Theology Today - Vol 27, No. 1 - April 1970 - BOOK REVIEW - Pacifism in the United States, from the Colonial Era to the First World War

115 - Pacifism in the United States, from the Colonial Era to the First World War

Pacifism in the United States, from the Colonial Era to the First World War
By Peter Brock
1,005 pp. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1969. $18.50.

There are two obvious criticisms of this huge volume. In the first place, Professor Brock short changes the reader, as odd as this criticism may seem, by not doing thoroughly what he promises the reader he intends to do. The subtitle to this treatment describes this volume as covering the period up, to World War 1. Yet out of the total of 1,005 pages only 71 are devoted to the post-civil War period covering the Spanish-American War and the debates previous to World War 1. This is clearly inadequate as a cursory glance at the treatment will indicate (see Merle Curti, Peace or War, 1936). It is a neglect for which the author need not have been held responsible if he had been slightly more modest in his title, given the almost encyclopedic coverage of the early period. In the second place, so ponderous and expensive is the volume as it stands that it is severely limited in its usefulness. This is the reason, perhaps, that the Princeton University Press has published eight chapters of the book in a convenient paperback with the title Radical Pacifists in Antebellum Times.

The above criticisms should not be taken to indicate lack of appreciation for the massive achievement of the University of Toronto historian. Working with extensive knowledge of the literature of peace churches, peace sects, and peace societies, Brock presents a fascinating as well as scholarly narrative history of the rich variations on a theme. In his often detailed analysis of arguments found in the documents he demonstrates the many justifications of those who espoused the pacifist position.

Some pacifists, on the one hand, have been willing to suffer passively. They have done so for the sake of Christ whose demands these believers think they must obey literally. Treated here are the larger groups of Quakers, Mennonites, and also smaller and less well known Rogerenes, Dunkers, Shakers, and Schwenkfelders. Much of the material in this volume has to do with the courage of members of these groups in the face of harassment and persecution by the majority, far more bellicose in following the Nazarene. Opponents of these groups have been struck by the steadfastness of some of these pacifists. Others have delighted in catching them in their inconsistencies-living under the protection, for example, of force, yet unwilling to participate in its employment. On the other hand, some of those treated in this book turn out to be pacifist in another way. They have used nonviolence in an aggressive way in order to achieve certain political purposes. One of the most interesting and useful parts of the volume is the author's description of the American

116 - Pacifism in the United States, from the Colonial Era to the First World War

Peace Movement and the problems its members met in developing a position to meet the exigencies of the times. Several decades of conflict beginning with the French and Indian War and concluding with the Napoleonic Wars made the time ripe for such a movement. And such unlikely people-David Low Dedge, a Presbyterian elder, and Congregationalist minister Noah Worcester, among many others-pioneered in discussions which lead to the organization of the American Peace Society in 1828.

Several things are instructive about this development in the light of current debates over violence and injustice. First of all, there was a very serious discussion of just war theory during this period of American history by clergy and laymen concerned. Those who were interested in peace gathered together all who could agree that the nation should never engage in offensive warfare. Many of them gravitated gradually to a position condemnatory in a more radical way of even defensive response to aggression. The problem was to keep the two groups together. Secondly, as an older generation of moderates lost their power within the peace movement, the more radical, for example, William Lloyd Garrison, gained prominence. The Garrisonian formula, combining nonviolence and no government commitments, influenced a growing number of persons. Caught up in the anti-slavery movement, those who accepted this formula gradually came to the belief that the government, as it was, could not be reformed. Therefore, there had to be a clean break before a christianized system could be developed. Thirdly, because of hostility to slavery, nonviolent resistance to the system gave way to an insistence that only force would be able to do away with the evil institution. At first those who espoused this position insisted that the man-made law of slavery would give way to the higher law of liberty through non-violent resistance. Impatience with injustice caused the ebbing of the pacifist impulse. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry appears to have been a turning point. It would seem to this reviewer that some such movement has developed in the past two decades, from the non-violent resistance of the early civil rights marchers to the more belligerent outcries for justice now through the destruction of the "establishment." There is wisdom to be gained from a reading of this history. It should not be lost on those who hold power and are slow in moving against obvious wrongs in our society-poverty, urban problems, and racism.

There is one aspect of the pacifist and peace movements which should be more fully developed through the nineteenth century to World War 1. Even in Brock's gargantuan treatment it gets scant attention. Throughout the discussions of war and peace there has been expressed the desire for a curtailment of national sovereignty and a yearning for a "Congress

117 - Pacifism in the United States, from the Colonial Era to the First World War

of Nations" and a "High Court of Nations" which would allow for mediation and arbitration in the development of a world community. The pacifist and peace movements made sizeable contributions to thinking on this subject. In a day when international options need to be strengthened and increased, we should be reminded of this heritage in our history. When Brock picks up this narrative to fill out the postCivil War years, he should provide us with the history of attempts to develop such institutions. In the meantime, he has given to us plenty for sober reflection.

James H. Smylie
Union Theological Seminary
Richmond, Virginia