Jeffrey A. Denman

Pennsylvania and western New Jersey Quakers had endured much for their cause. The men who were exiled to Virginia, for example, suffered deprivation, loneliness, and loss, as did the families they left behind. It was clear that the civil liberties of the exiles had been violated, but in times of extreme duress and fear of the unknown, democratic ideals are all too often tossed to the wind. Quakers paid a high price for their "liberty of conscience," while Pennsylvania's leade

Paine's Attack on the Quakers in American Crisis II In the Second American Crisis, Paine led an unremitting attack on the Quakers, distorting their December 20 epistle to suit his needs and those of the revolutionary government. He attacked their alleged affinity with the British government, citing the epistle as "a publication evidently intended to promote sedition and treason," which was clearly not a sound portrayal of the document. The "happy constitution" that the Quaker

"The Testimony of the People Called Quakers," January 24, 1775 The new year began as the old one had ended—with more controversy. Christopher Marshall recorded in his diary on January 2, 1775, that there were "meetings daily amongst the Quakers," and on January 5, the Meeting for Sufferings, effectively their executive council, issued an epistle from their meeting not only "to act agreeable to the peaceable principles and testimony we profess" but also because "some public re