to Lancaster for safe keeping but were seized and killed by the “Paxton boys,” who with other backwoodsmen marched upon Philadelphia early in 1764, but Quakers and Germans gathered quickly to protect it and civil war was averted, largely by the diplomacy of Franklin. The Paxton massacre marked the close of Quaker supremacy and the beginning of the predominance of the Scotch-Irish pioneers.
Owing to its central position, its liberal government, and its policy of religious toleration, Pennsylvania had become during the 18th century a refuge for European immigrants, especially persecuted sectaries. In no other colony were so many different races and religions represented. There were Dutch, Swedes, English, Germans, Welsh, Irish and Scotch-Irish; Quakers, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Lutherans (Reformed), Mennonites, Dunkers, Schwenkfelders, and Moravians. Most of these elements have now become merged in the general type, but there are still many communities in which the popular language is a corrupt German dialect, largely Rheno-Franconian in its origin, known as “Pennsylvania Dutch.” Before the Seven Years’ War the Quakers dominated the government, but from that time until the failure of the Whisky Insurrection (1794) the more belligerent Scotch-Irish (mostly Presbyterians) were usually in the ascendancy, the reasons being the growing numerical strength of the Scotch-Irish and the increasing dissatisfaction with Quaker neglect of means of defending the province.
As the central colony, Pennsylvania’s attitude in the struggle with the mother country was of vast importance. The British party was strong because of the loyalty of the large Church of England element, the neutrality of many Quakers, Dunkers, and Mennonites, and a general satisfaction with the liberal and free government of the province, which had been won gradually and had not suffered such catastrophic reverses as had embittered the people of Massachusetts, for instance. But the Whig party under the lead of John Dickinson, Thomas Mifflin and Joseph Reed was successful in the state, and Pennsylvania contributed greatly to the success of the War of Independence, by the important services rendered by her statesmen, by providing troops and by the financial aid given by Robert Morris (q.v.). The two Continental Congresses (1774, and 1775–1781) met in Philadelphia, except for the months when Philadelphia was occupied by the British army and Congress met in Lancaster and York, Pennsylvania, and then in Princeton, New Jersey. In Philadelphia the second Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, which the Pennsylvania delegation, excepting Franklin, thought premature at the time, but which was well supported by Pennsylvania afterwards. During the War of Independence battles were fought at Brandywine (1777), Paoli (1777), Fort Mifflin (1777) and Germantown (1777), and Washington’s army spent the winter of 1777–1778 at Valley Forge; and Philadelphia was occupied by the British from the 26th of September 1777 to the 18th of June 1778. The Penns lost their governmental rights in 1776, and three years later their territorial interests were vested in the commonwealth in return for a grant of £120,000 and the guarantee of titles to private estates held in severalty. They still own considerable property in and around Wilkes-Barré, in Luzerne county, and in Philadelphia. The first state constitution of September 1776 was the work of the Radical party. It deprived the Quakers of their part in the control of the government and forced many Conservatives into the Loyalist party. This first state constitution was never submitted to popular vote. It continued the unicameral legislative system, abolished the office of governor, and provided for an executive council of twelve members. It also created a curious body, known as the council of censors, whose duty it was to assemble once in seven years to decide whether there had been any infringements of the fundamental law. The party which had carried this constitution through attacked its opponents by withdrawing the charter of the college of Philadelphia (now the university of Pennsylvania) because its trustees were anti-Constitutionalists and creating in its place a university of the state of Pennsyl- vania. The Constitutional party in 1785 secured the annulment by the state assembly of the charter of the Bank of North America, which still retained a congressional charter; and the cause of this action also seems to have been party feeling against the anti-Constitutionalists, among whom Robert Morris of the bank was a leader, and who, especially Morris, had opposed the paper money policy of the Constitutionalists. These actions of the state assembly against the college and the bank probably were immediate causes for the insertion in the Federal Constitution (adopted by the convention in Philadelphia in 1787) of the clause (proposed by James Wilson of Pennsylvania, a friend of the college and of the bank) forbidding any state to pass a law impairing the obligation of contracts. The state ratified the Federal Constitution, in spite of a powerful opposition—largely the old (state) Constitutional party—on the 22nd of December 1787, and three years later revised its own constitution to make it conform to that document. Under the constitution of 1790 the office of governor was restored, the executive council and the council of censors were abolished, and the bicameral legislative system was adopted. Philadelphia was the seat of the Federal government, except for a brief period in 1789–1790, until the removal to Washington in 1800. The state capital was removed from Philadelphia to Lancaster in 1799 and from Lancaster to Harrisburg in 1812.
The state was the scene of the Scotch-Irish revolt of 1794 against the Federal excise tax, known as the Whisky Insurrection (q.v.) and of the German protest (1799) against the house tax, known as the Fries Rebellion from its leader John Fries (q.v.). In 1838 as the result of a disputed election to the state house of representatives two houses were organized, one Whig and the other Democratic, and there was open violence in Harrisburg. The conflict has been called the “Buckshot War.” The Whig House of Representatives gradually broke up, many members going over to the Democratic house, which had possession of the records and the chamber and was recognized by the state Senate. Pennsylvania was usually Democratic before the Civil War owing to the democratic character of its country population and to the close commercial relations between Philadelphia and the South. The growth of the protectionist movement and the development of anti-slavery sentiment, however, drew it in the opposite direction, and it voted the Whig national ticket in 1840 and in 1848, and the Republican ticket for Lincoln in 1860. A split among the Democrats in 1835, due to the opposition of the Germans to internal improvements and to the establishment of a public school system, resulted in the election as governor of Joseph Ritner, the anti-Masonic candidate. The anti-Masonic excitement subsided as quickly as it had risen, and under the leadership of Thaddeus Stevens the party soon became merged with the Whigs. During the Civil War (1861–65) the state gave to the Union 336,000 soldiers; and Generals McClellan, Hancock, Meade and Reynolds and Admirals Porter and Dahlgren were natives of the state. Its nearness to the field of war made its position dangerous. Chambersburg was burned in 1862; and the battle of Gettysburg (July 1863), a defeat of Lee’s attempt to invade the North in force was a turning point in the war.
The development of the material resources of the state since 1865 has been accompanied by several serious industrial disturbances. The railway riots of 1877, which centred at Pittsburg and Reading, resulted in the destruction of about two thousand freight cars and a considerable amount of other property. An organized association, known as the Molly Maguires (q.v.), terrorized the mining regions for many years, but was finally suppressed through the courageous efforts of President Franklin, Benjamin Gowen (1863–1889) of the Philadelphia & Reading railroad with the assistance of Allan Pinkerton and his detectives. There have been mining strikes at Scranton (1871), in the Lehigh and Schuylkill regions (1875), at Hazleton (1897), and one in the anthracite fields (1902) which was settled by a board of arbitrators appointed by President Roosevelt; and there were street railway strikes at Chester in 1908 and in Philadelphia in 1910. The calling in of Pinkerton detectives from Chicago and New
