A Quaker’s Refusal to Pay War Taxes

“Joshua Evans, an associate of John Woolman’s, came to his decision to refuse paying war taxes in 1756. Some told him that Christ said to pay Caesar his due, ‘but I saw through their groundless arguments, for there was nothing in the text about War.’ Moreover, Joshua Evans had always paid taxes to maintain government, ‘though not to pay for killing men, women, and children.’ 

He was sure his path was rightly led, because ‘when my goods have been taken it has seemed as though I had never possessed them and could in my heart love my Opposers and magnify God.’ Joshua Evans and his wife found the way of war tax resistance to be costly in the loss of possessions. Nonetheless, he cheerfully remarks: ‘I saw those who would be the followers of humble Jesus must be willing to suffer.’ 

For those who were skeptical about his motives or the effectiveness of this decision, he shares: ‘It Opened very clearly to me, […] that to hire men to do what I could not for conscience sake do myself was very Inconsistent. This led in the deeps for wisdom, and [I] refused demands to defray war expenses (though my part might appear as a drop in the Ocean, yet it is made up of drops).'”

— Elaine J. Crauderueff, 1989
Quaker theologian and teacher

Quoting Joshua Evans, 1793
Quaker minister, journalist, and abolitionist