The Abolition of Slavery and the Truth of History
A Speech Given at the The Gettysburg 150th Commemoration
St Peter's Eastern Hill, Melbourne, Tuesday 19 November
A Speech Given at the The
The Abolition of Slavery and the Truth of History
A Speech Given at the The Gettysburg 150th Commemoration
St Peter's Eastern Hill, Melbourne, Tuesday 19 November
A Speech Given at the The Gettysburg 150th Commemoration
St Peter's Eastern Hill, Melbourne, Tuesday 19 November
A version of this address has been published by Quadrant, see here.
Memories shape us powerfully. For all of us there are certain defining events, the memories of which stay with us and determine how we view the world. Not only individuals, but communities and nations have landmark, watershed memories. The Gettysburg address of Abraham Lincoln is one such.
I remember one of my birthdays, above all others. Ten years ago, as it so happened, on my 45th birthday, I had the pleasure, together with my teenage son David, of attending a Melbourne Writer’s Festival head-to-head debate between Keith Windschuttle and Robert Manne about their respective recent books on the fabrication of Australian history.
The spirited debate was conducted in front of a sell-out crowd sympathetic to Robert Manne. I remember the evening because of a single moment – no more than a few seconds – in question time when Windschuttle announced that of course in colonial 19th century Australia most government officials believed human beings were created equal – and thus that aboriginal people were equal to white people. This was, he said, because they were all either humanists or evangelical Christians.
At this point, a loud guffaw erupted from the crowd.
What struck me was the depth of the crowd’s historical amnesia. Because of research I had done many years earlier, I knew Windschuttle’s words were true. The literary elite of our great city of Melbourne could not remember how our ancestors came to the belief that all people are created equal. They found the truth about this important matter simply ridiculous.
At any time in history the institution of slavery has been, and continues today to be, as one of the greatest affronts to human equality: to what Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address referred to as “the proposition that all men are created equal”. It is vital for us not to forget the pathway of human thought and action that led to the abolition of slavery, a political victory which was foundational for establishing the now commonplace concept that human beings have equal rights.
Lincoln was citing the Declaration of Independence, which linked belief in human equality to theology, namely belief in a Creator:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The battle for the abolition of slavery was a long one, and hard fought. The shockingly bloody American Civil War was but a latter phase of a global program against slavery led primarily by English-speaking evangelical Christians.
I say ‘shockingly bloody’ of the Civil War because it is hard for us, living in comfortable early 21st century Australia, to comprehend a war which caused the death of around 30% of Southern men of military age – aged 18 to 40 – and 10% of Northerners. There were also hundreds of thousands maimed. It is difficult for contemporary Australians to comprehend what intensity of conviction could incite a nation to go to war against itself so ferociously and with such devastating consequences.
At the time the American population was about 30 million, not much greater than Australia today. One may well ponder: What cause could motivate Australians today to engage in a civil war which would cost one million of our citizen’s lives? What might be worth fighting for, at such a grave cost?
I referred to the struggle against slavery as ‘global’. It was fought first in the parliament of Britain, and by extension throughout the British Empire, upon which the sun never set. The name of ‘William Wilberforce’ stands out. He served in Parliament for 45 years. The first great victory of his life-long campaign against slavery was the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade of 1807, which ended the trade in human chattels throughout the British Empire. The second was the abolition of slavery itself, in 1833: Wilberforce was given the news of his second victory just three days before his death.
I have a particular interest in this chapter of global history because the church where I serve, St Mary’s Caulfield, was founded on the benevolence of Sir George Stephen, who lived a stone’s throw away in Helenslea mansion, where Shelford Girls Grammar School stands today. It was Sir George who gave the first piece of land to the church, and paid for the construction of the first church building.
Sir George Stephen was one of Melbourne’s more interesting