
In 1903, women in Wisconsin plotted a tax strike for suffrage. And: the war tax resistance of Aleck Dodd in 1949 put him at odds with the Toledo Council of Churches, of which he was the head.
American conservatives are losing patience with the Afghanistan war. Also: Susan B. Anthony endorses tax resistance in 1874. And: an article on the Chicago property tax strikes of the early 1930s.
The Women’s Tax Resistance League debates a new social security law and continues to resist it. Also: Vivien Kellems gets a sympathetic jury in her tax resistance case. And: Phœbe W. Couzins suggests a “tea party” of unenfranchised women, with Julia and Abby Smith at their head, in her testimony to a Congressional committee.
Sarah E. Wall was one of the under-sung tax resisting heroines of the American women’s suffrage movement. Also: in 1863 a new military conscription law in the United States threatened the death penalty for Quakers who could neither serve nor pay a commutation tax.
In two dead-game spinsters who wouldn’t be unfairly taxed, the men of Glastonbury met their match and the cause of feminism found a bovine cause célèbre. Also: a look at some of the right-wing American tax resisters of the 1950s: Vivien Kellems, Winifred Furrh, Mary D. Cain, and Lucille Miller.
Tales from the British Women’s Suffrage Movement, showing how tax resistance evolved as a tactic between 1884 and 1914.
On the 100th anniversary of the imprisonment of Mark Wilks for failure to pay his wife’s income taxes, let’s look at how close attention to legal technicalities can help tax resisters find and exploit flaws that hold the tax system or its enforcement arm up to ridicule, make them unworkable, or make them vehicles for additional resistance or propaganda opportunities.
Individuals can demonstrate their support for tax resisters in various ways. Sometimes just dropping them a line can be a good pat-on-the-back. Here are some examples of ways in which people and groups have given their thumbs-ups to tax resisters.
On this date in 1873 a women’s suffrage meeting was held, shortly after Susan B. Anthony was convicted by an all-male jury of the crime of voting while female. Lillie Devereaux Blake addressed the assembly about the case, and added a note about some suffragist tax resisters in Worcester, Massachusetts. Hmmm… let’s investigate.
Notes on the Beit Sahour tax strike, tax noncompliant I.R.S employees, virtue ethics for children, war tax resistance as a Christian shibboleth, whether war tax resistance is legally compulsory, how to force the U.S. tax system to the tipping point, cigarette smuggling, early feminist tax resisters Abby & Julia Smith and Abby Kelley Foster, revocation of passports from U.S. tax resisters, the massive ongoing I.R.S.-impersonating phone shakedown scam, and updated numbers on how the I.R.S.’s use of liens, levies, and seizures has changed over the years.
Mutual aid and war tax resistance; tax resistance news from Trieste, Greece, and Croydon; and the suffragist tax resistance of Julia & Abby Smith and Caroline Fagan.
Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → religious groups and the religious perspective → British Nonconformists → 19th Century Edinburgh Annuity Tax resisters
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I begin to summarize and review John Brown’s “The Law of Christ Respecting Civil Obedience, Especially in the Payment of Tribute” (1839).
In part two of John Brown’s “The Law of Christ Respecting Civil Obedience, Especially in the Payment of Tribute” (1839), he writes about when a Christian must pay taxes, and when he must not.
Excerpts from Duncan MacLaren’s “History of the Resistance to the Annuity Tax” (1836), showing how as the title of “official” state church of Scotland changed hands, those who promoted and denounced resistance to taxes to prop up the state church flip-flopped right along.
A look at the Annuity Tax resistance movement in Edinburgh in 1833, including some interesting details about the use of boycotts, social boycotts, rallies, disruption of auctions, and other tactics by the resisters and their supporters. When the tax authorities go after a magazine editor, there’s bound to be a story in it.
When Mark Wilks was imprisoned for not paying his wife’s taxes, George Bernard Shaw remarked: “If my wife did that to me, the very moment I came out of prison I would get another wife. It is indefensible.”
Some articles critical of the enforcement of the Edinburgh annuity tax against Scottish dissenters (and those too poor to pay) in the mid-19th century.
Resistance to the Annuity Tax and other church rates in mid-19th century Scotland and England showcased a number of tactics from the organized resisters.
One way a tax resistance campaign can get a leg up is through the acts of sympathizers within the tax collection bureaucracy itself. After all, they’re taxpayers too, and may feel more loyalty to their fellow-subjects than to the government they’re subjected to. Here are some examples. Also: a theater company’s clever response to a hike in the value-added tax on entertainment tickets.
Other ways to show support for imprisoned resisters are to accompany them as they go to prison, to visit them while they are inside, and to be there to meet them when they are released. Today I’ll give some examples.
Another way to support tax resisters as they go up against the legal system is to pay their legal fees or their fines. But sometimes such an offer is an unwelcome gift, as the resisters are not facing jail for lack of money but for the sake of principle.
Other ways to support tax resisters as they go up against the legal system include triggering mass actions in response to arrests, honoring prisoners, issuing formal shows of support, and petitioning the government for leniency. Here are some examples of these tactics in action.
Several articles from the Spectator concerning the Annuity Tax resistance in Edinburgh spanning more than twenty-five years. Also: the Rebeccaites continue undaunted in their tollgate-destroying during the Summer of 1843.
The arrest of journalist William Tait marked a turning point in the escalation of the conscientious objection struggle against the Edinburgh Annuity Tax.
On this date in 1837, a public meeting in Edinburgh discussed how to get rid of the hated Annuity Tax. Tax resisters were already leading the way with civil disobedience.
Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” → Mennonites / Amish
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Mennonites, atom bombs, Borgen values, unconventional thinking, and gasoline taxes (oh my!)
Supporters rally to protest the jailing of war tax resister Russell Kanning. Also: how can someone who doesn’t file a 1040 apply for a refund of those illegally-collected telephone taxes? And: new editions of the newsletters of NWTRCC and the War Resisters League. Also: a new section on war tax resistance from the Mennonite Central Committee web site.
War tax resistance among American Mennonites during the Revolutionary War. Also: tax resistance during the British women’s suffrage movement, and a political cartoon from the Spanish-American War shows what happens when a jingo meets the “war tacks”. It must be history day at The Picket Line.
A new edition of NWTRCC’s newsletter is out. Also: Chris Hedges expands on last month’s tax resistance pledge.
Mennonite war tax resisters today, a “Tax Tea Party Revolt” for legal same-sex marriage recognition in April, and weighing the pros-and-cons of simultaneous war tax resistance against federal and state taxes.
I report back from the Spring NWTRCC national gathering in Virginia.
A new video about government spending priorities and war tax resistance, put out by the Mennonite Central Committee. Also: seven million American children went missing in 1986, thanks to a change in the tax laws. And: Nepalese doctors stage a tax strike.
If your progressive friends aren’t war tax resisters yet, this Daily Kos post and Chris Hedges column might push them over the edge. Also: the Mennonite Central Committee sets up a fund for people who want to redirect their tax dollars toward undoing some of the harm in Afghanistan. And: another flashback to the beginnings of the modern American war tax resistance movement.
The latest issue of New Escapologist carries an article I wrote to introduce the practical technique of tax resistance. Also: John K. Stoner tries to get American Mennonites excited about a new war tax resistance protest campaign. And: would you be surprised to learn the I.R.S. issues more press releases about tax-related prosecutions in the weeks leading up to April 15?
During World War I in the U.S., an ostensibly voluntary war funding drive in which people were encouraged to buy “Liberty Bonds” was made effectively mandatory by a vigilante enforcement system that was even more ruthless than the government’s.
An Amish bishop explains his church’s position on refusing to buy war bonds. Also: Elizabeth Knight and Emma Sproson call the tax authorities’ bluff.
The Mennonite publication “PeaceSigns” focuses on war tax resistance. Also: the text of war tax resister Clare Hanrahan’s tax day speech that cast out the MoveOn liberal vampires.
My Shareable article about my tax resistance is topic #1 on the Porc Therapy podcast. Mayors in Italy’s Northern League launch a tax strike. A Mennonite responds to the Lettermanesque 10 reasons Mennonites don’t resist taxes any more. A government-funded video game based on Thoreau’s “Walden” pegs the irony meters in the red. And: a photo of Ken Knudson burning his tax payment check in 1966.
The U.S. financed its World War Ⅰ effort with ostensibly voluntary “Liberty Bond” sales. But war-fevered vigilante mobs made it dangerous not to contribute. Here is one eye witness account of a mob attack.
Tax resisters sometimes form cooperative housing or business relationships that help facilitate their resistance. Today I’ll summarize some examples of this that I have encountered in my research.
When trying to bring new tax resisters into a movement, sometimes there is no substitute for addressing potential resisters individually: whether that be through letters, petitions, face-to-face meetings, or cleverly creative modes of engagement.
If more people evade more taxes, even if they do so for non-idealistic reasons, this both takes resources away from the government and increases the number of targets the tax enforcers have to pursue, thereby taking some pressure off of the resisters. Here’s how to make that happen.
Tracking down information about Sander Katz, Edith Aldis, and Gerhard Friesen, American war tax resisters of the 1940s and 1950s. Also: Cornelia Lehn’s successful quest to get her employer, the General Conference Mennonite Church, to support her war tax resistance.
What’s happening on Tax Day 2013. Mennonites contemplate war tax resistance. Data on the underground economy. French heterosexual supremacists contemplate tax resistance. Even if they’re caught, American tax fraudsters are incredibly unlikely to ever cough up their ill gotten gains. And: fifty years ago today, Barbara Deming lays out the case for war tax resistance.
The I.R.S. sends me five very bland letters. Also: American “peace church” representatives confer about how to revitalize war tax resistance in their congregations.
Mennonite war tax resistance in 1969 and today, a conspiratorial look at the Republican plot to destroy the tax system, another highway tax portal in Brittany destroyed by fire, and a peek at tax resistance used in the Cypriot struggles of the 1950s.
News about American war tax resisters Jason Rawn, Juanita Nelson, and Elizabeth Boardman. Also: the U.S. Mennonite Central Committee organizes a tax redirection campaign to support Israeli conscientious objectors.
NWTRCC’s newsletter, a new War Tax Talk blog post, and a Ruth Benn radio appearance… the latest news from the American war tax resistance movement.
News about American war tax resisters, troubles in the U.S. tax bureaucracy, and tax resistance campaigns in Spain, Israel, England, Hong Kong, and India.
A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter, with articles about the U.S. war tax resistance movement, tax resistance internationally, and the global anti-war and conscientious objection movements.
Announcing the next NWTRCC national gathering, news from a war tax resistance teach-in in San Diego, a look back at the pioneers of the modern American war tax resistance movement and how war tax resistance featured in the anti-Vietnam War movement, and more news and links of interest to war tax resisters.
Gloria Steinem says if the government defunds Planned Parenthood, she’ll divert her taxes to the group. Also: a new edition of NWTRCC’s newsletter is out, with news from the American war tax resistance movement. And: a proposal for a toothless threat for Democrats to refuse to pay taxes if they get Trumped again.
Ronald Freund’s book “What One Person Can Do To Help Prevent Nuclear War” gives us an assessment of individual and institutional Christian support for war tax resistance as it stood about 35 years ago.
Issues of “The Mennonite” from 1886 to just before World War Ⅰ show little concern for the conflict between paying taxes for war and traditional Mennonite conscientious objection to military service. It would take some time for Mennonite war tax resistance to reemerge.
Issues of “The Mennonite” during World War Ⅰ do not show any groundswell of interest in war tax resistance. Indeed the paper is downright enthusiastic about buying war bonds and stamps. This, though I know that there were Mennonites in the U.S who suffered for their refusal to buy such things.
Scruples about buying war bonds and stamps were still a minority position among those represented in the pages of “The Mennonite” between the World Wars.
As World War Ⅱ heated up, American Mennonites anticipated they would be called on to contribute to the fighting, and tried to decide how they would respond. One suggested that Mennonites quickly invest their assets in charitable endeavors before the government could requisition them for its martial purposes.
When the United States entered World War Ⅱ, American Mennonites feared a repeat of the World War Ⅰ experience, when many were persecuted for refusing to purchase war bonds. So they asked the government to sell them bonds that didn’t say “war” on them anywhere, so they could buy too.
During World War Ⅱ the U.S. and Canadian governments sold “war bonds” and “victory loan bonds” to the public, and there was high pressure to buy. Mennonites convinced the government to sell them special bonds that, while the money went to the same place, made them feel like they weren’t paying for war. How did that sleight-of-hand work?
As World War Ⅱ comes to a close, American Mennonites find that they have all but conceded to voluntarily funding the military in spite of their “nonresistant” creed. “[W]hat justification remains for us to continue as a separate denomination?” asked one.
In the post-war period, a non-sectarian war tax resistance movement emerged in the United States, and perhaps not coincidentally some Mennonites began to wake up to the implications of their “nonresistant” philosophy when it came to taxes.
Timidly but with plaintive curiosity, “The Mennonite” began to explore war tax resistance in the late 1940s and early 1950s while non-Mennonites were largely at the forefront of the emerging modern war tax resistance movement.
As the 1950s end, “The Mennonite” was almost as likely to counsel tax obedience as tax resistance, but a stirring of resistance was beginning that would break out into a storm in the decades ahead.
As the 1960s begin, the pages of “The Mennonite” show plenty of evidence that Mennonites were asking whether it was right for them to pay taxes for war, but not a lot of evidence that Mennonites were refusing to pay.
In the early 1960s, war tax resisters and the WTR-curious became more bold in the pages of “The Mennonite,” but the General Conference Mennonite Church itself had a hard time coming to a consensus on how to handle the matter.
In 1963, Leo Driedger and John Howard Yoder tell readers of “The Mennonite” that it is time to take arguments about the propriety of paying war taxes seriously, and to decide how to respond.
In 1964, just as Mennonites seemed that they were poised to start resisting war taxes, a bunch of Brethren swept in with a tax resistance manifesto that leapfrogged ’em.
In the mid-1960s, some Mennonites began to explicitly promote war tax resistance, and a backlash also began. Also, the war in Vietnam for the first time became a focus of war tax discussion.
Mennonites opposed to war tax resistance, particularly in the Eastern District, began to throw their weight around in the late 1960s in the hopes of suppressing what was about to become a serious bone of contention in Mennonite circles.
The Western District Conference led the way in the Mennonite General Conference, passing a war tax resistance resolution in 1970 — possibly the first time an established Mennonite body had taken a public position on the issue.
In 1971 war tax resistance came out in the open, with the General Conference Mennonite Church overwhelmingly adopting a resolution saying “We stand by those who feel called to resist the payment of that portion of taxes being used for military purposes.”
Things were really heating up by 1972, and regular coverage of war tax resistance and of Mennonite war tax resisters in “The Mennonite” reflected this. But the majority of Mennonites were not yet on board.
In 1973 the American war on Vietnam was winding down just when war tax resistance among Mennonites was heating up. Also: Lyle and Sue Snider cleared of tax evasion and contempt of court charges related to their war tax resistance.
1974 brought “The Mennonite” readers the news that The World Peace Tax Fund Act had been introduced in the U.S. Congress. It was like the “Civilian Bonds” of World War Ⅱ all over again. Would Mennonites conclude that they were off the hook and could wait for the politicians to do something about their complicity with war?
One of the most thoughtful critiques yet written against war tax resistance was part of the back-and-forth on the issue in the 1975 issues of “The Mennonite”.
In 1976 the General Conference Mennonite Church began to wonder whether they could still call themselves a “peace church” while paying war taxes to the government for their objecting employees.
Should the General Conference Mennonite Church stop paying war taxes on behalf of its objecting employees? In 1977 nobody seemed to want to decide, but nobody could make the question go away, so a long discussion and debate began.
Between the “New Call to Peacemaking” initiative and the ongoing study and debate in Mennonite congregations, 1978 was a big year for war tax resistance in “The Mennonite”.
In 1979 an unusual session of the Mennonite General Conference was called, just to discuss war tax resistance, and in particular, to decide whether the Conference would support its tax-resisting employees by refusing to withhold taxes from their paychecks.
In 1980 the General Conference Mennonite Church voted to initiate a legal suit in an attempt to free it from having to withhold war taxes from its conscientiously objecting employees.
Debate about whether, and how, to resist war taxes continued in the pages of “The Mennonite” in 1981, a proposal to create a “sabbatical service” program for war tax resisters was floated, and the General Conference Mennonite Church prepared a lawsuit against the I.R.S.
Before it was even really out of the gate, the General Conference Mennonite Church’s suit against the I.R.S., which was intended to free it from having to withhold war taxes from its employees, was crushed.
In 1983 the General Conference Mennonite Church regrouped. Having failed via lawsuit and lobbying to get permission to stop withholding taxes from the paychecks of their war tax resisting employees, they decided to go the civil disobedience route.
The General Board of the Mennonite Church joined the General Conference Mennonite Church’s General Board (I know. I know. This is totally confusing.) in pursuing the option to stop withholding taxes from their war tax resisting employees’ salaries in 1985. On the other hand, the Mennonite Central Committee decided it wouldn’t do any such thing.
Enthusiasm for war tax resistance seemed to be waning in “The Mennonite” by 1987, just as the first international gathering on war tax resistance and peace tax campaigns had taken place. The increased enthusiasm for Peace Tax Fund legislation may have been partially to blame.
In 1988, Mennonite, Quaker, and Brethren leaders conferred on how to support war tax resisters in their churches, and out of this came “A Manual on Military Tax Withholding for Religious Employers.”
Collective war tax redirection, through alternative funds, became a hot topic of interest in “The Mennonite” in 1989, as two large conferences of Mennonite congregations merged and voted to maintain their policy of not withholding federal taxes from the salaries of war tax resisting employees.
Mennonite authors like Linda Peachey and Craig Morton delved into current and past Mennonite practice about paying taxes that would be spent on shedding blood in 1990.
Imagine what might happen if every single Mennonite refused to pay taxes for war. Titus Peachey imagined it, and shared his imaginings with readers of “The Mennonite” in 1991.
A “Taxes for Life” initiative was briefly a craze among “The Mennonite” set in 1992. Meanwhile other Mennonites continued to puzzle over what it means to Render Unto Caesar in a nuclear age.
By 1994, war tax resistance writing in “The Mennonite” was so rare that most of it fit in a single Tax Day issue in which the resisters Ed Olfert, Menno Klassen, Jane Pritchard, Don Kaufman, and Earl & Pat Hostetter Martin were profiled.
In the late 1990s, while some individual Mennonites were still enthusiastically resisting war taxes, Mennonite institutions were less interested in confronting the issue directly, and tended to only obliquely refer to the dilemma of paying taxes for war. Even institutions that officially supported tax resisting employees often indicated that no employees were asking for such support.
Issues of “The Mennonite” from 1999 show Mennonites still struggling to find the right method of confronting the problem of taxpayer complicity: some tried lobbying for Peace Tax Fund legislation schemes, others tried to get below the tax line by making large charitable deductions, and one family “taxpatriated” to another country.
At the turn of the millennium, war tax resisters in “The Mennonite” seemed to be on the defensive, trying to fortify the practice against the Frequently Asked Questions of the reluctant.
In 2002 “The Mennonite” finally got around to reporting on the Mennonite martyrs who paid the price for refusing to buy war bonds during World War Ⅰ.
As the first decade of the new millennium came to a close, some Mennonites wondered whether the Mennonite Church had come to be “at peace with war.” Certainly they seemed to largely be at peace with war taxes, with some notable exceptions.
“How are we doing as a peace church?” the Mennonite World Conference asked in 2012. “Our tax monies are conscripted, and each year our church members pay for cruise missiles, smart bombs, and unmanned drones — with barely the slightest tinge of conscience, let alone a whimper of protest,” was the reply.
“The Mennonite” is now on-line, but a search through its recent archives discloses little about war tax resistance. Also: I discover where the missing volumes of “The Mennonite” from 1934, 1935, and 1953 were hiding.
I sum up what we’ve uncovered from looking through 133 years of “The Mennonite” to search for mentions of war tax (and war bond) resistance and compliance. War tax resistance began to appear in the 1950s, built to a furious climax in the mid-1980s, and then fell away rapidly thereafter. How might this be explained? Was it just a fad?
Archives of “Gospel Herald,” the journal of the Mennonite Church, stretch back all the way to the U.S. Civil War (when its ancestor publication “The Herald of Truth” was active). This allows us to compare Mennonite and Quaker attitudes about paying commutation fines or paying for substitutes.
After the U.S. Civil War, Mennonites continued to make more explicit and precise the contours of their “nonresistant” conscientious objection policy in the pages of “The Herald of Truth.” But war tax resistance was still off the table.
As a new century began, “The Herald of Truth” merged with “The Gospel Witness” to form “Gospel Herald”. Mennonites debated whether they ought to vote, or become entangled in politics and government in any way, but by and large they taught that paying taxes was mandatory for good Christians.
During World War Ⅰ, “Gospel Herald” archives show that the Mennonite Church was much more opposed to supporting the war effort through purchases of “Liberty Bonds” than their cousins in the General Conference Mennonite Church had been.
Between the world wars, “Gospel Herald” writers continued to defend the orthodox opinion that Mennonite conscientious objection stopped at the door of the tax office. Good Christians pay their taxes, even taxes that mostly pay for bloodshed, and that’s that.
In World War Ⅱ Mennonites tried to find a way to chip in by buying government bonds without buying “war bonds.” The “Gospel Herald” has a fairly thorough record of this effort. The “Civilian Bonds” that resulted were a sort of ridiculous fig leaf, but only a few Mennonites seemed to notice this, including John M. Synder who said Mennonites had fallen for a “specious line of wishful reasoning.”
In 1959 something snapped, and writers in the “Gospel Herald” began writing about war tax resistance as a possible Mennonite response, and considering the most proper ways to go about it.
1963 began with a bombshell, as John Howard Yoder’s essay “Why I Don’t Pay My Taxes” appeared in the “Gospel Herald.” This prompted an avalanche of debate about war tax resistance through the first half of the year.
In the mid-1960s, the “Gospel Herald” seemed to retreat from discussion of war tax resistance for a while, until editor John M. Drescher reopened the debate with his 1967 editorial “Dare We Pay Taxes for War?”
By 1968, Mennonites felt left behind as the civil rights and anti-war movements erupted around them. How could the Christian vision of nonviolence and universal brotherhood move to the front of this parade? This made activist positions like war tax resistance seem more essential.
In 1970, Donald Kaufman’s book “What Belongs to Caesar?” came out, finding war tax resistance’s place in the Mennonite and larger Christian traditions, and increasing its scriptural respectability. “Gospel Herald” writers reacted to this development.
Coverage of war tax resistance really picked up steam in the pages of “Gospel Herald” in 1972, as the Mennonite Church became more enthusiastic about the idea. Also: peace tax fund legislation gets off the ground.
War tax resistance in the Mennonite Church was finally running on all cylinders by 1973, and “Gospel Herald” was reporting that process and helping it along with editorial support.
Duane and Esther Diller penned a letter to President Nixon in 1974, methodically explaining their war tax resistance in a way that could serve as a model for other Mennonite resisters.
Mennonite-inspired war tax resistance began to sprout in Japan in 1975, as the Mennonite Church in the U.S. and Canada continued to wrestle with the issue.
War tax resistance was on the front burner at Mennonite Church bodies and gatherings through 1976 and 1977, according to coverage in “Gospel Herald.”
A variety of Mennonite conferences met in 1978 for a collective consultation about the propriety of paying war taxes, and “A New Call to Peacemaking” urged the traditional peace churches to take a stronger war tax resistance stand.
In 1979, the Mennonite Church had the luxury of playing spectator as their cousins in the General Conference Mennonite Church wrestled with war taxes at a special conference. Meanwhile: a conservative backlash was organizing, and peace tax fund advocates were ramping up their lobbying campaign.
In 1980 there was a lot of discussion of war tax resistance, and a lot of individual Mennonite war tax refusal and redirection, but Mennonite Church institutions seemed more reluctant than their General Conference to take corporate stands supporting their war tax refusing employees.
1981 was marked by heated debate in the pages of “Gospel Herald” about war tax resistance, while Mennonite Church institutions continued to struggle with whether or how to take a stand.
Somehow I introduce a profane description of Christian agape by William S. Burroughs into a discussion about the state of war tax resistance in the Mennonite Church in 1983.
The debate about war tax resistance continued at a simmer through 1984, and by the end of the year it was clear that the Mennonite Church would have to have the same debate about withholding taxes from its employees’ salaries that had occupied the General Conference Mennonite Church the previous year.
The debate about whether or not to pay war taxes, and about whether Mennonite institutions should be more accommodating of the requests of their employees not to have war taxes deducted from their salaries, continued in 1985, and edged ever closer to the Mennonite Church itself.
War tax resistance was a hot topic of meetings and protests and study groups in Mennonite circles in 1986, but the Mennonite Central Committee seemed reluctant to take a stand.
In 1987, it seemed to me I started to see a lot more content in the ”Gospel Herald” bemoaning how “our tax dollars” were financing this or that government-sponsored horror without going one step further and suggesting how people could stop their taxes, at least, from being spent in that way.
In 1989 the Mennonite Church General Assembly would hold a long-overdue vote on whether or not to support war tax resistance as an institution. Also: on this date in 1971, a “War Tax Resistance Caravan” started out on a bicycle tour of New England.
After the Mennonite Church General Assembly voted to begin war tax resistance as a body, the general board of the Mennonite Church tried to come up with ways to avoid implementing that decision. The 1990–91 issues of “Gospel Herald” tell some of the tale.
In the early 1990s talk of war tax resistance in the Mennonite Church slowed to a crawl. It was only a few years back that such talk had risen to a frenzy, and the subject was a regular topic of debate in the Church. Now: not so much.
By 1995, not only was war tax resistance in retreat in the Mennonite Church, but congregations were even starting to admit active-duty members of the military as members in good standing.
“Gospel Herald” ceased publication as an independent magazine at the beginning of 1998, merging with “The Mennonite” as the Mennonite Church merged with the General Conference Mennonite Church. Today I’ll show some of the final mentions of tax resistance in the magazine before the merger.
I try to sum up what we’ve learned from more than 130 years of back issues of the Mennonite Church magazine “Gospel Herald” and its coverage of Mennonite debates over paying taxes and other government demands for war funding.
American Mennonites who refused to buy war bonds were victims of patriotic mobs and government persecution during World War Ⅰ, as told in Jonas S. Hartzler’s “Mennonites in the World War, or Nonresistance Under Test.”
A new war tax resistance redirection fund is being proposed at the Mennonite Church U.S.A. biennial conference next month. It would breathe new life into a fund first established over 35 years ago but that has lately been dormant.
I get another letter from the I.R.S. The Mennonite Church considers a new proposal on war tax redirection. Former official Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson starts a private nonprofit Center for Taxpayer Rights. And the international guerrilla uprising against traffic ticket robots continues.
The Mennonite Church U.S.A. starts a redirection fund for churchmembers who are war tax reisters. An international conference on war tax resistance is upcoming in Edinburgh. The human war on traffic ticket robots continues. Facebook bans ads that discourage voting. Expatriate Americans consider renouncing citizenship to avoid tax burdens. Businesses in Pakistan go on strike over sales tax hike. And: mystery substance leads hazmat team to shut down Kansas City I.R.S. building.
Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” → Quakers → 18th century Quakers → Paul Cuffee
We Won’t Pay!
Today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of the remarkable Paul Cuffee, who led a tax resistance campaign for the civil rights of black Americans shortly after the American Revolution.
Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” → Quakers → 18th century Quakers
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250 years ago today, a group of Pennsylvania Quakers came together and composed a letter to their fellow Friends outlining the reasons that had led them to stop paying taxes for war, and the war tax resistance movement in America was born.
Tax resistance was used by American revolutionaries against Britain, but also members of pacifist sects who opposed participation in the Revolutionary War defied the rebel tax collector.
Isaac Sharpless tells the story of Quaker war tax resistance in the colony of Pennsylvania, and gives us the context of Benjamin Franklin’s quote: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
John Richardson was an English Quaker who visited America at the beginning of the eighteenth century. While there, he was asked for advice by American Quakers as to how Friends in the home country handled the question of war taxes. Here’s how he answered them.
Stephen B. Weeks, in “Southern Quakers and Slavery: A Study in Institutional History,” tells how Quaker war tax resistance developed in the southern colonies of North America before the American Revolution.
The governors of New England colonies had a devil of a time trying to get Quaker legislators to cough up any tax money for military purposes.
The American Quaker attitude to war taxes was discussed by William Mavor in his 1797 book “Historical Account of the Most Celebrated Voyages, Travels, and Discoveries from the Time of Columbus to the Present Period.”
In the eighteenth century, John Woolman noted that war tax resistance was a hard sell even among Quakers, Samuel Fothergill hoped that the difficult question of war tax resistance would help separate the wheat from the chaff in Quaker Meetings, and James Pemberton noted sadly that for the first time the persecutors of conscientious Quakers were tax collectors and law enforcement officers who were also Quakers.
Wilson Armistead, who edited an edition of the Memoirs of James Logan, relates an interesting example of Quaker tax resistance that features kidnapping on the high seas.
During the American Revolution and its aftermath, Quakers in America were in a tight spot, with their principled war tax resistance often interpreted as cryptoToryism.
Quaker meetings would occasionally distill their discussions over war taxes and the payment of militia exemption fines into a consensus statement, which they would publish as a record of the current understanding of the Meeting. Here are some examples.
Gérard de Reyneval worked as a diplomatic intermediary between the Continental Congress and the French government, which was delighting in the colonial rebellion within its European rival. In an intelligence report he sent back to France in 1778, he painted an unflattering picture of Quaker war tax resistance.
The stories of “College Tom” Hazard and Elizabeth Drinker show the nitty-gritty of Quaker war tax resistance and the government’s response: seizing and selling goods to make up the tax.
Records of some of the confessions made by Quakers from the Nottingham Meeting during the American Revolution concerning individual failures to abide strictly by the peace testimony.
From time to time, individual Quakers or Quaker delegations would meet with the people involved in tax collection, distraints, or auctions of distrained goods to try to persuade them that such courses of action were wrong. Also: Thomas Watson is nearly executed for refusing to accept the Continental currency. And: Bob Meola reminds us that conscientious objection is a choice for everyone.
Wendy McElroy and Anthony Benezet on the joys of voluntary simplicity. Also: In 1781, representatives from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting addressed a “memorial” to the Pennsylvania General Assembly pleading for relief from property seizures that war tax resisting Quakers were being victimized by.
I’ve been helping low-income people apply for the Earned Income Tax Credit in the hopes that this would in some small way take money away from government. Have I been tricked into complicity with the machine? Also: letters from Anthony Benezet and Moses Brown hint at a major Quaker defense of tax resistance that so far has eluded my sleuthing.
If you couldn’t make it to the NWTRCC conference in Birmingham, you can find the next best thing on-line. Also: Another notice from the I.R.S. (ho hum). And: James Bowden and Isaac Zane complained that during the American Revolution, Quakers got it from both sides — the British and the rebels — due to their refusal to support the militaries. Also: the story of John Cowgill, who was paraded through town with a sign on his back and subjected to other reprisals after he refused to use the Continental currency.
In Lillian Schlissel’s book “Conscience in America” is an excerpt from a letter to the Pennsylvania Assembly from 1795 that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere, and the author of which remains unknown to me, but that attempts to explain the Quaker refusal to pay militia exemption fines. Also: some advice from taxpatriate satyagrahi Jeff Knaebel.
Excerpts from Stephen B. Weeks’s “Southern Quakers and Slavery” concerning Quaker tax resistance in the post-Revolutionary period. And: excerpts from a letter from Benjamin Bates to the Virginia Legislature, explaining why Quakers felt they could not pay militia exemption fines — which makes me wonder if the passion for resistance is getting out ahead of the reasoning at this point.
Charles Merrill, who stopped filing taxes because the I.R.S. would not recognize his (gay) marriage, announces that he’s being prosecuted. Also: On this date, 36 years ago, Time magazine decided it was time to say something about “The War Tax Protesters.” And: a defender of puritanism researches Quaker “sufferings” at puritan hands, and uncovers some persecution for war tax refusal.
On this day in 1820, according to legend, Robert Gibbon Johnson publicly ate a bunch of tomatoes to prove they were not poisonous. Several years later, he wrote up a history of Salem, West Jersey in which he gave his impressions of Quaker war tax resistance during the American Revolution.
How the U.S. Treasury is the biggest winner every time there is a state lottery. Also: some 18th century Quakers come to realize that because coercive government is necessarily violent, all taxes are war taxes and so should not be paid voluntarily.
Would you believe there’s even a special federal excise tax on vaccines? Also: British nonconformists in the American colonies fight for the right not to be taxed to support an orthodox clergy.
A list of some of the ways Quakers got in trouble with their Meetings around the time of the American Revolution for supporting or acquiescing in the support of one side or the other. Also: a good review of the Chicago property tax strike of the 1930s.
NYC anarchists writing letters of support for Carlos Steward. And: Has filing for fraudulent U.S. tax refunds become an overseas growth industry? Also: war tax resisters Michael & Kristine Sonnleitner look at the new year. And: Ecologists in Action promotes war tax resistance in Spain. Also: Isaac Sharpless on Quaker war tax resistance during the American Revolution.
William Matthews criticized his fellow-Quakers in England for their intolerance toward Friends who were willing to pay tithes (artificial rents historically assigned to the establishment church). After all, he wrote, if you are so opposed to tithes that you refuse to pay them, why on earth are you still paying your war taxes?
Lynn Johnston started as a Vietnam War phone tax refuser, but ended up adopting a more radical libertarian critique of taxes in general. Also: In 1981, 3,500 General Motors employees caught the “show me the law” bug and stopped paying their federal income tax. And: in 1756, a correspondent for a London paper complains that the pacifist war tax resistance of Pennsylvania Quakers is leaving their people wide open to attack from their enemies.
A review of J. Glenn Gray’s “The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle.” Also: The Virginia Yearly Meeting of Quakers met in 1779 to discuss “a religious scruple [that] hath appeared & increases among Friends, against the payment of taxes… for the purposes of carrying on the present war.”
In 1732, when Quaker war tax resistance was already well-established in the American colonies, people in England on both sides of the debate over Quakerism took for granted that Quakers never resist war taxes.
The journal of John Hunt describes several episodes in the debate over war tax resistance in the Society of Friends in the early United States. Also: an early example (mid-17th century) of Quaker war tax resistance in England, from the journal of Ambrose Rigge.
Two pro-revolutionary dissident Quakers in 1782 complained that a meeting house was closed to Quakers of their persuasion who advocated paying taxes to the rebel government, but open to those who spoke out against the revolution.
A book containing the handwritten minutes of the men’s portion of the Chesterfield Monthly Meeting from 1774 to 1786 is on-line, and contains a lot of good data about how meetings dealt with those members who weren’t going along with the official testimony against paying militia exemption fines.
Kevin Kenny’s “Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton boys and the Destruction of William Penn’s Holy Experiment” gives some context to a period in pre-revolutionary Pennsylvania that was crucial to the development of American Quaker war tax resistance.
Luke Howard was a member of the Royal Society, a pioneering meteorologist who gave the clouds their names — cumulus, cirrus, and so forth. On this date in 1798, he wrote to his father to explain why he would not be paying the English tax meant as “An aid and contribution for the prosecution of the War.”
On this date in 1756, some non-pacifist inhabitants of the Pennsylvania colony petitioned their King to do something about that darned Quaker-dominated colonial assembly that kept refusing to raise money for a militia.
The Quaker-dominated Pennsylvania colonial Assembly would sometimes respond to requests for military funding and supplies by instead giving money to the crown generically — a sort of wink-and-nod way to stay within the letter of the law of their pacifist doctrine while at the same time not risking the wrath of the mother country.
Whenever the authorities arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned, or seized property from Quaker war tax resisters, whatever Meeting that Quaker belonged to was sure to make note of it in their book of “Sufferings.” Commemorating resisters who have “taken one for the team” can be a good way of encouraging resisters to persist.
A government can fund itself by relying on its power to coin money, but this in turn relies on the willingness of people to accept the coin of the realm. Some tax resistance movements have adopted the tactic of refusing to use government money.
Possibly the most important period in the history of Quaker war tax resistance was the seventy-five years when the Quakers were governing the colony of Pennsylvania.
Quaker war tax resisters were severely persecuted during the American Revolution, and Quaker meetings in America were wracked with debate over the proper extent of the war tax resistance witness.
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Bartering is on the rise. Also: New York Quakers sent a message to the 1821 New York state constitutional convention asserting their rights to conscientious objection to military service or equivalent payments. One delegate complained “how are we to expect our governor to withstand these Quakers” — and sure enough, the governor soon took their side.
A review of Tom Hodgkinson’s “The Freedom Manifesto.” Also: Samuel Hanson Cox wrote a condemnation the Quaker policy on militia fines in the course of a general denunciation of Quakerism. It’s a good example of a typical knee-jerk opposition to the Quaker peace testimony and its tax-resistance ramifications.
In 1835 a Quaker writer with the pen name “Pacificus” presaged Thoreau’s argument that civil disobedience, and tax resistance in particular, could reform a nation.
In a pamphlet titled “Views of the Society of Friends in Relation to Civil Government” (1840), the New England Yearly Meeting set down its idea of the sort of relationship a Christian ought to have with Cæsar, particularly regarding war and war taxes.
“Human Smoke” questions the conventional wisdom about World War II. Also: Aristides Monteiro paints what he considered a comic picture of patient Confederate bandit guerrillas trying to steal requisitions from a furious Virginia Quaker family, in his 1890 book “War Reminiscences by the Surgeon of [John Singleton] Moseby’s Command.”
Excerpts from Stephen B. Weeks’s “Southern Quakers and Slavery” concerning Quaker tax resistance during the American Civil War.
Employees of War Resisters’ International in London tell Inland Revenue why they’re not getting those war taxes. Also: Selections from Fernando Gale Cartland’ 1895 book “Southern Heroes: The Friends in War Time” that tell how Quakers in the Confederate states coped with the military draft, exemption fees, and war taxes; including writings of conscientious objector Himelius M. Hockett, and a letter from C.S. Venable concerning conscientious objector Tilghman Vestal.
The tax resistance of American Civil War-era resister Ann Branson, as told in her own words and in the reflections of Joshua Maule.
Selections from Nathan F. Spencer’s “An Account of the Sufferings of Friends of North Carolina Yearly Meeting in Support of Their Testimony Against War from 1861 to 1865” concerning what happened to Friends who refused to pay the militia exemption fees.
Am I “obsessing” about Quaker tax resistance from centuries past? There’s a good reason. Also: Quakers plead the case of conscientious objectors to Lincoln’s war cabinet. And: the story of Cyrus G. Pringle.
You’ve heard that the I.R.S. has outsourced some of its delinquent tax collection, but it’s also outsourced some of their hunting down of tax delinquents and tax evaders by paying off snitches with a percentage of the take. Also: An 1864 debate in the U.S. Senate about Quaker resistance to militia exemption fines, and to what extent the law should respect it.
Streaming audio from several radio shows about tax resistance. Also: Some of the global tension concerning high food and fuel prices has taken the form of organized tax protests. And: The American Peace Society suggested that the Quaker refusal to pay militia exemption fines either went too far or not far enough.
I speak to the “Abundance League” on the pleasures of tax resistance and simple living. Also: The Westbury, New York Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends reported on what happened to one New York Quaker who refused to submit to the draft or to militia exemption fines.
“The Haydocks’ Testimony” is a fictionalized account of Quaker conscientious objection (and refusal to pay militia exemption taxes) in the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
If you didn’t love that whole prebate “economic stimulus” vote buying fiasco before, you may love it when you read what it’s costing the government. Also: One of the more in-depth explanations of the Quaker position against paying commutation, bounty, or militia exemption fines, came from the Meeting for Sufferings of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1865.
Brief notes from the business meeting of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. Also: another data point on the mystery of how American Quaker war tax resistance died out in the late 19th century.
Anarchism, properly understood, is not aiming at a social utopia but at an individual transformation of understanding and ethics; and, says Tolstoy, the same can be said for Christian Anarchism. Also: Jonathan Harris on the Quaker conscientious objectors taxed by the Confederacy.
After Quaker war tax resistance had gone extinct in the United States, it survived in New Zealand. Also: Foes of Hugo Chavez tear up their tax forms and go on strike in Venezuela in 2003. And: The government goes after Women’s Freedom League secretary Florence Underwood for tax resistance in 1915. And: federal workers in Manitoba in 1934 refuse to pay a state wage tax.
You know about John Woolman’s tax resistance, but what about his brother Abner? Also: British suffragists look back at the history of tax resistance in England. And: a British Quaker explains why they pay some war taxes. And: a man was arrested this month for not taking off his hat in court, a bit like George Fox was some 450 years ago… why do Americans tolerate such arrogant pretentiousness from judges today?
A profile of Nashua-area war tax resisters Francine Wall and Ruth McKay. Also: “An act to compel the Quakers to perform military service, or to pay money in lieu thereof, might properly be entitled, ‘An act for the extinction of the Religious Society of Friends,’” wrote the Friends’ Review in 1869.
Some excerpts from the “History of Woman Suffrage” concerning Lucretia Mott and the influence on her of Quaker reformer Elias Hicks.
In 1863, President Lincoln started the first federal military draft, and the pages of the “Friends’ Intelligencer” filled with debate over whether Quakers could pay the $300 commutation money to escape from bearing arms.
In the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and World War I, the United States raised money by requiring people to affix war tax “revenue stamps” to a variety of documents and goods. What did the Quakers do about that?
17% of Americans think the U.S. government has the “consent of the governed.” Also: a follow-up on Steven Short’s radio show about Northern California War Tax Resistance. And: a video of Tony Serra’s keynote at the last NWTRCC national gathering. Also: Quakers were still notorious for war tax resistance at least as late as 1884…
Gideon Frost and Samuel Rhoads spar over the duties of Quaker conscientious objectors during the American Civil War.
A letter-to-the-editor and response from the editor in the September, 1900 edition of “The British Friend” concisely sums up one argument about war taxes and mixed taxes that came up frequently in debates about Quaker war tax resistance. Also: an update on Cindy Sheehan’s tax resistance.
A non-sectarian Christian peace movement started developing in the early nineteenth century in the United States, distinct from the traditional “peace churches.” Here are some excerpts from writings by Thomas C. Upham and Charles Whipple touching on war taxes and militia exemption fines.
Thomas Clarkson, though not a Quaker himself, studied the sect so closely that his writings on Quakerism were published in a long-running series in The British Friend. But on Quakers and war taxes, he missed the mark. Also, here’s what Isaac Zane and Anthony Benezet had to say about Quakers taking pledges of allegiance or paying fines for refusing.
“War slaughters thousands and carries untold misery to desolated homes; but many professed peace men pay taxes which support it,” and otherwise explicitly or implicitly support the warfare state, mused “Z” in the Friends’ Review on this date in 1885. What to do?
A 2011 update supplement to the 2003 book on War Tax Resistance is available for free on-line. Also: on this date in 1862, Quakers from the confederacy met under the cloud of military conscription and militia exemption taxes.
At some point, an American law enforcement agent, dressed like an imperial stormtrooper and with a death’s-head logo on his union badge, spraying a protesting citizen with poison gas or beating her with a club, may pause to ask: “wait a minute, are we the bad guys?” Also: a British Quaker counsels war tax resistance against the occupation of Afghanistan… in 1878.
On this date in 1863, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting counseled: “Friends cannot conscientiously and consistently pay money — however small or large the sum — levied solely for warlike purposes, or in lieu of military service; whether to hire a substitute to do that which we believe to be sinful, or as a tax for the exercise of the right of liberty of conscience.”
In 1863, President Lincoln started the first federal military draft, and the pages of the “Friends’ Intelligencer” filled with debate over whether Quakers could pay the $300 commutation money to escape from bearing arms. Here are some excerpts.
In Germany and other parts of the continent, persecution of Quakers for their refusal to serve in the military or to pay war taxes caused the emigration of Quakers and led to the dwindling of the Society of Friends.
Wendy McElroy on the tax resisting life of Vivien Kellems. Also: tax evasion in Italy is widespread and sometimes aggressive. And: Nereus Mendenhall sets the record straight about Quaker war tax resistance in the Confederate states.
During the Crimean War the British government hiked the income tax in order to raise funds to carry on the fight. British Quakers debated whether this income tax increase was a “war tax” that they should refuse to voluntarily pay.
A quickly successful tax resistance campaign in Queensland, Australia, in 1927, over complaints that seem familiar today. Also: The Society of Friends had a rough go of it in France, in large part due to government persecution: “No Government regards principles more revolutionary than the refusal of military service and of the payment of taxes.”
On this date in 1885, The British Friend ran a letter from a Quaker putting forth the argument that Quakers should only resist explicit “war taxes” and not taxes like the income tax that just happen to go largely for war.
The British Friend mulls over tax resistance 160 years ago today. Also: In 1950, Westbrook Pegler waxes furious and sarcastic about tax refusal and President Truman’s outrageous taxpayer-paid travel budget.
Quaker pacifist W.H.F. Alexander challenged the London Yearly Meeting to put their money where their peace testimony was in 1894… a suggestion that seems to have fallen with a thud.
Two Quakers each refused to pay one and a half pence for the Egyptian War in 1883 (“It would be well if the whole Society had done so,” one Quaker remarks). Also: Oklahoma merchants rally to refuse to pay a tax imposed by the Creek Nation in 1907.
Quaker legislators voted to fund the British conquest of Egypt in 1882, so an editorialist for The British Friend said it was up to Quaker taxpayers to show some spine. Also: a video of folks from the “Δεν Πληρώνω” (“Won’t Pay”) movement in Greece reconnecting the electricity at a home where it had been shut off for failure to pay the new taxes grafted on to the utility bills.
The successful tax resistance campaign of the Great Confederated Anti-Dray and Land Tax League of South Australia in 1850–51. Also: 150 years ago today the Philadelphia Inquirer tries to make the case that there was unanimous patriotic Civil War fervor in the North — even among the nominally pacifist Quakers.
During the U.S. Civil War, Quakers struggled to refine and to maintain their practice of war tax resistance in the face of new taxes, new varieties of repression, and new pressures to let the peace testimony slacken.
The “passive resistance” campaign, in which thousands of British nonconformists refused to pay the portions of their taxes they believed would be spent on sectarian religious education, continued to heat up and began to get more organized in August 1903.
During a parliamentary hearing about the Church Rates controversy, a Quaker who refused to pay a tax for the support of the establishment church was asked how he could continue to pay war taxes. Here’s his answer. Also: William Gladstone said that “when the Legislature made a demand on its subjects for a part of their property, whatever might be the purpose to which it was applied, the demand of the Legislature absolved the conscience of its subjects.” Think that’s true?