My Respect for the Profession is Declining

I mentioned a little earlier a debate going on via a professional historian email list, the Society for History of the Early American Republic. I am disappointed at how rapidly the discussion has declined to professors trying to defend their claim that Pennsylvania had no militia from the end of the French & Indian War (1763) until 1777, when Pennsylvania passed a new militia law. I pointed out that even if the Associations (voluntary military units) did not meet a formal definition of "militia" as defined by statute, they took orders from the Pennsylvania government, and were provided ammunition and some guns as though they were militia. Most significant of all is Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd series, volume 14, p. 8. Under the chapter heading "Papers Relating to the Militia" is a discussion of prisoner exchanges dated December 8, 1776. The document includes

Doctor Gill and two privates of the Royal Artillery. (British.) for Captain Garret Graff and two privates of the Pennsylvania Militia.

Those who insist that Pennsylvania had no militia between the start of the Revolutionary War the 1777 militia statute are welcome to continue to believe this--but the people of the time clearly believed that Pennsylvania had a militia, and put it in writing. And professional historians (people with Ph.D.s and academic appointments) keep insisting, contrary to the 1776 document above, that there was no militia--and they cite secondary works: a book published in 1994, and a website by the Pennsylvania government.

I am beginning to wonder if my professors taught me wrong, emphasizing the importance of primary sources--the documents of the time. It appears that Cornell's defenders are reduced to using secondary sources to back up their claims--the primary sources that I foolishly use show that their secondary sources are in error with respect to the absence of a Pennsylvania militia in 1776.

Were my professors all wrong? Should I give preference to books and articles written centuries after the events over documents produced by the people that were there? Is this is what passes for professional historians today? Should I really be trusting secondary sources over primary sources for identifying the facts of the time? Is it really worthwhile to read a book that two different reviews have identified as grossly inaccurate about something as simple as the state of antebellum case law on this subject? (And that particular issue is one that I have read the primary sources--and Cornell either has not, or has chosen to ignore.) Perhaps I'm on the wrong mailing list.

The gullibility of historians when the Bellesiles fraud happened lowered my perceptions of the profession substantially. The bizarre state of this discussion makes me wonder if the politicization of history has perhaps rendered it more like creative writing than a serious social science.

UPDATE: It appears that the 1757 statute may have not lasted more than a year or two after passage. But there's still this problem that the official documents in 1776 refer to members of the "Pennsylvania Militia."