Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

The great impact of John Woolman is eternal testimony to the effect that
ideas and moral conscience can have upon the actions of men. For while
many Quakers had a vested economic interest in slaves, this interest and
its ally, natural inertia, could not prevail against the spiritual moral principles
proclaimed by the lone Quaker. By 1750, a young teacher in Philadelphia,
the Quaker Huguenot Anthony Benezet, had joined wholeheartedly
in the crusade. In 1754, Woolman published his influential Some
Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, denouncing slavery as a violation
of man's natural rights. Woolman punctured the usual rationalization of
slavery as being for the benefit of the slaves. Instead, slavery is precisely
to enable the masters and their families to live in luxury off the exploited
labor of their human property. Furthermore, slavekeeping corrupted and
demoralized the slave owners themselves.*
Under Woolman's mighty influence, more and more Quakers took up the
cause. Such prominent Quakers as Israel Pemberton, Samuel Fothergill, and
John Churchman came out for abolition, and various monthly meetings in
New Jersey and Pennsylvania condemned the purchase and keeping of
slaves.
The great climax of the abolitionist movement in the Quaker society came
at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of 1758. While conservatives and slave
owners insisted on the old formulas of only barring slave imports and enjoining
kind treatment of the existing slaves, Woolman and his fellow
radicals launched a principled moral attack on slavery itself. At the yearly
meeting it seemed as if the conservatives and the temporizers—with their
pleas of "wait" until a "way would be opened"—were going to win. At this
point the great Woolman rose to remind the assembled Quakers once again
of principle: "Many slaves on this continent are oppressed and their cries
have entered into the ears of the Most High ... it is not a time for delay.
Should we now . . . through a respect to the private interests of some persons
. . . neglect to do our duty in firmness and constancy, still waiting for
some extraordinary means to bring about their deliverance, God may by
terrible things in righteousness answer us. ..."
Woolman swept the day. The historic yearly meeting of 1758 called upon
Quakers to free their slaves and, besides, to grant them a terminal allowance.
Thus the Quakers took upon themselves the financial loss not only of
freeing the slaves, but even of compensating them to some extent for their
prior servitude. The meeting resolved that "excluding temporal considerations
or views of self-interest, we may ... 'do unto others as we would they
*lt is not surprising that John Woolman, the man of principle, also stuck to the
Quaker belief in peace during the French and Indian War, even attacking any war that
might be waged against an unjust invasion. When a soldier was quartered upon Woolman
against his will, he refused the payment that the government allowed him as compensation.
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