Benjamin Chew - Political Influence

Political Influence

Prior to the American Revolution, Chew was friends with both George Washington and John Adams, and was a strong advocate for the colonies. As a lifelong pacifist, however, Chew believed that protest and reform were necessary to resolve the ongoing American conflicts with the British Parliament. Having been born and reared as a Quaker, he did not support active revolution. He maintained that position although he had left the Quakers and joined the Anglican Church in 1758. Early in the conflict, both the British and colonial sides claimed his allegiance since chew had such a visible position in the colony and played so many important roles.

Chew was undecided about the correct course to take. “I have stated that an opposition of force of arms to the lawful authority of the king or his ministries…is high treason, but in the moment when the king or his ministries shall exceed the constitutional authority vested in them … submission to their mandates becomes treason.” -Benjamin Chew, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, in an address to the last provincial grand jury, April 10, 1776

On August 4, 1777, when General Howe and the British army were nearing Philadelphia, the Executive Council of the new government “issued a warrant for (Chew’s) arrest on grounds of protecting the public safety. When the warrant was served two days later at his home in Philadelphia, Chew demanded to know ‘by what authority and for what cause’ he was charged." "As a lawyer, believed that the warrant infringed on his rights as a free man; moreover, it violated the first principle of justice by prejudging him unheard. This, as he later recorded in notes concerning his arrest, ‘struck at the liberties of everyone in the community and it was his duty to oppose it and check it, if possible, in its infancy.’”

The Executive Council of the Continental Congress decided at the last minute against allowing Chew to remain at Cliveden. For his own safety, they decided to allow both Chew and the Governor John Penn to be paroled at his wife Elizabeth Chew’s house, "Solitude," at the Union Forge Ironworks in New Jersey. Six months later, after the British forces left the region, both men returned to Philadelphia on May 15, 1778.