Pacifism in the United States

Pacifism has manifested in the United States in a variety of forms (such as peace movements), and in myriad contexts (such as opposition to the Civil War and to nuclear weapons). In general, it exists in contrast to an acceptance of the necessity of war for national defense.^[1]

Pacifist ideas[]

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In early America religious groups such as the Brethren, Mennonites, and Quakers disseminated "antiwar sentiments...fostered by a growing colonial aversion to the carnage of the European imperial wars."^[2]

In the 1930s influential theologian Reinhold Niebuhr rejected overly idealist pacifism as "perverse sentimentality," in favor of just war.^[3]

In contrast to pacifism based on religious beliefs, some in the U.S. have opposed violent conflict on economic grounds, or for other practical, non-religious reasons.^[2]

U.S. Congress created the United States Institute of Peace in 1984 to promote international peace through education.

Wartime[]

War of 1812[]

The war ended in February 1815. New peace groups formed shortly thereafter: the New York Peace Society (est. August 1815) and Massachusetts Peace Society (est. December 1815).^[4]

Civil War[]

World War I[]

World War II[]

Korean War[]

The American Peace Crusade formed in 1951, in opposition to U.S. involvement in the Korean War.

Vietnam War[]

2001 Afghanistan War[]

Iraq War[]

See also[]

• Peace movement in the United States
• List of anti-war organizations in the United States
• Conscientious objector § United States
• United States Pacifist Party
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (est. 1910)
• War is a Racket
• Pacifism in Germany

References[]

Bibliography[]

Published in 20th century[]

• Alfred Hermann Fried (1911). "Die hervorragendsten Friedensorganisationen in den einzelnen Landern: Amerika: Vereinigte Staaten (The most prominent peace organizations in individual countries: United States)". Handbuch der Friedensbewegung [Handbook of the Peace Movement] (in German) (2nd ed.). Berlin: Velag der Friedens-Warte – via HathiTrust.
• Merle Curti (1936). Peace or War: The American Struggle, 1636-1936. New York.
• Guy Franklin Hershberger (1939). "Pacifism and the State in Colonial Pennsylvania". Church History. 8 (1): 54–74. doi:10.2307/3159866. JSTOR 3159866.
• Peter Brock (1968). Pacifism in the United States: From the Colonial Era to the First World War. Princeton UP.
• Charles Chatfield (1970). "World War I and the Liberal Pacifist in the United States". American Historical Review. 75 (7): 1920–1937. doi:10.2307/1848023. JSTOR 1848023.
• C. Chatfield (1971). For peace and justice: Pacifism in America, 1914-1941 (University of Tennessee Press)
• Charles DeBenedetti (1984). The Peace Reform in American History. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-20320-5.
• Charles F. Howlett; Glen Zeitzer (1985). The American Peace Movement: History and Historiography. American Historical Association. ISBN 978-0-87229-032-7.
• Ward Churchill (1986), Pacifism as Pathology: Notes on an American Pseudopraxis
• Rob Kroes (1986). "Pacifism as an Un-American Activity". Revue française d'études américaines (29). ISSN 0397-7870 – via Persée.
• L.S. Witner (1984). Rebels against war: The American peace movement, 1933-1983 (Temple University Press, Philadelphia)

1990s[]

• James F. Childress (1991). "Contemporary pacifism: its major types and possible contributions to discourse about war". In George Weigel and John Langan (ed.). The American Search for Peace: Moral Reasoning, Religious Hope, and National Security. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 0-87840-507-0.
• George Esenwein (1991). Guide to the John D. Crummey Peace Collection in the Hoover Institution Archives. USA: Hoover Press. ISBN 978-0-8179-2753-0.
• R.C. Peace III (1991). A just and lasting peace: The US peace movement from the Cold War to desert storm (Noble Press, Chicago)
• C. Chatfield (1992). The American peace movement: Ideal and activism (New York)
• Harriet Hyman Alonso (1993). Peace As a Women's Issue: A History of the U.S. Movement for World Peace and Women's Rights. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0-8156-0269-9.
• Charles W. Freeman, Jr. (1994). "Peace". Diplomat's Dictionary. Washington DC: National Defense University Press. ISBN 978-0-7881-2566-9.
• Anne Klejment and Nancy L. Roberts, ed. (1996). American Catholic Pacifism: The Influence of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement. Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-275-94784-2.
• Jack D. Marietta (1996). ""The things that make for peace" : the context of pacifism in Quaker Pennsylvania". In Harvey Leonard Dyck (ed.). Pacifist Impulse in Historical Perspective. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-0777-3.
• Michael A. Lutzker (1996). "Themes and contradictions in the American peace movement, 1895-1917". In Harvey Leonard Dyck (ed.). Pacifist Impulse in Historical Perspective. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-0777-3.
• C. Smith (1996). Resisting Reagan: The US-Central America peace movement. University of Chicago Press
• John Whiteclay Chambers, ed. (1999). "Pacifism". Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507198-6.
• Rachel Waltner Goossen (1999). "Pacifist professional women on the job in the United States". In Peter Brock and Thomas Paul Socknat (ed.). Challenge to Mars: Essays on Pacifism from 1918 to 1945. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-4371-9.
• Jeffrey D. Schultz and Laura A. Van Assendelft, ed. (1999). "Pacifism". Encyclopedia of Women in American Politics. Greenwood. ISBN 978-1-57356-131-0.

Published in 21st century[]

2000s[]

• Peter Brock, ed. (2002). Liberty and Conscience: A Documentary History of the Experiences of Conscientious Objectors in America through the Civil War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-803447-6.
• Immanuel Ness, ed. (2004). "Antiwar/Protest Movements". Encyclopedia of American Social Movements. Vol. 3. Routledge. pp. 1037–1114. ISBN 978-1-317-47189-9.

• C.F. Howlett (2005). History of the American peace movement 1890-2000: The emergence of a new scholarly discipline. Edwin Mellen Press, New York
• Ted Gottfried (2006). Fight for Peace: A History of Antiwar Movements in America. Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century Books. ISBN 978-0-7613-2932-9.

• James G. Ryan; Leonard Schlup (2006). "Pacifism". Historical Dictionary of the 1940s. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-2107-8.
• Joseph Kip Kosek (2009). Acts of Conscience: Christian Nonviolence and Modern American Democracy. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-14419-3.

2010s[]

• Martin Folly; Niall Palmer (2010). "Pacifism". Historical Dictionary of U.S. Diplomacy from World War I through World War II. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7376-6.
• Lara Leigh Kelland (2010). "Peace Movements". In Robert D. Johnston (ed.). Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History. Vol. 4: From the Gilded Age through Age of Reform, 1878 to 1920. CQ Press. pp. 271–274. ISBN 9781604266474. OCLC 462906611.

• Cynthia Wachtell (2010). War No More: The Antiwar Impulse in American Literature, 1861-1914. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-3750-5.

• Ronald B. Frankum, Jr. (2011). "Antiwar Movement". Historical Dictionary of the War in Vietnam. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-7956-0.
• Andrew Hunt (2011). "Pacifism". In Michael Kazin (ed.). The Concise Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15207-3.
• Marian Mollin (2011). Radical Pacifism in Modern America: Egalitarianism and Protest. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-0282-3. (About the 1940s-1970s)
• Louisa Thomas (27 August 2011), "Give Pacifism a Chance", New York Times
• Marian Mollin (2013). "Pacifism". In Thomas J. Lynch (ed.). Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History. Oxford University Press. pp. 113–117. ISBN 978-0-19-975925-5.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pacifism in the United States.

• "Cases: United States". Global Nonviolent Action Database. Pennsylvania: Swarthmore College.
• "The Good War and Those Who Refused To Fight It". Public Broadcasting Service.
• "Collections: Peace". USA: Hoover Institution Library and Archives. The collections cover peace movements in the United States and Europe during World War I and the interwar period

Images[]

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  I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier 1915 sheet music cover, with photo of singer Eddie Morton