Prisoners of Congress

Philadelphia’s Quakers in Exile, 1777–1778

Prisoners of Congress uncovers a forgotten Revolutionary War story with startling resonance today. In 1777, the Continental Congress condemned Quakers as an internal threat to the new republic and recommended the preventive detention of them, revealing how quickly fear and wartime urgency could turn neighbors into suspects.

This compelling narrative follows four Philadelphia-area families as they are swept into political crisis. Drawing on letters, diaries, and official records, Norman E. Donoghue II tells the story of seventeen Quakers, who, based on suspicion alone, were forcibly removed from Pennsylvania and imprisoned in Virginia. Stripped of habeas corpus protections and denied the chance to defend themselves, the exiles became what Donoghue identifies as the nation’s first political prisoners. Through personal stories of loyalty, conscience, and survival, the book brings readers inside a dramatic episode that is a cautionary tale for any democracy under pressure.

Vividly written and deeply researched, Prisoners of Congress speaks to readers interested in the American Revolution while offering fresh insight for scholars of individual liberties and US political and constitutional history. Revealing the nation’s first political prisoners, it challenges founding myths and invites reconsideration of how liberty and intolerance exist side-by-side.

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