Electoral Reform

[kandrathe]

Your claim was about the *ethical* change. (It was niggardly of me to restrict it to England, as this phenomenon was very much transatlantic. Apologies.) The thinking of John Locke, David Hume and Erasmus Darwin (Interesting as a freethinker allied closely to a dissenter, Josiah Wedgwood) in England, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Frankin, Thomas Paine, in America, Voltaire and Diderot in France, and a rather lengthy list of other deists and freethinkers form a part of the movement against slavery, in philosophy. Some of them were widely read (Locke, Paine) and others' opposition was more obscure.

John Locke's parent were Puritans, and it is not clear to me that he was a deist or atheist. Hume was an avowed deist or atheist, but I see little to connect him to abolitionists other than also as a "free thinker" he challenged the establishment status quo. Ben Franklin was a unique deist, who once wrote to Thomas Paine; "If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it." Franklin also seemed to be also heavily influenced by the Pennsylvania Quakers. I would certainly concede that ideas of personal freedom, and the questioning of absolute monarchy (which also certified the rulers divinity by dogmatic and corrupt national "church" organizations, whether they be Protestant or Catholic) enabled questioning the authority of what was formerly unquestionable. But, that would also extend to any civic change when absolute power was vested in the hands of tyrants. So, not only was Abolition of Slavery unquestionable, but also the right of personal property, or freedom of speech, or the ability to redress grievances with your government.

But do you really think that without such philosophical underpinnings, that the hectoring of two men turned the tide of public opinion, even just in England? Movements that large are not made of that little. Abolitionism was the result of a long process, and a huge part of that process was the increasing doubt about the church. Sometimes this meant new churches (Quakers, Methodists, etc...) and sometimes it meant no church at all (Deists, Agnostics, Atheists). Some of it came from entirely elsewhere, the beginnings of the labour movement.

I do think it was that unique combination of "zealots" that made it possible in Britain. If not them, it might have lingered on for another few decades until perhaps France, or the America's moral change of heart would have made Britain's position uncomfortable.

If the political muscle came from the churches, that is to be expected. Zealots do tend to be zealous, and atheism neither is nor was popular. Indeed, "atheist" was the great invective hurled at the abolitionists, even at the Quakers on occasion. But politics did not make the ethics, but the reverse.

-Jester

Zealots, yes. Do you mean like global warming activists, or anti-war protesters? If you believe something is morally wrong it is your duty to petition for a change.