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Rh passive resistance of the Friends, and in their absolute inability to share the emotions of the hour. The same quiet antagonism which they had manifested to the Stamp Act, to the threepenny duty on tea, and to all unconstitutional measures on the part of England, they offered in turn to the mandates of Congress, and to the exactions of the Executive Council. They would not renounce their allegiance to the crown; they would not fight for king or country; they would not pay the new state tax levied for the support of the troops; they would not lift their hands when the tax collector carried off their goods and chattels in default of payment; they would not hide their valuables from the collector's eyes; they would not run away when General Howe's army entered Philadelphia in the autumn of 1777, nor when the American troops took possession the following June. They would not do anything at all,—not even talk; and perhaps silence was their most absolutely irritating characteristic, at a time when other men found pulpit and platform insufficient for the loud-voiced eloquence of strife.