William Wilberforce - Mrs. Sherman's World History and...
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8/25/2016 William Wilberforce | Christian History http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/activists/williamwilberforce.html 1/6 NEWSLETTERS DONATE Catherine Booth Compelling preacher and co founder of the Salvation Army Elizabeth Fry Prison reformer Harriet Tubman The "Moses" of Her People John Woolman Quaker mystic and abolitionist Lord Shaftesbury (Antony Ashley Cooper) Godly English statesman Sojourner Truth Abolitionist and women's rights advocate Walter Rauschenbusch Champion of the social gospel William Booth First General of the Salvation Army William Gladstone Prime Minister of impeccable morals William Wilberforce Antislavery politician "So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition." In the late 1700s, when William Wilberforce was a teenager, English traders raided the African coast on the Gulf of Guinea, captured between 35,000 and 50,000 Africans a year, shipped them across the Atlantic, and sold them into slavery. It was a profitable business that many powerful people had become dependent upon. One publicist for the West Indies trade wrote, "The impossibility of doing without slaves in the West Indies will always prevent this traffic being dropped. The necessity, the absolute necessity, then, of carrying it on, must, since there is no other, be its excuse." OUR MINISTRY OUR CAUSE OUR BRANDS
Transcript of William Wilberforce - Mrs. Sherman's World History and...
8/25/2016 William Wilberforce | Christian History
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/people/activists/williamwilberforce.html 1/6
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Catherine BoothCompelling preacher and cofounder of the Salvation Army
Elizabeth FryPrison reformer
Harriet TubmanThe "Moses" of Her People
John WoolmanQuaker mystic and abolitionist
Lord Shaftesbury (AntonyAshley Cooper)Godly English statesman
Sojourner TruthAbolitionist and women's rightsadvocate
Walter RauschenbuschChampion of the social gospel
William BoothFirst General of the Salvation Army
William GladstonePrime Minister of impeccablemorals
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William WilberforceAntislavery politician
"So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade's wickedness
appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the
consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never
rest until I had effected its abolition."
In the late 1700s, when William Wilberforce was a teenager, English traders raided
the African coast on the Gulf of Guinea, captured between 35,000 and 50,000
Africans a year, shipped them across the Atlantic, and
sold them into slavery. It was a profitable business
that many powerful people had become dependent
upon. One publicist for the West Indies trade wrote,
"The impossibility of doing without slaves in the West
Indies will always prevent this traffic being dropped.
The necessity, the absolute necessity, then, of carrying
it on, must, since there is no other, be its excuse."
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8/25/2016 William Wilberforce | Christian History
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By the late 1700s, the economics of slavery were so
entrenched that only a handful of people thought
anything could be done about it. That handful
included William Wilberforce.
Taking on a purpoeThis would have surprised those who knew
Wilberforce as a young man. He grew up surrounded
by wealth. He was a native of Hull and educated at St.
John's College at Cambridge. But he wasn't a serious
student. He later reflected, "As much pains were
taken to make me idle as were ever taken to make me
studious." A neighbor at Cambridge added, "When he
[Wilberforce] returned late in the evening to his
rooms, he would summon me to join him…. He was so
winning and amusing that I often sat up half the night
with him, much to the detriment of my attendance at
lectures the next day."
Timeline
1735 George Whitefield converted
1738 John & Charles Wesley's
evangelical conversions
1742 First production of Handel's
Messiah
1759 William Wilberforce born
1833 William Wilberforce dies
1840 David Livingstone sails for
Africa
Yet Wilberforce had political ambitions and, with his connections, managed to win
election to Parliament in 1780, where he formed a lasting friendship with William
Pitt, the future prime minister. But he later admitted, "The first years in Parliament I
did nothing—nothing to any purpose. My own distinction was my darling object."
But he began to reflect deeply on his life, which led to a period of intense sorrow. "I
am sure that no human creature could suffer more than I did for some months," he
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later wrote. His unnatural gloom lifted on Easter 1786, "amidst the general chorus
with which all nature seems on such a morning to be swelling the song of praise and
thanksgiving." He had experienced a spiritual rebirth.
He abstained from alcohol and practiced rigorous selfexamination as befit, he
believed, a "serious" Christian. He abhorred the socializing that went along with
politicking. He worried about "the temptations at the table," the endless dinner
parties, which he thought were full of vain and useless conversation: "[They]
disqualify me for every useful purpose in life, waste my time, impair my health, fill
my mind with thoughts of resistance before and selfcondemnation afterwards."
He began to see his life's purpose: "My walk is a public one," he wrote in his diary.
"My business is in the world, and I must mix in the assemblies of men or quit the
post which Providence seems to have assigned me."
In particular, two causes caught his attention. First, under the influence of Thomas
Clarkson, he became absorbed with the issue of slavery. Later he wrote, "So
enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the trade's wickedness appear that my
own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they
would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its
abolition."
Wilberforce was initially optimistic, even naively so. He expressed "no doubt" about
his chances of quick success. As early as 1789, he and Clarkson managed to have 12
resolutions against the slave trade introduced—only to be outmaneuvered on fine
legal points. The pathway to abolition was blocked by vested interests, parliamentary
filibustering, entrenched bigotry, international politics, slave unrest, personal
sickness, and political fear. Other bills introduced by Wilberforce were defeated in
1791, 1792, 1793, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1804, and 1805.
When it became clear that Wilberforce was not going to let the issue die, proslavery
forces targeted him. He was vilified; opponents spoke of "the damnable doctrine of
Wilberforce and his hypocritical allies." The opposition became so fierce, one friend
feared that one day he would read about Wilberforce's being "carbonated [broiled]
by Indian planters, barbecued by African merchants, and eaten by Guinea captains."
Prime miniter of philanthrop
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Slavery was only one cause that excited Wilberforce's passions. His second great
calling was for the "reformation of manners," that is, morals. In early 1787, he
conceived of a society that would work, as a royal proclamation put it, "for the
encouragement of piety and virtue; and for the preventing of vice, profaneness, and
immorality." It eventually become known as the Society for the Suppression of Vice.
In fact, Wilberforce—dubbed "the prime minister of a cabinet of philanthropists"—
was at one time active in support of 69 philanthropic causes. He gave away one
quarter of his annual income to the poor. He fought on behalf of chimney sweeps,
single mothers, Sunday schools, orphans, and juvenile delinquents. He helped found
parachurch groups like the Society for Bettering the Cause of the Poor, the Church
Missionary Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the Antislavery
Society.
In 1797, he settled at Clapham, where he became a prominent member of the
"Clapham Sect," a group of devout Christians of influence in government and
business. That same year he wrote Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System
of Professed Christians—a scathing critique of comfortable Christianity that became
a bestseller.
All this in spite of the fact that poor health plagued him his entire life, sometimes
keeping him bedridden for weeks. During one such time in his late twenties, he
wrote, "[I] am still a close prisoner, wholly unequal even to such a little business as I
am now engaged in: add to which my eyes are so bad that I can scarce see how to
direct my pen."
He survived this and other bouts of debilitating illness with the help of opium, a new
drug at the time, the affects of which were still unknown. Wilberforce soon became
addicted, though opium's hallucinatory powers terrified him, and the depressions it
caused virtually crippled him at times.
When healthy, however, he was a persistent and effective politician, partly due to his
natural charm and partly to his eloquence. His antislavery efforts finally bore fruit in
1807: Parliament abolished the slave trade in the British Empire. He then worked to
ensure the slave trade laws were enforced and, finally, that slavery in the British
Empire was abolished. Wilberforce's health prevented him from leading the last
charge, though he heard three days before he died that the final passage of the
emancipation bill was ensured in committee.
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8/25/2016 William Wilberforce | Christian History
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Wesley to WilberforceJohn WesIey's last letter from his deathbed
A Profitable Little BusinessThe tragic economics of the slave trade.Mark Galli
William Wilberforce and theAbolition of the Slave TradeFrom the Editor Fishing for CompassionMark Galli
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Though some historians argue that Thomas Clarkson and others were just as
important in the antislavery fight, Wilberforce in any account played a key role in, as
historian G.M. Trevelyan put it, "one of the turning events in the history of the
world."
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William Wilerforce: Fighting the lave Trade
1997
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