WISDOM AND GRACE IN ACTION:
THE WILBERFORCE ANTI-SLAVERY CAMPAIGN
We have examined the key instruction given by
Jesus of Nazareth to his earliest followers before he sent them out to do public work in his name: “Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” But can this guideline actually be followed faithfully and effectively by Christian believers in the rough and adversarial public arena of politics? In this chapter we examine a most encouraging and instructive example.
In the long and colourful history of politics within the tradition of British democracy, there is probably not a better example of a campaign conducted with the wisdom of the serpent and the graciousness of the dove than that conducted by William Wilberforce and his associates to eliminate slavery throughout the British Empire.117
It was an organized political and spiritual effort to eradicate a great evil, the institution of slavery, and to achieve a great moral good, the freedom of hundreds of thousands of human beings previously held in brutal bondage. There is great benefit, therefore, in examining it in detail to identify features and principles that will be helpful to Christians today who are involved in combatting great evils and advancing moral causes in the rough and adversarial arena of contemporary politics.
The Campaign
“The Campaign,” as we refer to it, was a long one. It began in earnest on May 22, 1787, when 12 humble but determined abolitionists met at a print shop at Number 2 George York Street in London, and it did not fully achieve its objective until 51 years later on August 31, 1838, when nearly 800,000 black slaves throughout the British Empire became legally free.
While the issue it addressed had enormous economic and social implications, at its core was an ethical question—was slavery morally defensible or not? Political campaigns involving moral issues are among the most difficult to successfully manage and conduct, which makes the Wilberforce campaign particularly instructive in that regard.
Of special significance to Christians interested in successfully navigating the interface of faith and public life is the fact that this campaign was directed primarily by people who were personally motivated, guided, and sustained throughout by their Christian faith. Many (though not all) were evangelical Christians, products of the first evangelical awakening in Britain, led by John Wesley and George Whitfield.
Key contributors to the campaign included Granville Sharpe, a legal beagle; Thomas Clarkson, an indefatigable organizer; Hannah More, an intellectual and spiritual leader of the Clapham Circle; Olaudah Equiano, a freed slave whose two-volume autobiography bore eloquent witness to the evils of the slave trade; John Newton, a former slave ship master, clergyman, and the composer of the hymn “Amazing Grace”; James Stephens, a lawyer and strategist; and of course, the parliamentarian William Wilberforce and his small band of political colleagues.118
This campaign was first and foremost what in our times would be called an issue or advocacy campaign as distinct from an election campaign.119 As such, the campaign to abolish slavery is highly instructive to those wishing to engage in advocacy campaigns today.
Its main objectives were twofold: first, to raise the issue of slavery in the public consciousness and in the political arena so high and insistently that it could not be ignored by the politicians and lawmakers of the day; and second, to raise public support for a particular solution to the issue—i.e., laws to curtail the slave trade and eventually abolish slavery itself—again, so high and insistently that elected officials would be forced by the weight of public opinion to act.
As in many issue campaigns, this campaign had its forerunners—people who became exercised about the issue earlier than most and whose efforts to address it, while generally unsuccessful, awakened the consciences of others and paved the way for the success of the latter campaign. Successful issue campaigns recognize their forerunners and seek to integrate their advance work into the latter campaign rather than regarding the forerunners as failures or unwelcome competitors. In this case, the forerunners included the English Quakers, whose opposition to slavery was theologically based, and crusaders like Granville Sharp, who very early on sought to have slavery curtailed through the courts.120
The key functions that need to be performed in the conduct of an issue campaign—strategizing, planning, identifying supporters, motivating, coalition building, counteracting opponents, communicating, persuading, fundraising, and mobilizing volunteers—are almost identical to those that must be successfully performed in election campaigns. As a result, the skills acquired by those who participated in this campaign placed them in good stead in later campaigns to elect pro-abolition members to the British House of Commons, particularly after the Reform Act of 1832 broadened the franchise and greatly increased the representativeness and power of that chamber.
What then were the noteworthy features and guiding principles of the campaign to abolish slavery from which people today, especially Christians operating at the interface of faith and public life, can learn and benefit? To what extent did this campaign demonstrate adherence to the great guideline given by Jesus to his followers in carrying out public work? That is, to what extent were the objectives, tactics, and communications of these faith-motivated campaigners “wise,” as shrewd as those of the devil, and as “gracious” as the spirit of God himself?
Guidelines Applicable to the Wise and Gracious Conduct of Modern Issue Campaigns
1. Choose the initial campaign objective and strategy wisely
In issue campaigns of any kind, great care and attention need to be given to defining the initial campaign objective and the initial strategy for achieving it. If these definitions and choices are unwise or misguided, the entire campaign effort may be doomed to failure before it even begins. Launching such campaigns is like launching a canoe. Accidents most frequently occur at the very beginning of the venture—getting into the canoe successfully and pushing off from the shore.
In the case of this campaign, after considerable internal debate, it was wisely decided to proceed incrementally rather than to go for broke—to seek first the abolition of the slave trade, the activity that fed the institution of slavery, rather than to immediately seek the abolition of the institution itself. The objective was, as Thomas Clarkson put it, to lay “the axe at the very root” of the tree rather than to immediately try to chop down the tree itself.121
Even in our day, let alone in 18th century Britain, if the aim of a campaign is to move public and parliamentary opinion from A to C, it is usually advisable to first secure support for B—a more modest objective than C but a move in the right direction.122 In the case of the Wilberforce campaign, A was the status quo, which tolerated both slavery and the slave trade; C was the ultimate objective of abolishing slavery altogether; but B was the more immediately attainable objective of curtailing the slave trade.
With respect to Wilberforce himself, because he was a parliamentarian, he might have been forgiven for adopting a one-track strategy, namely that of pursuing abolition solely through changes in the law. But instead, wisely as it turned out, Wilberforce personally adopted a two-track strategy involving both a legal and a social-activist approach.
On Sunday, October 28, 1787, he wrote in his diary, “God Almighty has placed before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners [that is, morals].”123 With respect to the reformation of manners and morals, Wilberforce specifically targeted public and political indifference to the suffering caused by a host of social evils—poverty, the unavailability of education, child labour, the abuse of animals, and prison conditions. He attacked this indifference, not so much by preaching against it but by launching and supporting numerous volunteer societies and agencies to provide help and service to those suffering the consequences of these evils and to urge changes in related public and private policies.