"Ready to act in defiance of Government":Colonial Philadelphia Voluntary Culture and the Defense Association of 1747–1748
This article examines the Defense Association formed in Philadelphia in 1747–48, an extralegal militia that for a short time usurped governmental powers when the city feared attack during King George's War. It argues that the Defense Association was no aberration, that it must be understood as the fruition and extension of patterns of voluntary organization that had been developing in Philadelphia for twenty years. The Association, in turn, expanded the scope of what was politically possible through voluntary organization and carved out space for future extralegal organizing up to and including the Revolutionary groups of the 1770s.
Philadelphia, Defense Association, voluntary association, Library Company, fire companies, Benjamin Franklin, militia, extra-legal
In 1747 Philadelphians organized themselves into an extralegal militia they named the Defense Association. The Defense Association at its height consisted of between 1,000 and 1,200 men, representing as many as half the white, adult men of Philadelphia. The Association raised thousands of pounds, built two forts on the banks of the Delaware River, purchased guns, cannons, and ammunition, and opened negotiations with the governors of Massachusetts and New York for military aid. It did all this with no legal basis, with no original grant of power from any branch of government, and with no explicit oversight by any governmental body. It was called into being, organized, and run by private men, volunteers associating by choice.1 [End Page 358]
Surprisingly little attention has been paid to this short-lived extralegal militia in the heart of colonial America's largest city. The events surrounding the formation of the Defense Association usually get swallowed up into a larger narrative of Pennsylvania politics: the mid-eighteenth-century debate over military preparedness, spending, and self-defense, the struggle of the Penn family's Proprietary prerogative against local legislative rights and power, the approaching crisis for Quaker legislators about whether they could remain in government and maintain the pacifism central to their religious faith.2
Certainly, from the very beginning the Defense Association defied easy categorization. "The form & tenor appear'd to me singular," confessed the Proprietary secretary, Richard Peters. He admitted it would "no doubt make an odd appearance & occasion divers observations." Pennsylvania's Proprietor, Thomas Penn, to whom Peters was writing in England, certainly thought [End Page 359] so. He was irate. "I am sure," he spluttered, that "the people of America are too often ready to act in defiance of the Government they live in, without associating themselves for that purpose." Fearful of the implications of an extralegal militia on his government and interests, Penn viewed the Defense Association with deep reservations.3
Philadelphians did not share Penn's concerns. Their city lay under threat of attack from French and Spanish privateers prowling the Delaware Bay during King George's War. When the legislature refused to take any action to defend the city and all other branches of government proved powerless, private, independent organizing appeared the only logical answer. Furthermore, Philadelphians had by 1747 a history of "associating themselves." In the preceding twenty-five years they had founded at least sixteen formal voluntary organizations. All but two were still operational in 1747, encompassing five fire companies, two libraries, two ethnic-support groups, Freemasons, a sporting and hunting club, and at least one trade group.4
To be sure, the Defense Association was a very different endeavor from a library or a sporting club. Historians of club life in Philadelphia have tacitly agreed with Richard Peters that the Association made "an odd appearance," [End Page 360] and they have not included it in their analysis of patterns of club activity or in the evolution of Philadelphia's public sphere.
This article argues that an understanding of the organizational strategies and civic space carved out by earlier organizations is essential to an understanding of the Association, in terms of both the context out of which it arose and the ways that it differed—sometimes radically—from groups that had come before it. Together these insights suggest new avenues for understanding the civic culture of eighteenth-century Philadelphia and the participation of white adult males of all classes in it.
On two different levels the Defense Association could not have mobilized in the way that it did without the context of the clubs that preceded it. First, on a pragmatic level, the Defense Association drew on earlier civic voluntary associations, especially the libraries and fire companies, for an organizational blueprint. The Association adapted elements of preexisting organizations' administrative structures, financial strategies, diverse membership appeals, and cultivation of political support to fit its own needs and facilitate its rapid progress. The form the Defense Association took and the success it enjoyed were in part predicated on the experience and work of the organizations that came before it. In turn, the project of the Association necessitated innovation too. The ways in which the Defense Association pioneered new organizational strategies expanded the blueprint on which future voluntary endeavors would build.
Second, the Defense Association worked in the civic space already carved out by earlier groups between government and private citizens. Operating in a context of hands-off provincial government, weak local government, and quarrelsome provincial factions, Philadelphia's clubs and organizations offered a unique venue through which to work on community aims, bridge distinct religious and ethnic subcommunities, and manifest individual civic commitment and public virtue. Clubs and associations extended the responsibilities undertaken by private collective action rather than formal government. The Defense Association grew out of the pattern established by earlier organizations—an extreme manifestation of (rather than a radical departure from) the evolving relationship between civic associational life and formal government. The Association thereafter expanded the boundaries of civic space in Philadelphia, laying the groundwork for other voluntary activity and organization.
In the fall of 1747 Philadelphia was in a state of high panic. England was once again at war with France and Spain, and enemy privateers, intent on [End Page 361] the lucrative shipping from the port town, not only had disrupted trade, but had actually begun prowling up the Delaware River. The privateers had landed near Philadelphia, robbing farmsteads and terrorizing the local population. Fearing their rich port city would be next, citizens clamored for defensive measures. But the Quaker-dominated government, adhering to their religious beliefs, refused to act, even in self-defense of the city. "Where then," asked Benjamin Franklin, "shall we seek for Succour and Protection? The Government we are immediately under denies it to us."5
On November 17 Franklin began to distribute at his own expense two thousand copies of a pamphlet he had written titled Plain Truth, which called for the immediate formation of a voluntary association for the defense of the city. His declaration that "All we want is Order, Discipline, and a few Cannon" fell on a receptive audience. With a "sudden and surprizing" response, Philadelphia men clamored for action. On November 21 a gathering of "mostly Tradesmen" met to consider a plan Franklin had drawn up for a Defense Association; at a second meeting, on November 23, the plan gained the support of "the Gentlemen" as well. Franklin claimed that 1,200 men joined immediately; more conservative estimates put that number closer to 1,000. In any case, by December 7 Franklin stood on the courthouse steps and addressed at least 600 of those Associators, ranging from tradesmen to gentlemen. The men organized into companies by neighborhood and elected officers. They met twice weekly to "be instructed in the manual Exercise, and other Parts of military Discipline" and marched in review before the governor a month later on New Year's Day, complete with silk military colors donated by the ladies of the city. Meanwhile, Franklin and others organized a lottery to raise funds for cannons, construction of forts, and small arms purchases. Association officers and organizers went to New York to negotiate for the loan of cannons, and work began on two forts on the bank of the Delaware.6 [End Page 362]
When Franklin conceived of the idea of the Defense Association, he addressed directly the people most able to make it a reality: the tradesmen and shopkeepers of Philadelphia. In his pamphlet Plain Truth he dismissed equally the Quakers, whose hands were tied by conscience, and "those Great and rich Men" who opposed them (according to Franklin) from no other motive than political gain. In the event of an attack on the city, he argued, the ordinary, middling people would have to undertake their own defense, for the wealthy would flee to their country estates out of immediate harm's way. The middling folks could not look to their Quaker-dominated government or to their social superiors, but would have to fend for themselves, much as they had done in the past. Speaking to tradesmen at a mass meeting, he reminded those assembled that they had already established a precedent of being "the first Movers in every useful undertaking that had been projected for the good of the City"; middling Philadelphians had already founded the two most active and vibrant elements of Philadelphia's civic associational culture, the Library Company and the fire companies.7
The idea for the Library Company had come out of the youthful Franklin's suggestion that he and his friends in a small discussion group, the Junto, pool their books and create a single shared library. That experience encouraged Franklin in 1731 to try a grander scheme: a subscription library to which members would contribute funds to purchase a common collection from which they could all borrow. In the library's infancy, its directors emphasized the necessity for their undertaking, observing that neither Pennsylvania nor any neighboring colony had made "any Provision for a public generous Education." Neither had private individuals filled the void; there was not even "so much as a good Book-Seller's Shop nearer than Boston." Their own institution, funded by small private subscriptions, undertook to address the deficiency. Their library would "propagate Knowledge, and improve the Minds of Men, by rendring useful Science more cheap and easy of Access."8
Beginning with twenty-five members and a modest forty titles, by 1748, during the heyday of the Defense Association, the Library Company had [End Page 363]
The Battery, the larger of two forts built south of Philadelphia in 1748 by the fund-raising and organization of the Defense Association. Detail from The East Prospect of the City of Philadelphia, engraving after George Heap, in the London Magazine, 1761. Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
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hundreds of titles and 144 men had bought shares. The first subscription library in the colonies, the Library Company proved that private citizens could be mobilized to fill a perceived public need. The Library Company model was so strong that fifteen years after its foundation, as shares became prohibitively expensive, another library company, the Union Library Company, was organized along similar lines.9
Successful in the fulfillment of a cultural goal, Franklin turned his organizational talent to a pressing public safety problem: fire. Philadelphia, along with all other urban areas, suffered from devastating fires, which could spread rapidly in the dense port city. Using the Pennsylvania Gazette as a mouthpiece in 1735, Franklin tried to nudge government into action. He met with little success. Undeterred, Franklin took advantage of the vacuum to organize thirty friends and colleagues into the Union Fire Company in 1736. Pledging to assist each other in case of fire, the company rewrote its articles in 1743 to extend its assurance of aid to all citizens of the city. By 1747 five fire companies were active and their popularity only grew from there; at the eve of the Revolution, twenty fire companies fought fires in Philadelphia, all of them organized much like the Union.10
Both the libraries and the fire companies reached out to a broad-based constituency, relying on men across religious and ethnic divides and of different economic classes, though all of them had sufficient spare wealth and leisure time to participate. In general, fire companies reflected the diversity of religious belief in the city; most had members of several different religious groups. In the first half of the eighteenth century, Philadelphia fire companies included men of English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, and German descent. The Library Company had a similar mix of religious and ethnic populations in its makeup.
Without tax records from this time period, it is impossible to be precise [End Page 365] about the personal wealth of the men in clubs. Following Susan Klepp's strategy of categorizing a man's class by his occupation, which must be taken as a very general gauge of economic status, most fire company members appear to have ranged between upper class (which Klepp defines as gentlemen, merchants, and professionals), middle class (artisans of high-end consumer goods), and lower middle class (artisans of cheaper and more common consumer goods). As demonstrated in table 1, of the three organizations whose membership records survive, the Fellowship Fire Company had the highest percentage of artisans (of those whose occupations are known), whereas the Union Fire Company appears to have been dominated by merchants.11
The membership of the Library Company shifted between its founding in 1731 and 1748. Originally, shares in the Library Company cost two pounds, a price that was within reach for most lower-middle-class families, including a diverse array of artisans. Each year the price for a share in the Library Company rose by ten shillings, however, so that by 1746 shares cost nine pounds, a more difficult sum to procure for all but the wealthy elite of the city. Over time new members came from wealthier echelons of society, a disproportionately mercantile class, not from the original broad base that had founded the library. As share prices rose beyond the reach of most citizens, a continuing demand for library membership provided the impetus for a second library, the Union, to form in 1746, with lower prices.12
The Defense Association followed the libraries and fire companies in appealing broadly across ethnic groups, economic classes, and religious sects. Indeed, many of its members probably came from the ranks of the five fire companies and two library companies that existed in 1747. Unfortunately, the muster rolls for the companies of the Defense Association have not survived, and membership rolls for the fire companies are incomplete, making it impossible to gauge exactly the overlap between the Association and other groups. The lists of officers and lottery managers show that 57 percent of these men were in at least one of Philadelphia's formal organizations for which records have survived (see table 2). One-third of the officers and managers were in a fire company, library company, or both. Many of those men who were not yet in clubs went on to join or found clubs after [End Page 366]
Occupational Makeup of Organizations with Surviving Records, 1732-1748
[End Page 367]
Club Affiliations of Known Defense Association Participants, 17481
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1748. The overlap between members of Philadelphia clubs and the Defense Association becomes more evident when limited to the lottery managers alone. These were the men who ran the lottery and collaborated to organize the militia, negotiated for cannons, and oversaw the construction of the batteries. Of them, 77 percent were in clubs and 54 percent in a library or fire company. Finally, the Library Company, Union Fire Company, and Defense Association had one extremely important man in common: Benjamin Franklin, whose leadership, pragmatism, and energy were essential to the beginnings and development of those organizations. One contemporary called him "the principal Mover and very Soul of the Whole."13
Franklin and other Defense Association organizers sought the backing of diverse religious and ethnic communities. Before Franklin published Plain Truth, he took steps to garner support. Earlier in the fall he conferred with leaders of different religious groups, even attempting to cultivate Quakers' cooperation (or at least minimize their opposition) by first printing pieces friendly to them in his paper and later printing letters that argued that Quaker beliefs were compatible with "defensive war." Though the Society of Friends did not budge on its position and disowned a handful of men who provided economic assistance to the Defense Association, it seems that a number of Quakers sympathized with and quietly supported its activities. The legislature received a petition in support of the Association, containing 250 signatures, 60 of which were from Quakers. Franklin's own Union Fire Company voted to buy lottery tickets in support of the Defense Association's activities, and, though four Quakers resigned in protest, most remained in the group, giving their tacit approval. Franklin viewed the implicit support of the remaining Quaker fire company members as evidence that very few Quakers were "sincerely against Defense." The elite Quaker sporting club, the Colony in Schuylkill, even donated a cannon to the cause. On the other hand, the Friendship Fire Company voted 19–3 not to purchase lottery tickets because its Quaker members (a majority) objected. Whatever the official line of the Society of Friends, then, and whatever Franklin's optimistic representation of Quaker support, it seems clear that the issue divided rank-and-file Quakers. Some supported the Association directly or indirectly; others refused to involve themselves with it or the lottery that funded it.14 [End Page 369]
Franklin was more successful with the leadership of other sects, convincing several religious leaders to use their pulpits to promote the Association's cause. Many proved to be powerful allies. The Presbyterian minister Gilbert Tennent's sermon advocating the Defense Association was so popular it was published, and Franklin noted with satisfaction that the German community's "parsons encourage[d] them." As part of their campaign to reach broadly to the different constituent parts of the city and colony, the Defense Association lottery managers arranged to have Plain Truth published in German. By December 7, less than three weeks after publishing the pamphlet, Franklin crowed that "there is a surprizing unanimity in all ranks," noting that the Germans "are as hearty as the English." Meanwhile, men flowed in to join; according to Franklin, "Near eight hundred have signed the Association, and more are signing hourly."15 [End Page 370]
Even in the absence of explicit muster rolls, it is clear that the Association sought volunteers from across class lines. Although Associators were required to provide their own firearms and a small supply of cartridges, Franklin explicitly noted that lottery funds would enable them to supply "arms for the poor," indicating that some Associators were without the economic means to purchase their own small arms. Richard Peters wrote to Thomas Penn that "Small Arms are exceedingly wanted," suggesting that Penn send some as a gift. Many Associators, however, either already owned or were able to obtain their own weapons, which indicates middling or elite status. One Associator, John Swift, wrote urgently to his uncle in England to send him a proper gun, "as I am bound in Reason, Duty, & Honour to have one of some kind or other, and my Fowling piece has no Bayonet to it."16
Franklin and Association leaders not only sought out a diverse base for the Association, they also wanted to ensure that the militia companies would be mixed. The Form of Association mandated that companies be assembled by neighborhood, which Franklin explained was intended "to mix the Great and Small together, for the sake of Union and Encouragement."17
Once organizing was under way, Franklin skillfully negotiated the politics of class relations, managing to convince both the elite and the middling sort that they were the "primary movers" of the organization. He addressed Plain Truth to the middle-class tradesmen and shopkeepers, and he accordingly met first with them on November 21 to organize the Defense Association. His choice reflected his recognition of the central role middling folk would play in the Association. At the same time, however, he carefully stage-directed that first meeting, suggesting that before they signed Forms of Association, the tradesmen "offer [the plan] . . . to the Gentlemen" and gain their approval before going forward. He met with said "Gentlemen" two days later, and only after he obtained their support did companies start forming. Thus, though Plain Truth lambasted "Great and rich Men" as [End Page 371] useless to the cause, in reality Franklin carefully worked to include them in the planning and leadership of the organization.18
Franklin based this careful balancing act on his previous experiences. He had learned in his endeavors with the Library Company that he could not afford to alienate or ignore the elite of the city or do without the approval of influential men. When he first projected the Library Company, he sought the advice and tacit approval of well-connected individuals—the most important being Provincial Councilor James Logan.19 Once the library was under way, its directors continually promoted a patronage relationship with the Penn family. Similarly, in the earliest stages of drawing up plans for the Defense Association, Franklin quietly cultivated the support of the very Quakers and "great Men" he had dismissed in his pamphlet Plain Truth. James Logan once again came to his support; and Franklin drafted his plan for the Association with the assistance of three prominent men, one Quaker and two Anglicans. Nor did Franklin ignore the Penns, working closely with William Allen and Proprietary Secretary Richard Peters to try to gain their favorable report back to Proprietor Thomas Penn.20
Peters's letter to Thomas Penn gives particular insight to the well-placed flattery Franklin employed to convince men from diverse political and class positions that they were central to his plan. Before publishing Plain Truth, Franklin explained to Peters that the pamphlet's indictment of the Proprietary elite was nothing more than an "artifice" that meant no disrespect to the Proprietary party; it was, rather, a ploy to "animate all the middling Persons to undertake their own Defence in opposition to the Quakers and the Gentlemen." Franklin's flattery worked; Peters lent his quiet support to the Association and wrote to the Penn family encouraging their immediate assistance. In fact, Franklin's "artifice" appears to have been at least equally directed at Peters himself, designed to forestall opposition—for the Defense Association, like the Library Company before it, drew momentum, funds, and strength from below, not from grandees like the Penns or their wealthy supporters. Franklin congratulated himself that his stratagems had successfully [End Page 372] drawn together a variety of camps and leaders in Philadelphia. "Tho' Plain Truth bore somewhat hard on both Parties here," he asserted, "it has had the Happiness not to give much Offence to either." Franklin himself was crucial to smoothing over differences and bringing diverse constituencies in support of the Association.21
Just as the Defense Association followed the libraries and fire companies in cultivating broad-based support, so too did it assume the bottom-up power structure that characterized those earlier organizations, though in somewhat different form. Both the Library Company and Union Fire Company, on which all other libraries and fire companies were modeled to some degree, were based on Quaker principles of equalitarianism. Rather than rely on hierarchical leadership, these groups reflected Quaker beliefs in the equal voice and participation of all members. The Union Fire Company had no elected leadership but instead rotated the office of clerk from member to member. The clerk collected fines, informed members of the next meeting, ran the meeting, wrote the official minutes, assessed the fines to be collected before the next meeting, and then passed the book on to the next man whose turn it was to be clerk, and the cycle began again. This method was inefficient and led to confusion and the mislaying of papers and money—a later fire company would actually lose track of its fire engine after that month's clerk moved it and told no one where it was. For all its drawbacks, however, this organizational model hewed closely to Quaker values of equalitarianism and working through consensus. The rotation of clerical duties fostered direct participation and leadership by all members, though it came perhaps at the expense of administrative consistency or efficiency. 22
Such institutions as the Library Company could not function with that model. The much larger scale of the organization—in membership, finances, and responsibilities that included buying books, hiring a librarian, and maintaining a physical space for the library—necessitated a smaller, more efficient governing body. Therefore, once a year Library Company members elected a board of ten directors that corresponded in some ways [End Page 373] to Quaker Monthly or Yearly Meetings. The ten directors were completely equal in authority and responsibility, and they were charged with managing the affairs of the library. Such a strategy recognized the necessity for consolidated leadership and authority but spread it broadly among ten coequal directors, rather than in a hierarchical model with an elected president and subordinate officers.23
In their origins and decision making, then, the libraries and fire companies were not top-down in organization; they appealed to a broad base of supporters and gave them voice and leadership in the direction of the organizations that were in line with Quaker ideals of equality and consensus. At the same time, democratic voting procedure dominated both kinds of organization. A simple majority passed all resolutions in fire companies and among elected directors in the Library Company. Equalitarianism held strong in Philadelphia's associational culture, but consensus gave way to democratic practices of voting.24
The Defense Association drew from this bottom-up associational culture, stressing the equal voice of members, though in a distinctively different manner. A militia could not be consensual but required a clearly defined leadership hierarchy. Still, the culture of association in Philadelphia over the previous seventeen years ran deep. The ideal of the equal, democratic voice of participants remained strong, even when a clear chain of command was necessary. "Where Danger and Duty are equal to All," Franklin editorialized, "there should be no Distinction from Circumstances, but All be on the Level."25
Accordingly, the Defense Association modified the organizational system of earlier Philadelphia groups to fit military necessity. Associators organized themselves into companies based on neighborhood and elected their immediate officers. Those officers in turn elected the Colonel and other higher-ranking officers. The practice of electing militia officers was not uncommon (though not universal) in the colonies, and the Association organizers chose this method deliberately, maintaining that, left to themselves, men would choose officers of "the best Character" to lead them. Meanwhile, asking [End Page 374] the governor to give those elected men official commissions, according to Association organizers, preserved his prerogative as the legal commander in chief of the province. In practice, the governor simply ratified the Associa-tors' choices, exercising no command whatsoever in the matter. But, Franklin maintained, nothing could "give more Spirit and martial Vigour to an Army of FREEMEN, than to be led by those of whom they have the best Opinion." The bottom-up culture that contributed to the success of fire companies and libraries was essential to the rapid success of the Association in attracting recruits.26
In practice, Associators elected men of economic, social, and political standing in the community, probably the same type of men, if not the exact same individuals, the governor himself might have appointed. The fact that the Form of Association placed that decision in the hands of the rank-and-file, however, underscored a fundamental notion that power should be vested in the people, and leaders must be held accountable to them.27 Franklin argued that yearly elections "will keep all Officers within the Bounds of Moderation and Decorum in the Exercise of their Power . . . [and] secure the Liberty of the People." Proprietor Thomas Penn focused on the threat that an armed extralegal militia posed to his government; in fact, the democratic underpinnings of its organization had longer-term implications for Pennsylvanians' relationship with the aristocratic, medieval form of government he championed.28 [End Page 375]
Having taken the momentous step of organizing themselves into an extralegal militia, the Associators had still to arm themselves and find the funds to build defensive structures. Here again they took account of the example of the libraries and fire companies. The Library Company mobilized a broadly dispersed funding strategy, relying on the relatively small contribution of a wide number of members, rather than soliciting patronage from the wealthy. This strategy proved to be an important component of its success. In contrast, the only institution in colonial Philadelphia built through the patronage of a single individual, the Loganian Library, was an abysmal failure, and eventually it folded into the Library Company. The subscription-based Library Company succeeded in earning community support because it was born out of and responsive to Philadelphians' needs and wishes to a degree never matched by the free Loganian Library. Then, when the bylaws of the original Library Company drove share prices out of the reach of most citizens, they founded new libraries that could better meet their needs—and pocketbooks. Fire companies also relied on contributions from members, rather than elite patronage: members provided their own buckets and bags. Companies acquired more costly equipment, such as ladders, fire hooks, and fire engines, through the gradual accumulation of dues and fines.29
The Defense Association followed the lead of both library and fire companies in relying on the small contributions of a number of individuals, rather than trying to attract patronage from above. Association volunteers, like fire company members, agreed to provide themselves with their own equipment—in this case, "a good Firelock, Cartouch Box, and at least twelve Charges of Powder and Ball"; and those who "conveniently" could were also to acquire swords.30
The Defense Association, however, required funds far beyond what the fire or library companies needed. In as short a period as possible (the city was, after all, thought to be under threat of imminent attack), organizers [End Page 376] intended to build forts and purchase cannons and small arms. They could not rely on the contributions of members only, as had previous organizations. Put another way, the Defense Association could not be self-funded. It drew on another model to raise funds: lotteries. Lotteries were a common practice in Britain and the colonies in the eighteenth century. Through the sale of tickets, organizers could raise money for a variety of projects, garnering the support of a wide array of "adventurers." The Philadelphia papers regularly reported or advertised lotteries in Britain and its colonies before 1747, so that when the Defense Association needed to raise a great deal of money quickly, a lottery seemed a familiar and obvious strategy. It echoed the economic strategy of many small contributions that characterized the Library Company and fire companies, but through a mechanism that allowed any man or woman in the city and beyond to participate.
Framed as voluntary and patriotic, the Defense Association lottery aimed to raise £20,000, of which £3,000 would go to the Association. Richard Peters noted that the lottery filled extremely quickly, which was all the more remarkable because inclement weather had prevented citizens from other colonies from buying tickets by mail. The lottery was filled within seven weeks, well short of the several months a lottery usually took. This speed was helped along substantially by the municipal government, which stepped in a few weeks before the drawing to purchase 2,000 of the 10,000 tickets, an act it undertook for the "publick benefit."31 Still, 80 percent of the tickets were bought by private persons in and near Philadelphia. Overall, the lottery was so successful that by April the managers undertook a second lottery to raise more money for building forts. Several publicly minded citizens forbore to collect their prizes, thus transforming their own lottery ticket purchases [End Page 377] into outright donations; the second lottery raised over £600 in this way, "By Presents made by the Adventurers."32
The Defense Association lottery represented a departure for Philadelphia voluntary associations in two ways. First, it was the earliest group to go beyond its own membership for funding. Opening the two lotteries up to the widest constituency possible, even extending beyond Pennsylvania itself, incorporated numbers of people into the defense project who did not actually serve in the militia itself. It expanded the mandate of the Association by including numbers of supporters beyond only the volunteers. The Quakers who refused to countenance the purchase of lottery tickets clearly understood this; they knew that buying a ticket meant supporting the project itself. The decision to have a lottery and go beyond self-funding was practical for the quick raising of funds, but it also had the equally important effect of eliciting at least the implicit support of a variety of men and women in and beyond Philadelphia. Unable to effect military defense of the city through the ballot box, ticket purchasers voted instead with their pocketbooks resoundingly in favor of defense.
Second, because the Defense Association was not self-funded, it could include a larger and more diverse cross section of Philadelphia's population than any previous local voluntary organization. Poorer men unable to afford their own guns could participate in the Defense Association, whereas they might have been barred from membership in a fire company, library company, or other voluntary association because of dues and other costs. The lotteries freed volunteers from economic commitments that not all of them could fulfill. Many, if not most, probably did purchase their own equipment or contribute economically in some other way, but even those who could not were still able muster as volunteers. As a result, even without muster rolls as evidence, it seems clear that the Defense Association included men from a more diverse class background than had ever been possible in earlier [End Page 378] voluntary endeavors. Certainly, it involved numbers of men that dwarfed all previous organizations individually or combined.33
By contrast, Philadelphia's fire companies and libraries had limited membership. Union Fire Company began initially for the mutual protection of members' property. In order not to spread itself too thinly in what was at first a mutual-aid pact, and to coordinate firefighting, it limited itself to twenty-five members. Even after it officially extended its fire protection to all the city, it maintained tight limits on membership, though it did raise the membership ceiling to thirty. All other fire companies limited their membership to thirty men, which meant that in 1747–48 there were around 150 men in the five active companies. The Library Company limited its membership in the earliest years, but it quickly opened itself to anyone who could afford the dues. The price of a share, however, acted by itself to limit membership. The Defense Association needed hundreds of men to defend the city from attack, and it capitalized on external funding to make it possible for men of few economic means to participate. There were no social requirements. Existing members did not vote on the admission of new men. All together, between 1,000 and 1,200 Philadelphia men joined the Association, making it many times over the largest voluntary organization ever seen in Philadelphia before the Revolution.34
Thus, the Defense Association organized pragmatically, building in some ways on the blueprints developed by earlier civic voluntary endeavors and altering or expanding beyond those blueprints where necessary. The libraries and fire companies provided strategies for diverse membership appeals, democratic, bottom-up organizational style, dispersed funding, and community support. The Association incorporated much of the organization of earlier groups. It sought volunteers from across ethnic and class lines, it worked to gain the approval of important constituencies and community leaders, it embraced a democratic style, and it relied on many small financial contributions rather than soliciting funding from a few wealthy patrons.
In other respects, the Association departed from the working outline provided by earlier groups, most crucially in respect to funding. By making the funding of the Association external rather than internal to the group, the [End Page 379] Association elicited the (at least tacit) support of many beyond its own volunteers. In freeing the volunteers from the necessity of paying dues or making other contributions, the Association opened itself to the participation of men who were unable to join other groups. The consequence was that the Association looked much like other groups in some respects, but in size and class diversity it went beyond anything that had ever come before.
In another crucial way, the earlier voluntary endeavors laid the groundwork for the Defense Association: they carved out a space between private citizens and formal government structures in which individuals could work in concert toward objectives left unmet by government or outside its scope entirely. The Defense Association formed within a culture that provided great latitude for private voluntary organization in civic life; the Association made use of that space and enlarged it still further.
The most obvious indication of the wide scope for private action is that in all the debates that raged about the Defense Association in Pennsylvania, not one of its critics who published arguments against the organization attacked its political legality or legitimacy. Neither critics nor defenders focused on the questions of whether the organization had usurped too much power, or whether an extralegal militia might endanger the structure of a legally constituted government or undermine the rights of free Englishmen. Rather, the angry pamphlets that went back and forth debated the religious question of whether self-defense was compatible with Christian religion. Supporters of the Defense Association generally pointed to texts in the Old Testament for evidence of God as a warrior and supporter of armies. Furthermore, they stressed that Christians were "expressly commanded, both in the moral Law, and in the Gospel, to obey [their] Magistrates"—an ironic position to take, given that the Defense Association, despite being countenanced by the acting governor and Provincial Council, had not been called into being by any governmental body. Critics relied more heavily on the New Testament and Christ's abhorrence of all violence, even when his apostles sought to defend him from the Roman soldiers who came to arrest him. One anonymous author feared that the Defense Association leaders might use the militia to interfere with the democratic process during the next election, in October, and place themselves in power. But even this author called no attention to the fact that the Association had no legal basis whatsoever, and no one else picked up either on his concerns or the legal issue. In Pennsylvania the right of the Defense Association to exist was implicitly accepted by promoters and critics alike; it never provoked any [End Page 380] attack or warranted any defense on the grounds of political legitimacy in 1747–48.35
Thomas Penn in England identified the potential threat of an extralegal militia immediately when he worried that the organization might act "in defiance of government." Far removed from the perceived danger, Penn had the luxury of considering its farther implications, while most men in the province accepted the Association as the only viable expedient against imminent attack. Surely the lack of serious debate about the Association's right to exist was in part attributable to its answering an immediate need. Men of various political, ethnic, and religious stripes—including many Quakers—preferred at least to tacitly accept a militia that could protect them from attack. But the culture of organizing that had evolved in Philadelphia contributed to the perception that private associations had great scope in the activities they might undertake.
The Defense Association appropriated to itself the direction of affairs that would usually be undertaken by the government in British tradition. "Where a Government takes proper Measures to protect the People under its Care," Franklin asserted, the Defense Association would have been "unnecessary and unjustifiable." In Pennsylvania, however, "and perhaps if you search the World through, you will find it in our [province] only," the government refused to act to defend its citizens from attack. By reneging on that responsibility, the government ceded to its citizens the right to act.36
In 1747–48 the three layers of government—legislature, executive, and municipality—allowed or even encouraged the private group to act. The Assembly did nothing to hinder its activities but, rather, voted itself into [End Page 381] recess during the height of Defense Association activity. Meanwhile, the municipal Corporation, which had sufficient funds that it could have considered using to build forts itself or to purchase cannons and arms, instead donated heavily to the Association and let it be responsible for those aims. The acting governor and Council gave every support possible to the fledgling group and did not interfere in its organization or choice of leaders. The most that government bodies assumed to themselves was to call for a day of fasting and prayer and send a request to Thomas Penn to donate cannons. The Associators, on the other hand, were overseeing the construction of fortifications, training and drilling hundreds of volunteers, and conducting negotiations with the governors of Massachusetts and New York for the loan or sale of cannons as early as possible.37
By organizing outside the bounds of a government that would not legitimate it, the Association secured to itself all prerogative and direction in its affairs. However disapproving the Quaker-dominated Assembly might have been, the Defense Association had made itself answerable to its own constituency only, exclusively comprising men who supported defense enough to join the militia and contribute money toward it. The Association could achieve a unanimity of purpose impossible in that moment within the broader polity, and therein lay the source of its ability to act so decisively and quickly.
To be sure, Defense Association leaders worked to gain the backing of politically connected individuals and asked the acting governor to give commissions to the men they had elected to be their officers. The support the Association sought lent only the barest veneer of government-bestowed legitimacy, however, and that from the body already disposed to be sympathetic to defense and least influenced by the will of the people. The [End Page 382] governor and the Council held their positions by appointment, not through popular election, as did the Assembly; they did not have the power to raise a militia or obtain funds for it. Furthermore, although the governor was legally the commander in chief of all provincial forces, the Association never gave him the slightest opening to appoint his own men as officers or influence the direction of the militia's activities. All he and the Council could do was rubber-stamp the Association as it stood. Far from attempting to control the Association, Franklin remembered that the acting governor and Council consulted him "in every Measure wherein their Concurrence was thought useful to the Association." Having organized independently of the government, raised its own funds, and determined its own course, the Defense Association retained full control of the management and deployment of its resources and members.38
The Defense Association represented itself as a disinterested civic body, acting on behalf of the populace in the face of Quaker Assembly intransigence. Of course, neither the Association nor the men who led it were quite so disinterested as their rhetoric implied. Wealthy merchants had potentially the most to lose from enemy privateers attacking shipping and possibly the port of Philadelphia itself. Many were therefore at the forefront of measures for defense. Politically, some Proprietary men hoped to harness the Association and dissatisfaction against the Quaker Assembly to propel themselves to victory in the polls in October. Where this was the case, however, Proprietary supporters were sadly disappointed.39
If anything, the Proprietary men who hoped to mold the Association to improve their political fortunes found that it did the reverse: Quakers remained securely in power in 1748 and beyond; their legislative dominance was unaffected by the defense issue of 1747–48. The latitude provided by [End Page 383] the structure of Pennsylvania government had allowed the Defense Association to act. Ultimately the extralegal militia defended the colony without Quaker political leaders ever having to sully their hands with military appropriations. Shrewdly, the Quaker leadership let the Association act unimpeded, and by so doing, they preserved both their consciences and their power. Proprietary men clearly understood that rather than enhancing their own political position, the Association had saved the Quakers in government. Seven years later, when the city again faced danger during the French and Indian War, Proprietary men outright refused to sanction another voluntary Defense Association. They would not give their political enemies the same out a second time. Instead, they attempted to force Quakers' hands by insisting that the legislature pass a militia bill, thereby focusing attention on the politically fraught issue of defense and whether pacifists could run a government.
The danger of privateer attack that had inspired the Defense Association dwindled soon after the organization began. As the Associators first started drilling in the streets of Philadelphia, diplomats in Europe were already working out a peace treaty, though that news would not arrive in Philadelphia until the spring of 1748. A Pennsylvanian in England wrote that he "heartily" wished his compatriots "were acquainted with the State of Affairs here, and knew to how little purpose they were employing their Money & their time." When the news did arrive, the Defense Association became much less active in the absence of the threat of immediate attack. Associa-tors marched in review in September 1748 and appear to have held a second election for officers by 1749, but thereafter there is no record of further activities. The two batteries, however, remained on the banks of the Delaware, adding to the physical panorama of the city, just as the voluntary Association that built it added to its civic landscape.40
The Defense Association mobilized the population of Philadelphia, and [End Page 384] it did so as nothing had done before. The threat of fire, the yearning for cultural advance, the cheer and camaraderie of a social club night—none of these had the immediacy and stimulus that the threat of impending attack had on the city. The Association organized with unprecedented rapidity and widespread support. Its swift progress was made possible by the pattern and experience worked out by preexisting associations in terms of membership appeals, organization, and financial strategies, as well as the civic space they had carved out vis-à-vis government, providing an attractive avenue through which citizens could participate in and influence the course of events important to their community.
In the immediate aftermath of the Defense Association, private groups continued to assume increasing initiative in public projects in Philadelphia. More fire companies and libraries formed, ethnic groups represented and assisted each of the major population groups in the city, scientific groups sought "useful knowledge" that could increase Pennsylvania manufacturing, agriculture, and prosperity. Voluntary associations opened an academy and a college, built and maintained a public hospital for the poor, took over public poor relief in the county of Philadelphia, offered mutual aid insurance against fire, played a crucial role in Indian diplomacy during the French and Indian War, and organized at least one more militia on the pattern of the first Defense Association. The provincial and municipal governments generally accepted and indeed colluded in this process, though occasionally private, voluntary activities caused friction, especially in the case of Indian diplomacy.
Citizens and government accepted, embraced, and propagated these associations, which allowed them to assert for themselves a wide space in which to operate in civic culture. By the time Patriot groups assumed organizational and governmental functions in Philadelphia in the 1770s, the city's voluntary associations had decades of experience in public projects, extralegal associations, and voluntary, nongovernmental military organization. [End Page 385]
Footnotes
1. For a succinct chronology of the events surrounding the genesis of the Defense Association, see Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 3, January 1, 1745, through June 30, 1750, ed. Leonard W. Labaree (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 180–88. The total number of taxable inhabitants of Philadelphia in 1751 was 13,720, so about one in fourteen inhabitants (regardless of age or gender) participated in the Association in 1747–48. Estimating that free adult males were about one-sixth of the population (based on an average household of two parents and a combined total of four children, servants, and slaves), there were about 2,287 adult men in Philadelphia in 1751. Some of those men would have been too old to participate, driving up the proportion of able-bodied adult men involved in the militia. As a rough estimate, then, able-bodied free adult men would have been no more than a quarter of the population and perhaps as little as one-sixth or less. I am grateful to Michael Zuckerman for pointing out this demographic calculation to me. For population statistics, see Gary B. Nash, "Taxable Inhabitants in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, 1687–1775," in The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 407–8.
2. See, for example, Alan Tully, William Penn's Legacy: Politics and Social Structure in Provincial Pennsylvania, 1726–1755 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); James H. Hutson, Pennsylvania Politics, 1746–1770: The Movement for Royal Government and Its Consequences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972); Richard Bauman, For the Reputation of Truth: Politics, Religion, and Conflict among the Pennsylvania Quakers, 1750–1800 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971); and Jack D. Marietta, The Reformation of American Quakerism, 1748–1783 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984). Other treatments of the Defense Association have focused primarily on Benjamin Franklin's role as the lead organizer. See, for example, James N. Green and Peter Stallybrass, Benjamin Franklin: Writer and Printer (New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2006), chap. 5. Sally F. Griffith also concentrates her analysis on Franklin, arguing that his actions anticipated nineteenth-century "boosterism" and that, as such, his methods provided an important model for later organizers. Griffith, " 'Order, Discipline, and a Few Cannon': Benjamin Franklin, the Association, and the Rhetoric and Practice of Boosterism," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 116, no. 2 (April 1992): 131–55. More recently, Alan Houston has also examined the Defense Association in light of Benjamin Franklin's efforts as an organizer and improver. He discusses the Association within the context of classical republicanism and views it as "a potent challenge" to this political philosophy. Houston, Benjamin Franklin & the Politics of Improvement (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 63.
3. Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, February 1, 1747/48, MSS Penn Official Correspondence, vol. 4, no. 89, Historical Society of Pennsylvania (hereafter HSP). Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 3:186.
4. I define formal associations as nonchurch organizations that had all five of the following criteria: codified membership, regular meetings, organizational structure, record keeping, and financial commitments. The formal associations that we know about that formed in Philadelphia before 1747 were Carpenter's Company (1724– present), Original Junto (1727–50s), Bachelor's Club (1728–45), Society of Ancient Britons (1729–?), Freemasons (by 1730–present), Library Company of Philadelphia (1731–present), Colony in Schuylkill (1732–present; now State in Schuylkill), Union Fire Company (1736–19th century), Fellowship Fire Company (1738–19th century), Hand in Hand Fire Company (1742–19th century), American Philosophical Society (1743–ca. 1745), Heart and Hand Fire Company (1743–90s), Union Library Company (1746–69), Friendship Fire Company (1747–ca. 1791), St. Andrew's Society (1747–present). All these organizations were functional in 1747 except for the Bachelor's Club and the American Philosophical Society. The latter was renewed in the 1760s and then merged with the American Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge, and in this iteration continues to this day. Formal associations in Philadelphia appear to have been remarkably long-lived relative to other contemporary organizations. For example, Peter Clark has demonstrated that British clubs in the same period had an average lifespan of no more than three or four years. Peter Clark, British Clubs and Societies, 1580–1800: The Origins of an Associational World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 60.
5. King George's War lasted from 1743 to 1748. Pennsylvania took little part in the conflict, escaping the bloodshed of its northern neighbors Massachusetts and New York. Benjamin Franklin, Plain Truth; or, Serious Considerations on the Present State of the City of Philadelphia and Province of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1747), 19.
6. Ibid.; Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree et al., 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 183; Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, November 29, 1747, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 3:214–18. In 1749 James Logan wrote to Thomas Penn that in the first flush of organizing, "ten Companies of near one hundred men each in Philadelphia and above one hundred companies in the Province and Counties" had been formed. Robert L. Davidson, War Comes to Quaker Pennsylvania: 1682–1756 (New York: Temple University Publications by Columbia University Press, 1957), 52–53; James Logan to Thomas Penn, November 24, 1749, in Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 3:185.
7. Franklin, Plain Truth, 13, 16–17. Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, November 29, 1747, 3:215, 216.
8. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 130; Library Company of Philadelphia (hereafter LCP) to Peter Collinson, November 7, 1732, and Address of Library Company to Thomas Penn, Proprietor, May 24, 1733, Library Company Minutes, 1:13, 27–28, LCP.
9. Membership information from the Chronological Register of the Library Company and "Library Company of Philadelphia, Book A, 1742–89," both LCP. The total of 144 represents all the men who had purchased or inherited shares between 1731 and 1748. Some original members had died or sold their shares, so that in 1748 there were 98 families with borrowing privileges. Benjamin Franklin, "A Short Account of the Library," in A Catalogue of Books Belonging to the Library Company (Philadelphia, 1741).
10. Benjamin Franklin, "On Protection of Towns from Fire," Pennsylvania Gazette, February 4, 1734/35. Articles of Union Fire Company, December 7, 1736. Minutes of the Union Fire Company, 1736–85, HSP. "Articles of the Union Fire Company in Philad.a," January 31, 1742/43, Minutes of the Union Fire Company, HSP.
11. Susan E. Klepp, Philadelphia in Transition: A Demographic History of the City and Its Occupational Groups, 1720–1830 (New York: Garland, 1989), 315–21.
12. The Union Library Company's shares began at two pounds as well, and, like the Library Company's, rose ten shillings each year, though evidence suggests the directors may not have been strict about the increase in price.
13. James Logan to Thomas Penn, November 24, 1749, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 3:185n.
14. Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, November 29, 1747, 3:217. Labaree gives these numbers as 260 petitioners and 62 Quakers; Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 3:185. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 187. The Union Fire Company voted to spend sixty pounds on Defense Association lottery tickets, which led four Quaker members to resign "because they could not Joyn in a Lottery." The other Quaker members of the fire company did not resign. Minutes of the Union Fire Company, January 4, 1748, and February 29, 1748, HSP. Nicholas B. Wainwright, The Schuylkill Fishing Company of the State in Schuylkill, 1732–1982 (Philadelphia: Schuylkill Fishing Company, 1982), 7–8. Craig W. Horle, Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania: A Biographical Dictionary, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991–97), 2:919. The divisions of the Quaker community over the Defense Association were a harbinger of the internal conflicts that would rock the Society of Friends in the 1750s and beyond and lead to a "Quaker reformation." See Marietta, The Reformation of American Quakerism, and Bauman, For the Reputation of Truth.
15. Benjamin Franklin to James Logan, December 7, 1747, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 3:224–25. Gilbert Tennent, "The late association for defence, encourag'd; or, The lawfulness of a defensive war. Represented in a sermon preach'd at Philadelphia December 24, 1747" (Philadelphia, 1748). The German translation of Plain Truth was Die lautere Wahrheit (Philadelphia, 1747). Franklin was perhaps overzealous in his depiction of German support. Five years later, when he was becoming increasingly concerned about German immigration to Pennsylvania, he asserted in hindsight that "the Germans[,] except a very few in proportion to their numbers[,] refused to engage in" the Defense Association, on the grounds that "if they were quiet the French[,] should they take the Country[,] would not molest them." In the absence of muster rolls, it is difficult to be certain what level of support the Defense Association received from the German community, but at the very least, during the initial organizational effort it was important to Franklin and other supporters that the Association appear to have as broad-based support as possible, regardless of what the reality might have been. Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, May 9, 1753, in Benjamin Franklin, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 4, July 1, 1750 through June 30, 1753, ed. Leonard W. Labaree (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 485. For a detailed analysis of the steps Franklin took to cultivate support from many different elements of Philadelphia, see Green and Stallybrass, Benjamin Franklin: Writer and Printer, 75–99.
16. Benjamin Franklin to James Logan, December 7, 1747, 3:224; Benjamin Franklin, "Form of Association," 1747, HSP. Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, February 1, 1747/48. John Swift to John White, November 29, 1747, John Swift Letter-book, HSP.
17. "Form of the Association . . . with Remarks on each Paragraph," Pennsylvania Gazette, December 3, 1747. Similarly, fire companies tended to consist of men who lived close to one another, for the obvious reason that close neighbors could provide the most immediate assistance in case of fire.
18. Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, November 29, 1747, 3:216.
19. On James Logan's relationship with the Library Company, see Library Company Minutes, March 29, 1732, vol. 1, LCP. Logan, though a Quaker, supported the Defense Association as well. See James Logan to Benjamin Franklin, December 3, 1747, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 3:219–20. Benjamin Franklin to James Logan, December 7, 1747, 3:224–25.
20. Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, November 29, 1747, 3:214–18. The influential men were William Coleman, a Quaker, and two Anglicans, Tench Francis and Thomas Bond.
21. Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, November 29, 1747, 3:214–18 (quote on 215). Benjamin Franklin to Cadwallader Colden, November 27, 1747, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 3:213. Franklin overspoke when he said he had offended no one. Though some Quakers tacitly supported the Defense Association, many did not and voiced their objections loudly. See note 35.
22. Articles of Union Fire Company, December 7, 1736, Minutes of the Union Fire Company, 1736–85, HSP.
23. Articles of Association, July 1, 1731, LCP. Library Company members also annually elected a treasurer, whose brief varied slightly from the directors', but who was equal to them in every other way.
24. Where possible, however, organizations with strong Quaker roots or large Quaker memberships sought to achieve consensus or act according to the "sense of the meeting."
25. "Form of the Association . . . with Remarks on each Paragraph."
26. Ibid. Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, February 1, 1747/48. Under normal circumstances, military commissions should have come from the governor, but Governor George Thomas had stepped down in May 1747, and the Penns' replacement, James Hamilton, did not arrive in the colony until November 1748. In the intervening year and a half, the president of the Council, Anthony Palmer, was the acting governor of the colony. Rather than assert leadership over the militia, Palmer and the Provincial Council instructed Proprietary Secretary Richard Peters to inform the Associators that "their measures were not disapprov'd of by the Government, and that if they proceeded to chuse their Officers they would readily obtain Commissions."
27. The decision was probably pragmatic too. Leaders recognized that men would be more willing to join if they had direct control over who would lead them.
28. "Form of the Association . . . with Remarks on each Paragraph." According to Franklin, when the elected officers first met to choose their superior officers, they chose him as colonel, "but conceiving myself unfit, I declin'd that Station." Abraham Taylor, a wealthy merchant and son-in-law to a former governor, was elected instead. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 184. If the democratic underpinning of the Association revealed an ideal vision of social relationships within civil society, its membership reflected a specific vision of what civil society might ideally look like. The Association cut neatly along lines of race, gender, and class, excluding nonwhites, women, and the very lowest social classes. In this way the Defense Association inherited and contributed to a conception of civil society that ignored or repressed the voices of women, people of color, and the poor.
29. The Loganian Library was bequeathed to the city by the wealthy James Logan after his death in 1751. Its collections never attracted much of a readership, and its directors, appointed by Logan in his will, never seemed committed to the project. Dorothy Fear Grimm. "A History of the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1731–1835" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1955), 121–22.
30. "Form of Association," HSP.
31. Minutes of the Common Council of the City of Philadelphia, 1704–1776, May 23, 1748 (Philadelphia, 1847), 498–99. The funding of the Defense Association was the first instance of an arm of government providing substantial economic support to a voluntary association. The Philadelphia Corporation would go on two years later to be a major financial supporter of the Academy and College of Philadelphia (now University of Pennsylvania). Shortly thereafter the Pennsylvania Assembly fronted half the start-up costs of the Pennsylvania Hospital and went on to foster a close financial relationship with the Contributors to the Relief of the Poor. In the twenty-eight years between the Association's organization and the American Revolution, a number of voluntary groups would evolve close partnerships with different levels of government, blurring the boundary between public and private activity.
32. Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, February 1, 1747/48. Pennsylvania Gazette, January 19, 1748. John Swift to John White, April 12, 1748, John Swift Letterbook, HSP. Pennsylvania Gazette, June 2, 1748. Philadelphia Lottery Accounts (Philadelphia, 1752), photostat reproduction from Yale University original, deposited at HSP. Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 3:220–21. The drawings for the first lottery began February 8, 1748. The second lottery drawings commenced September 10, 1748. Full records for the first lottery have not survived. Lottery funds that did not go to the Defense Association were the prizes offered to "adventurers" who bought lottery tickets.
33. The historian Alan Houston takes a very different view. He sees the lottery merely as "making the virtuous activity of citizen-soldiers dependent on a frivolous game of chance." Houston, The Politics of Improvement, 63.
34. Most groups voted on new members and expelled, albeit rarely, men they thought unfit.
35. I rely in this paragraph on the printed materials circulating about the Association. Quote from William Currie, A treatise on the lawfulness of defensive war . . . (Philadelphia, 1748), xiii. For the implication that the Defense Association might interfere with elections, see A treatise shewing the need we have to rely upon God as sole protector of this province . . . (Philadelphia, 1748), 18. For arguments against the Association, see also John Smith, The doctrine of Christianity, as held by the people called Quakers (Philadelphia, 1748); Benjamin Gilbert, Truth vindicated, and the doctrine of darkness manifested . . . (Philadelphia, 1748); and Samuel Smith, Necessary truth; or, Seasonable considerations for the inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia, and province of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1748). For arguments in support of the Association, see Mr. Franklin, the Absolute and Obvious Necessity of Self-Defense (Philadelphia, 1748); Gilbert Tennent, The late association for defence, encourag'd; or, The lawfulness of a defensive war . . . (Philadelphia, 1748); Gilbert Tennent, The late association for defence, farther encourag'd . . . (Philadelphia, 1748).
36. "Form of the Association . . . with Remarks on each Paragraph."
37. The Provincial Council wrote to the governors of New York and Massachusetts for a loan of cannons. Its members did not participate in negotiations for cannons, however, but instead left those difficult and delicate dealings to Franklin and other Association leaders. They were successful in New York, but Massachusetts declined to help. Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, February 1, 1747/48, Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, March 25, 1748, MSS Penn Official Correspondence, vol. 4, nos. 89, 93, HSP. James Hamilton to Thomas Penn, May 10, 1748, MSS Penn Official Correspondence, vol. 4, no. 107, HSP. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 184. "Proclamation of a General Fast," December 9, 1747, in Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 3:226–29. As discussed above, the Philadelphia Corporation bought 2,000 tickets in the first lottery and donated all its winnings to the Association. Minutes of the Common Council, January 18, 1747/48, May 23, 1748, 491–93, 498–99.
38. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 184. Quaker detractors were quick to point out that the Defense Association did not represent the will of the people, whereas the popularly elected Assembly did. They went on to extrapolate that most Pennsylvanians were in fact opposed to a militia and defense.
39. Richard Peters, for example, anticipated the possibility that the militia might influence the elections in the fall, a consequence he seemed both to fear and to hope for. "I most heartily wish to see the Governor in the Province before the Election of Assembly Men, for it appears to me this voluntary Union of Persons, tho' at first meant only for defence of the Place, will be made use of to try to get an alteration of Representatives, & if it will be peaceably & discreetly done it may prove a Publick Good, if not it may involve numbers of People in most terrible Consequences." Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, June 16, 1748, MSS Penn Official Correspondence, vol. 4, no. 97, HSP.
40. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was finally signed in October 1748, ending King George's War (known in Europe as the War of Austrian Succession). James Hamilton to Thomas Penn, May 10, 1748. The Battery figured prominently as an inset in the George Heap map, The East Prospect of the City of Philadelphia, in the Province of Pennsylvania, engraved for the London Magazine, London, 1761, LCP. Pennsylvania Gazette, September 1, 1748. Richard Peters to Thomas Penn, May 3, 1749, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 34, no. 2 (1910): 243–44. The lottery managers continued to oversee finances and publish their accounts through at least 1752; Philadelphia Lottery Accounts (Philadelphia, 1752).
