Wilberforce and the Roots of Freedom | Jonathan J. Bean | February 26, 2007 | IgnatiusInsight.com
Wilberforce and the Roots of Freedom | Jonathan J. Bean | February 26, 2007
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2007/jbean_wilberforce_feb07.asp
William Wilberforce is one of the great forgotten men of
history. But, all that is about to change as America marks Black History Month
with Amazing Grace, the remarkable new
film that opened nationwide on February 23rd. Amazing Grace commemorates the
bicentennial of the British ban on the slave trade (1807), an antislavery
movement led by Wilberforce. Without him, there would have been no end to the
slave trade, certainly not in his time. And without his life-changing
conversion to Christianity, Wilberforce might have lived a forgettable life as
a rich man's son. Instead, he helped give birth to new freedom in the British
Empire, hope in America, and inspiration to abolitionists everywhere. Today, with
slavery spreading in Africa and Asia, and according to Amnesty International an
estimated 27 million in slavery worldwide, Amazing Grace is more than a period piece: it is a timely and
enduring lesson on what one man can do to stop the spread of evil.
"Religion in politics" is a topic hot enough to spark a
barroom brawl, or knock over cubicles in the modern workplace. Yet there is no
getting around the religious passion that fed abolitionism, or later civil
rights movements. For better or worse, Americans inherited both slavery and
Christianity from the British. While slavery mocked the rhetoric of our
Declaration of Independence ("all men are created equal"), a few people in
Britain and America felt passionate about ending slavery because it violated the
moral teachings of Jesus Christ and also the spirit of the Declaration: each of
us "endowed by our Creator" with the rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness."
The fervor of abolitionism came from the New Testament, a
body of literature providing the universal principles of natural law to attack
slavery. Faith crossed borders and oceans, with Christians in both Britain and
America using natural law to first end the slave trade (1807) and then abolish
it entirely in the British Empire (1833).
The story really begins in Britain, where an unlikely Member
of Parliament, William Wilberforce, courageously took up the cause of human
emancipation, despite virtually universal opposition. The son of a wealthy
merchant, young Wilberforce led the hedonistic lifestyle of a college student
at Cambridge. Bored with his father's business, he entered Parliament at age 21
and made friends easily. Five years later, he had a conversion experience
leading him to devote his life to freeing those in bondage. In 1791, his bill
to abolish the slave trade failed by a wide margin but he persisted. In 1807,
Wilberforce released A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade on the eve of
Parliament's overwhelming vote to end the trade in human beings-a remarkable
change in fifteen years. In 1823, "God's politician" began a ten-year campaign
to end slavery entirely, releasing his Appeal to the Religion, Justice and
Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in Behalf of the Negro Slaves
in the West Indies, in which he claimed
that total and unqualified emancipation was a moral and ethical "duty before
God." Wilberforce died in 1833 just as Parliament abolished slavery. His friend
John Newton, once one of the cruelest of slave traders, later in life went
through a similar "born again" experience and wrote the famous song "Amazing
Grace"--hence the title of the movie about Wilberforce's awe-inspiring campaign
against slavery.
Under Wilberforce's leadership, the anti-slavery movement in
Britain developed tactics similar to those by American abolitionists: speakers
on lecture circuits, mass petitions to Congress, distribution of abolitionist
tracts, and the use of "respectable" women as advocates. American abolitionists
faced greater danger, including the "gagging" of petitions to Congress, the
seizure of abolitionist mail in the South, and death threats. Despite the
differences, in both Britain and the United States, Christian-inspired
individuals were impelled to organize in opposition to man's ownership of man.
Slavery, of course, never fully disappeared. Sadly, millions
remain enslaved in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. Inspired by Wilberforce's
example, the producers of Amazing Grace hope to stir public opinion against the
slave trade through a web site, www.amazinggracemovie.com, which sponsors the "Amazing
Change Campaign" to launch "a campaign to abolish modern day slavery and allow
children and adults around the world to live in freedom." Motivated by
Christianity or not, this is one example of "religion in politics" that
liberals and conservatives might do well to agree upon.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH, FEBRUARY 2007:
• The Cardinal From Nigeria | Introduction to
God's Invisible Hand: The Life
and Work of Francis Cardinal Arinze | Gerard O'Connell
• Liturgical Roles In the Eucharistic Celebration | Francis Cardinal Arinze
• A Study In Faithful Obedience | Foreword to
From Slave to Priest | Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers
• Black and Catholic In America | Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers
• Behold the Man! | An interview with Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers
• "My Name Is Alex Jones" | Foreword to
No Price Too High: A Pentecostal
Preacher Becomes a Catholic | Steve Ray
Jonathan J. Bean is
Research Fellow at The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.,
Professor of History at Southern Illinois University,
and editor of the forthcoming book, Race and Liberty: The Classical Liberal
Tradition of Civil Rights. He received his Ph.D. from the Ohio State University in
1994 and he has taught at Juniata College and St. Michael's College. Dr. Bean is the recipient
of the Henry Adams Prize for Best Book of the Year from the Society for History in the
Federal Government, Herman E. Krooss Prize from the Business History Conference, and he
is a member of the Academic Hall of Fame at St. Michael's College.
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