University of Virginia Library

Q

7123. QUAKERS, English attachments of.—

An attempt has been made to get the
Quakers to come forward with a petition
[against war with France], to aid with the
weight of their body the feeble band of peace.
They have, with some effort, got a petition
signed by a few of their society; the main body
of their society refuse it. M'Lay's peace motion
in the Assembly of Pennsylvania was rejected
with an unanimity of the Quaker vote, and it
seems to be well understood, that their attachment
to England is stronger than to their
principles or their country. The Revolutionary
war was a proof of this.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iv, 227. Ford ed., vii, 226.
(Pa., 1798)

7124. QUAKERS, English attachments of.—[continued].

I sincerely wish the circulation
of the letters of “Cerus and Amicus”
among the Society of Friends may have the effect
you expect, of abating their prejudices
against the government of their country. But
I apprehend their disease is too deeply seated;
that identifying themselves with the mother
Society in England, and taking from them implicitly
their politics, their principles and
passions, it will be long before they cease to be
Englishmen in everything but the place of their
birth, and to consider that, and not America, as
their real country.—
To Mr. Baldwin. Washington ed. v, 494.
(M. 1810)

7125. QUAKERS, Indian civilization and.—

In this important work [Indian civilization ,] I owe to your Society an acknowledgment
that we have felt the benefits of their
zealous cooperation, and approved its judicious
direction towards producing among those people
habits of industry, comfortable subsistence,
and civilized usages, as preparatory to religious
instruction and the cultivation of letters.—
Reply to Address. Washington ed. viii, 118.
(1807)

7126. QUAKERS, Jefferson's administration and.—

Conscious that the present administration
has been essentially pacific, and that in all questions of importance it has been
governed by the identical principles professed
by the Society of Friends, it has been quite at a
loss to conjecture the unknown cause of the opposition
of the greater part, and bare neutrality
of the rest. The hope, however, that prejudices
would at length give way to facts, has never
been entirely extinguished, and still may be realized
in favor of another administration.—
To Mr. Franklin. Washington ed. v, 303.
(W. 1808)

7127.

——. You observe very truly,
that both the late and the present administration
conducted the government on principles
professed by the Friends. Our efforts to preserve
peace, our measures as to the Indians, as
to slavery, as to religious freedom, were all in
consonance with their profession. Yet I never
expected we should get a vote from them, and
in this I was neither deceived nor disappointed.
There is no riddle in this to those who do not
suffer themselves to be duped by the professions of religious sectaries. The theory of American
Quakerism is a very obvious one. The
mother Society is in England. Its members are
English by birth and residence, devoted to their
own country, as good citizens ought to be. The
Quakers of these States are colonies or filiations
from the mother Society, to whom that Society
sends its yearly lessons. On these, the filiated
Societies model their opinions, their conduct,
their passions and attachments. A Quaker is
essentially an Englishman, in every part of the
earth he is born or lives. The outrages of
Great Britain on our navigation and commerce
have kept us in perpetual bickerings with her.
The Quakers have taken side against their own
government, not on their profession of peace,
for they saw that peace was our object also;
but from devotion to the views of the mother
Society. In 1797-'98, when an administration
sought war with France, the Quakers were the
most clamorous for war. Their principle of
peace, as a secondary one, yielded to the primary
one of adherence to the Friends in England,
and what was patriotism in the original,
became treason in the copy. On that occasion,
they obliged their good old leader, Mr. Pemberton,
to erase his name from a petition to Congress
against war, which had been delivered to a
representative of Pennsylvania, a member of
the late and present administration; he accordingly
permitted the old gentleman to erase his
name. * * * I apply this to the Friends in
general, not universally. I know individuals
among them as good patriots as we have.—
To Samuel Kerchival. Washington ed. v, 492.
(M. 1810)

7128. QUAKERS, Oppression of.—

The
first settlers in this country [Virginia] were emigrants
from England, of the English Church,
just at a point of time when it was flushed with
complete victory over the religions of all other
persuasions. Possessed, as they became, of the
powers of making, administering, and executing
the laws, they showed equal intolerance in this
country with their Presbyterian brethren, who
had emigrated to the northern government.
The poor Quakers were flying from persecution
in England. They cast their eyes on these new
countries as asylums of civil and religious freedom;
but they found them free only for the
reigning sect. Several acts of the Virginia Assembly
of 1659, 1662, and 1693, had made it
penal in parents to refuse to have their children
baptized; had prohibited the unlawful assembling
of Quakers; had made it penal for any
master of a vessel to bring a Quaker into the
State; had ordered those already here, and such
as should come thereafter, to be imprisoned till
they should abjure the country; provided a
milder punishment for their first and second return,
but death for the third; had inhibited all
persons from suffering their meetings in or near
their houses, entertaining them individually, or
disposing of books which supported their tenets.
If no capital execution took place here, as did
in New England, it was not owing to the moderation
of the church, or spirit of the legislature,
as may be inferred from the law itself; but to
historical circumstances which have not been
handed down to us. The Anglicans retained

full possession of the country about a century.
Other opinions began then to creep in, and the
great care of the government to support their
own church, having begotten an equal degree of
indolence in its clergy, two-thirds of the people
had become dissenters at the commencement of
the present Revolution. The laws, indeed, were
still oppressive on them, but the spirit of the
one party had subsided into moderation, and of
the other had risen to a degree of determination
which commanded respect.—
Notes on Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 398. Ford ed., iii, 261.
(1786)

7129. QUARANTINE, Uniform laws.—

Many are the exercises of power preserved to
the States, wherein a uniformity of proceeding
would be advantageous to all. Such are quarantines,
health laws, &c.—
To James Sullivan. Washington ed. v, 101. Ford ed., ix, 76.
(W. 1807)

7130. QUARRELS, Among friends.—

The way to make friends quarrel is to put
them in disputation under the public eye. An
experience of near twenty years has taught me
that few friendships stand this test; and that
public assemblies, where every one is free to
act and speak, are the most powerful looseners
of the bands of private friendship.—
To General Washington. Washington ed. i, 334. Ford ed., iii, 466.
(A. 1784)

7131. QUARRELS, Cowards and.—

A
coward is much more exposed to quarrels than
a man of spirit.—
To James Monroe. Ford ed., iv, 34.
(P. 1785)

7132. QUARRELS, European.—

I am decidedly
of opinion we should take no part in
European quarrels.—
To General Washington. Washington ed. ii, 533. Ford ed., v, 57.
(P. 1788)

See Alliances.

7133. QUARRELS, Human nature and.—

An association of men who will not quarrel
with one another is a thing which never yet
existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.—
To John Taylor. Washington ed. iv, 247. Ford ed., vii, 265.
(Pa., 1798)

— QUEBEC, Expedition against.—

See Arnold.

7134. QUIET, Love of.—

I want to be
quiet; and although some circumstances, now
and then, excite me to notice them, I feel safe,
and happier in leaving events to those whose
turn it is to take care of them; and, in general,
to let it be understood, that I meddle little or
not at all with public affairs.—
To Joseph C. Cabell. Washington ed. vi, 310. Ford ed., ix, 452.
(M. 1814)

— QUILLING.—

See Music.

7135. QUORUM, Constitution of.—

Two-thirds
of the members of either house shall be a
quorum.—
Proposed Va. Constitution. Ford ed., ii, 17.
(June. 1776)

7136. QUORUM, Constitution of.—[continued].

Two-thirds of the members
of the General Court, High Court of Chancery,
or Court of Appeals, shall be a quorum
* * *.—
Proposed Va. Constitution. Ford ed., ii, 24.
(June. 1776)

7137. QUORUM, Constitution of.—[further continued].

A majority of either
house shall be a quorum, * * * but any smaller
proportion which from time to time shall be
thought expedient by the respective houses,
shall be sufficient to call for, and to punish,
their non-attending members, and to adjourn
themselves for any time not exceeding one
week.—
Proposed Constitution for Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 444. Ford ed., iii, 324.
(1783)

7138. QUORUM, Size of.—

The Assembly
exercises a power of determining the
quorum of their own body which may legislate
for us. [410] After the establishment of the new
form they adhered to the Lex majoris partis, founded in common law as well as common right
(Bro. abr. Corporations, 31, 34. Hakewell, 93.)
It is the natural law of every assembly of men,
whose numbers are not fixed by any other law.
(Puff. Off. hom. 1, 2, c. 6, § 12.) They continued
for some time to require the presence of
a majority of their whole number to pass an
act. But the British parliament fixes its own
quorum; our former assemblies fixed their own
quorum; and one precedent in favor of power
is stronger than an hundred against it. The
House of Delegates, therefore, have lately voted
(June 4, 1781), that, during the present dangerous
invasion, forty members shall be a house to
proceed to business. They have been moved to
this by the fear of not being able to collect a
house. But this danger could not authorize
them to call that a house which was none; and
if they may fix it at one number, they may at
another, till it loses its fundamental character
of being a representative body. As this vote
expires with the present invasion, it is probable
the former rule will be permitted to revive;
because at present no ill is meant. The power,
however, of fixing their own quorum has been
avowed, and a precedent set. From forty it
may be reduced to four, and from four to
one; from a house to a committee, from a committee
to a chairman or speaker, and thus an
oligarchy or monarchy be substituted under
forms supposed to be regular. “Omnia mala
exempla ex bonis orta sunt; sed ubi imperium
ad ignaros aut minus bonos pervenit, novum
illud exemplum ab dignis et idoneis ad indignos
et non indoneos fertur”. When, therefore, it is
considered that there is no legal obstacle to the
assumption by the Assembly of all the powers
legislative, executive and judiciary, and that
these may come to the hands of the smallest
rag of delegation, surely the people will say, and
their representatives, while yet they have honest
representatives, will advise them to say, that
they will not acknowledge as laws any acts not
considered and assented to by the major part of
their delegates.—
Notes on Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 367. Ford ed., iii, 229.
(1782)