Faith Takes Action:
William Wilberforce and the Abolition of the Slave Trade

It would be nearly twenty years before his goal was finally reached. For almost two decades, Wilberforce dedicated his time, energy and eloquence to outlawing The baseness and iniquity of such a traffic.2 Despite illness and discouragement, he refused to allow a practice that he saw as Contrary to every principle of religion, morality, and sound policy3 to continue uncontested. In 1791 he wrote Whatever [Parliament] might do, the people of Great Britain, I am confident, will abolish the slave trade… For myself, I am engaged in a work I will never abandon.4

Wilberforce did not begin his political career as a dedicated reformer. He was born in 1759 to a prominent and successful family. As a young man, he was Everywhere invited and caressed5 by society, and his love for the pleasures of popularity and convivial society led him to pursue a political career upon leaving school.6 In 1780, at the age of twenty one, Wilberforce used his charm, family influence and fortune to secure the position of Member of Parliament for his hometown of Hull.

During his first few years in politics, Wilberforce’s personality was characterized by vivacity, charm, and gregariousness.7 After his election, he moved to London and was quickly welcomed into Society and into political circles. He frequented the theatre, the opera and concerts, as well as joining a gambling club soon after his arrival.8 His voice was good, and he was often called upon to sing at parties. Wilberforce often played host to his friends at his villa at Wimbledon when he was not attending parties in London. His life was filled with pleasurable pursuits, and His wit, polish and generosity won him many friends.9 Wilberforce never joined a political party, and his early activity in Parliament was mostly concerned with advancing the needs of his constituency.10 Though his political career and popularity continued to advance, it took several years for Wilberforce to become truly committed to reform.

In 1784, Wilberforce came into contact with his old schoolteacher Isaac Milner, whom he considered an intelligent and excellent friend,11 even though he disagreed with what Milner called vital Christianity. He treat[ed] with flippancy12 all of Milner’s attempts to talk to him about religion, but eventually Wilberforce agreed to read Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul by the English theologian Phillip Doddridge. Doddridge’s discussion of sin, the need for repentance and the joy that comes from accepting God’s grace forced Wilberforce to reevaluate the way he lived his life.

Upon reading the New Testament in Greek with Milner, he came to the conclusion that he had been living without God and outside of the realm of true Christianity. As a member of the Anglican Church, he had considered himself a Christian, but he had never experienced a personal relationship with God. He participated in the outward forms of religion, but his life was not affected by the teachings that he heard. In his diary, Wilberforce wrote As soon as I reflected seriously upon these subjects the deep guilt and black ingratitude of my past life forced itself upon me in the strongest colours, and I condemned myself for having wasted my precious time, and opportunities, and talents.13 Upon returning to England, Wilberforce struggled for several months with guilt and depression. He lamented the way he had spent his life in empty amusements and resolved that he would henceforth be humble and watchful.14 Having found that his past amusements could not bring him the satisfaction and peace that a true commitment to Christ offered him, Wilberforce made the decision to actively pursue his newfound faith and to make that pursuit the central focus of his life.

It was at this time that Wilberforce began to ardently pursue political and social reform. In his book A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes, Contrasted with Real Christianity, he urged Britain’s more prosperous citizens to examine the true doctrines of their professed faith and to live by them. He argued It is a truth which will hardly be contested, that Christianity, whenever it has at all prevailed, has raised the general standard of morals to a height before unknown.15 Rather than living his life in the pursuit of pleasure, Wilberforce committed himself to using his political career in order to bring about good. In the same book he wrote,

Surely it must be confessed to be a matter of small account to sacrifice a little worldly comfort and prosperity, during the short span of our existence in this life, in order to secure a crown of eternal glory, and the enjoyment of those pleasures which are at God’s right hand evermore!16

Wilberforce believed that he should use the influence of his political position to Do credit to [his] Christian profession.17

On November 28, 1785, Wilberforce wrote,

True, Lord, I am wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked. What infinite love, that Christ should die to save such a sinner, and how necessary is it He should save us altogether, that we may appear before God with nothing of our own!18

Despite the acclaim that his first speech for abolition received, Wilberforce’s opponents convinced the House of Commons to delay voting on the bill to abolish the slave trade in order to hear witnesses on the subject. Meanwhile, rebellion was brewing in France, other matters arose and the interviews were put off until Parliament reconvened the next year. As the vote was delayed again and again, the political climate cooled toward abolition and Wilberforce lamented Alas, alas, how week passes unimproved after week!19 Nevertheless, he continued to work with his coalition to accumulate evidence in order to push through the bill, writing,

Interested as I might be supposed to be in the final event of the question, I am comparatively indifferent as to the present decision of the House… Never, never will we desist, until we have wiped away this scandal from the Christian name.20

Disappointingly but unsurprisingly, the first bill for abolition was solidly defeated in the House of Commons, and Wilberforce and the other abolitionists continued their campaign through a variety of other methods. Wilberforce introduced a bill that would boycott sugar from the West Indies in hopes of damaging the profitability of the slave trade, but when that bill failed, he and his coalition campaigned throughout the country, provoking petitions and boycotts of sugar on a local level. They also worked for the creation of a colony for freed slaves in Sierra Leone in order to prove that Africans could have a civilized, Christian community without being enslaved.

Wilberforce meanwhile continued to collect evidence of the mistreatment of slaves. In his 1823 pamphlet, An Appeal to the Religion, Justice, and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies, he wrote The proofs of the extreme degradation of the slaves…are innumerable,21 further declaring all arguments to the contrary gross falsehoods.22 Some of his opponents, though admitting to the undesirability of the slave trade, nevertheless argued that its abolition would lead to the collapse of the British economy because it would remove the labor force and allow France to take over a valuable commerce.

Wilberforce parried this argument by saying, I cannot believe that the same being who forbids rapine and bloodshed, has made rapine and bloodshed necessary to the well-being of any part of his universe.23 He further argued that the abolition of the slave trade would force slave owners to care for the slaves they already had, thus strengthening the labor force in the colonies rather than destroying it. He dismissed the French threat as well, arguing that Britain should lead the way24 toward abolition, rather than incurring the twofold guilt of knowingly persisting in a wicked trade ourselves, and…of inducing France to do the same.25 In fact, however, France was to abolish the slave trade many years before Britain did. Furthermore, Wilberforce confronted the claim that the slave trade provided a place to train sailors for the British navy, citing evidence that More sailors die in one year in the slave trade, than die in two years in all our other trades put together.26

In the 1790’s, the French Revolution and England’s subsequent war with France distracted Parliament from the issue of abolition, as well as damaging the cause because of its association with the liberalism of the Revolution. The years went by, and the abolitionists continued to propose bills for abolition in a variety of forms and degrees during each session of Parliament, though their bills were consistently defeated in either the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Finally, nearly twenty years after Wilberforce’s eloquent introduction of the first abolitionist bill, on February 4, 1807, the House of Commons ratified the Slave Trade Act by a vote of 100 for and only thirty-six against.27

Despite his triumph, however, Wilberforce did not relax his ardor for reformation. Throughout the years of his struggle for abolition, as well as in the years after his victory, Wilberforce campaigned for causes such as workers’ rights, the abolition of the death penalty for minor crimes, the prevention of cruelty to animals and education for women and the poor. He never gave up his work to further limit the practice of slavery in the British Empire, and his faith was rewarded when Parliament accepted the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery on July 26, 1823, just a few days before his death.

In 1818, Wilberforce wrote in a letter to the King of Haiti,

But, whatever may in some few instances be the effects of natural benevolence or of moral probity, or of professional honor, long and large experience in life has convinced me, that religion alone can be depended upon for enabling men with spirit and perseverance to discharge a course of laborious duties.28

We are all of us apt to be unreasonable in our expectations of the progress we are to make in the Christian course…but then let not this produce in us…an acquiescence in our present state…we must learn to press forward, humbly depending on God’s help for the success of our labours and resigned in all respects to His sovereign will.30