Wilberforce the Abolitionist: Monument to Perseverance

The story of William Wilberforce is a gift to all who fight for freedom. It’s a reminder of the virtue of perseverance in righting wrongs.

Wilberforce was barely twenty-one when he was elected to the British Parliament in 1780. Instead of joining a party, he declared himself an independent, and his nonpartisan positions would soon demonstrate the extent of his independence.

In 1781, William Pitt, Wilberforce’s close friend from school at Cambridge, was also elected to Parliament. The two men would occasionally disagree about political matters, which was clear from the start. Wilberforce recalled “the pain I felt in being obliged to vote against Pitt, the second time he spoke in Parliament.”¹ But they always discussed their differences and came away from each conflict with even deeper mutual respect.

In 1782, Wilberforce and Pitt became allies in a great cause: ending the war with America. Wilberforce denounced the “ruinous” war as “cruel, bloody, and impractical.”² He chastised politicians who supported the war, saying that in doing so they behaved like “furious madmen more than . . . able statesmen.”³ Wilberforce’s principled positions and forthright words soon caught the attention of American statesmen such as Benjamin Franklin, who was impressed by this “rising member of the English parliament.”⁴

Wilberforce’s opposition to the war with America, however, would prove a mere warm-up in his advocacy of principled yet unpopular positions. Ahead of him was one of the greatest political and humanitarian battles of the 19th century and, ultimately, of history.

In 1787, Wilberforce began meeting frequently with people who had firsthand experience with the slave trade. Their reports of nauseating cruelty enraged Wilberforce, and he soon set himself the goal of bringing the trade of human beings to an end. In 1788, Wilberforce intended to introduce a resolution requiring Parliament to investigate the inhumanity of the slave trade.

Unfortunately, while preparing his case, Wilberforce became so ill that doctors concluded he “had not stamina to last a fortnight.”⁵ Death appearing imminent, Wilberforce asked his friend William Pitt (who had become prime minister at the age of twenty-four) to lead the charge in Parliament against the slave trade. Pitt introduced Wilberforce’s bill, and the argument was so powerful that even longtime opponents of both Pitt and Wilberforce approved the measure. House member Charles Fox, who was normally antagonistic toward both Pitt and Wilberforce, “unaffectedly rejoiced” over the resolution, citing Wilberforce’s “purity of principles and sincere love for the rights of humanity.”⁶ The combination of Pitt’s eloquence and Wilberforce’s arguments was so persuasive that no one voted against the resolution, even though many had hands in the slave trade or represented those who did.

Remarkably, Wilberforce survived his sickness, and in 1789, he addressed Parliament. “When I consider the magnitude of the subject which I am to bring before the House,” he began,

—a subject, in which the interests, not of this country, nor of Europe alone, but of the whole world, and of posterity, are involved . . . when I reflect, especially, that however averse any gentleman may now be, yet we shall all be of one opinion in the end;—when I turn myself to these thoughts, I take courage—I determine to forget all my other fears, and I march forward with a firmer step in the full assurance that my cause will bear me out, and that I shall be able to justify upon the clearest principles, every resolution in my hand, the avowed end of which is, the total abolition of the slave trade.

Wilberforce did not seek to win approval by appealing merely to his colleagues’ emotions. He saw his position as supported by facts and reason, and he sought to convey these. Anticipating disagreement, he declared, “It is not their passions I shall appeal to—I ask only for their cool and impartial reason; and I wish not to take them by surprise, but to deliberate, point by point, upon every part of this question.” Nevertheless, Wilberforce would not attempt to hide his own disgust.

So much misery condensed in so little room is more than the human imagination had ever before conceived. . . . Let any one imagine to himself 6 or 700 of these wretches chained two and two, surrounded with every object that is nauseous and disgusting, diseased, and struggling under every kind of wretchedness!

One House member, Robert Norris, a defender of the slave trade, represented men of great wealth and power. Lesser men than Wilberforce would not have meddled in an issue connected with their affairs. Wilberforce, however, proceeded unflinchingly, dismantling the opposition’s arguments point by point. For instance, when Norris testified that the slaves were happy and even danced aboard the ships, Wilberforce explained that this was a gross distortion and that the slaves “danced” under the lash for the amusement of their captors. On every issue, Wilberforce unmasked the truth about the transportation of slaves, saying, “One would think it had been determined to heap upon them all the varieties of bodily pain, for the purpose of blunting the feelings of the mind.”

And yet, in this very point (to show the power of human prejudice) the situation of the slaves has been described by Mr. Norris, one of the Liverpool delegates, in a manner which, I am sure will convince the House how [economic] interest can draw a film across the eyes, so thick, that total blindness could do no more; and how it is our duty therefore to trust not to the reasonings of interested men, or to their way of colouring a transaction.

Defenders of the slave trade alleged that any decrease in slaves carried by the British would be met by a corresponding increase of those carried by the French. They argued that the measure would not effect a net decrease in the transportation of slaves and that it would only harm the British economy. Wilberforce explained why this was nonsense. He studiously detailed the many resources other than slaves that British ships could carry and the advantages that shifting to these would provide the British economy. He showed that if the concern was British economic policy, then the slave trade made it weaker, not stronger.

But, he emphasized: “Policy, Sir, is not my principle, and I am not ashamed to say it. There is a principle above everything that is political.”⁷ Wilberforce claimed the moral high ground. He illuminated both the hideous immorality of the slave trade and the rights of slaves as men.

Years earlier, Scottish biographer James Boswell witnessed a speech given by Wilberforce, who was barely five feet tall. “I saw what seemed a mere shrimp mount upon the table,” Boswell recalled, “but as I listened he grew and grew, until the shrimp became a whale.”⁸ In summarizing his case against the slave trade, Wilberforce’s intellectual eloquence again transcended his tiny frame.

Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us. We can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it, it is now an object placed before us, we cannot pass it. We may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it; for it is brought now so directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their decision. . . .

A trade founded in iniquity, and carried on as this was, must be abolished, let the policy be what it might,—let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest till I had effected its abolition.⁹

Edmund Burke, a prominent orator at the time, said that Wilberforce’s speech was filled with “principles so admirable, laid down with so much order and force,” and that it was “equal to anything he had ever heard of in modern oratory; and perhaps not excelled by anything to be met with in Demosthenes.”¹⁰

Although Wilberforce had made his case clear for intellectually honest men, such men apparently were in short supply. Evading the facts Wilberforce had laid before them, defenders of the slave trade made the case that more evidence was needed, and they delayed the vote for two years. What is worse, in 1791, when the vote was finally taken, Wilberforce and the abolitionists lost by a huge margin. Yet they persisted.

In 1792, Wilberforce, William Pitt, and Charles Fox all spoke forcefully to abolish the slave trade. Home Secretary Henry Dundas, who opposed abolition and sought to stall the movement, countered Wilberforce’s bill by proposing gradual abolition. Dundas’s measure passed by a great majority in the House of Commons. Although it may have appeared to some to be a step in the right direction, others, including Wilberforce, were more perceptive. As abolitionist Thomas Gisborne observed, “No circumstance is so likely to prevent the slave trade from being abolished as for the country to imagine that it is in fact abolished already.”¹¹ The true purpose of Dundas’s bill was to quiet abolitionists while indefinitely delaying any real action. However, the House of Lords quickly ended this charade by rejecting the bill. And in 1793, the House of Commons effectively reversed the initial victory by failing to revive the bill. Still, Wilberforce and his allies persisted.

In February 1793, Wilberforce’s bill failed to pass again, but this time by only eight votes. The abolitionists were making progress. Unfortunately, earlier that same month, France declared war on Britain, and the conflict, which would last more than twenty years, often distracted Parliament from focusing on the slave trade. Further complicating matters, in 1794 Caribbean slaves rebelled and killed scores of whites, and news of this event bolstered Wilberforce’s opposition. Nevertheless, Wilberforce continued.

Year after year he introduced measures against the slave trade, and year after year his measures were voted down. Living up to his pledge that he “would never rest till [he] had effected its abolition,” Wilberforce persevered on this front for eighteen years until finally, in 1807, his measure to abolish the slave trade passed.¹² Right there, in Parliament, overwhelmed by the meaning of this victory for the lives of millions of human beings, Wilberforce wept.¹³

This victory did not mark the end of his efforts. Banning the slave trade was only a first step toward the total dissolution of slavery itself. But it was a step that invigorated abolitionists around the world—and that reinvigorated Wilberforce himself. As the American abolitionist Benjamin Hughes said, Wilberforce “laid the foundation” for all-out abolition “by annihilating the commerce in man.”¹⁴

Fueled by this success and his insistence on moral justice, Wilberforce lobbied other countries to abolish the slave trade as well. And after America’s ban on the slave trade went into effect in 1808, Wilberforce wrote to President Thomas Jefferson proposing greater cooperation between their countries in prosecuting British and American violators.

In 1823, Wilberforce published a book titled Appeal in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies. Although the book presented a religiously inspired argument, its effect was profound. Upon reading it, one West Indian slave owner wrote to Wilberforce, “should it cost me my whole property, I [would] surrender it willingly, that my poor negroes may be brought not only to the liberty of Europeans, but especially to the liberty of Christians.”¹⁵ The closing lines of Wilberforce’s Appeal highlight his unassailable drive for justice:

Justice, humanity, and sound policy prescribe our course, and will animate our efforts. Stimulated by a consciousness of what we owe to the laws of God, and the rights and happiness of man, our exertions will be ardent, and our perseverance invincible. Our ultimate success is sure; and ere long we shall rejoice in the consciousness of having delivered our country from the greatest of her crimes, and rescued her character from the deepest stain of dishonour.¹⁶

Wilberforce continued fighting against slavery even after his failing health forced his retirement from Parliament in 1825—after forty-five years of steadfast service. About ten years after Wilberforce’s book was published (and twenty-six years after his great victory), abolitionists held a meeting in Bath. Though he was seventy-three and quite frail, Wilberforce rose to speak.

I wish once more to raise my feeble voice to advocate, however faintly, that good cause, for which I have so often pleaded, and for the success of which my heart will never cease to feel deeply to the latest moment of rational existence. . . . We ought not to lose a single [moment] in doing away the multiplied wrongs of the slaves, by that actual admission to that liberty to which the God of nature has entitled them, . . . Let us then proceed with renewed energy in carrying into execution one of the greatest acts of mercy a people ever had it in their power to perform. Let us all remember that here we have no option.¹⁷

A few months later, in 1833—forty-four years after Wilberforce first spoke against the slave trade in Parliament—he learned that a bill mandating the total abolition of slavery was effectively guaranteed to become law. Three days later, Wilberforce passed away. He died a happy man, rejoicing in the knowledge that his vital work was complete.

The following month, slavery was abolished in all colonies controlled by the crown. The nation grieved Wilberforce’s death, and the great-souled man was interred next to his friend William Pitt in Westminster Abbey.

His loss was felt in America as well, where abolitionist Benjamin Hughes eulogized Wilberforce as “the Hercules of Abolition.”

I present you no blood-stained hero; he has led no slaughtering armies, he has desolated no kingdoms; for him no triumphal arch is reared; his laurels have been won in another and a nobler sphere. He was no aspirant to popular applause; no time-serving politician; he was the friend of the “robbed and peeled”; . . . he was a perfect character.¹⁸

The essence of Wilberforce’s character was an unwavering resolve to do what is right and to rectify wrongs—no matter the obstacles.

In our pursuit of the good in life, in our efforts to fight for what’s right, we will always encounter obstacles and opposition. When in need of inspiration, remember William Wilberforce, a monument to perseverance.

About Jon Hersey

Jon Hersey is the associate editor of The Objective Standard. His work focuses on intellectual history, specifically, the ideas on which freedom and flourishing depend. He has published in-depth articles on John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Stark, William Wilberforce, Rosa Parks, and more.

View all articles by Jon Hersey →