Christian Anti-Slavery – What? A Founding Father?

Since before this nation became a nation, Christians fought for equality and freedom.  Quakers and other evangelical groups condemned slavery for its un-Christian qualities, including this nation’s Founding Fathers.[1]  One, Benjamin Rush, hailed from Pennsylvania, served as a Continental Congressman, and signed of the Declaration of Independence.[2]  His work “An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America, upon Slave-Keeping,” written in 1773, argued for an ending of the slave trade, the equality of man regardless of color, all-the-while based upon Christian values. 

In this address, Rush countered the arguments of pro-slavery advocates the dehumanizing aspects used to justify slavery.  Rush spends several pages disproving arguments of intellectual, social, religious, and economic reason for slavery.  He argues Africans, in their own environment show their genius in adapting to that environment.  That slavery forced upon them brought out vices that may not have been present before they were dehumanized.  That Cain’s mark, and the blacks’ descendance from Cain, as being “absurd” as a reason to justify slavery or inferiority.[3]  In a time before Darwin, Rush made the point that Africans were qualified for where Providence placed them.[4]  Rush’s economic arguments, compare freemen farming in China to the Americas, then compare the spending habits of freemen to slaves.  Since slaves cannot purchase anything, freemen make more sense economically.[5] 

Having completed the counterarguments, Rush moves on to addressing the hypocrisy of Christian governments of Europe.  Who, as civilized as they are, with their laws of nature, rights of man, and Enlightenment thought, still allow “…the daily outrages against human nature, permitting them to debase man almost below the level of the beasts of the field?”[6]  He finds on;y hypocrisy in the difference between Europe and their colonies, no reason to violate the laws of nature and religion, finds slavery to include all vices but no virtues - by choice for the master and by force in the slave.[7]  The moral argument for taking slaves, to convert Africans into Christians, fails to stand scrutiny.  Especially when any attempt to instruct or convert the slaves usually was opposed by the masters, because a Christian slave is oxymoronic.[8]

Rush provides a solution to the problem of slavery.  First, stop importing slaves.  Second, magistrates must enforce the laws of man and religion.  Third, legislators must create laws in the “…Spirit of Religion – Liberty – and our most excellent English Constitution.”[9]  For those revolutionaries, fighting for liberty, they must not forget to address the issue of slavery.  “The plant of liberty is of so tender a Nature, that it cannot thrive long in the neighbourhood of slavery.”[10]  And finally to the Ministers of the Gospel, who must preach and teach that God whose “…dominion over all…views all Mankind as equal…” must use their pulpits to stop slavery.  The ministers must show the masters that Christianity does not abide slavery and that the masters are not Christians at all as they do not practice the law of Equity as dictated in the New Testament.[11]    

Rush wrote this in 1773, hence the double appeals to both the British governing system and the American Revolutionary, victory was in doubt after all.  To some this may seem trite, but that comes from hindsight and knowing that independence would be won.  Rush wrote this in Philadelphia, the audience likely to have been his peers in the Continental Congress.  Though there is no mention of him taking part in the Constitutional Congress his thoughts, and those influenced by him, potentially suffused the delegates there.  At least the abolishment of slavery occurred in the states north of Maryland between 1777 and 1804.  Between the Continental and Constitutional Congresses, a beginning was made, in part through the efforts of Benjamin Rush.[12]  It would take another sixty years plus for slavery to be abolished throughout the nation, but this effort began with Founding Father’s like Benjamin Rush. 

In this day and age where people want to forget the contributions of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Rush stands as an example of what these men thought during a time of uncertainty.  Benjamin Rush, and others like him, moved against slavery not just for Christian idealism, but because it was the virtuous act.  To preserve our Founding Fathers’ reputations as doing right for this nation, examples like Benjamin Rush need to be publicized.  Otherwise, revisionism will erode all the contributions of these men.     

[1] Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. “Abolitionism,” accessed 29 Jan 2024,  https://www.britannica.com/topic/abolitionism-European-and-American-social-movement

[2] Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. “Benjamin Rush,” accessed 29 Jan 2024,  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Rush; Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), s.v. “Benjamin Rush,” accessed 29 Jan 2024, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p458.html

[3] Benjamin Rush, 1773, “An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America, Upon Slave-Keeping,” Printed by J. Dunlap, 1773.  Sabin Americana: History of the Americas, 1500-1926, 2-6.  https://go.gale.com/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=Monographs&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&retrievalId=bfabfcc4-4276-4789-b6c9-25fb2826ea71&hitCount=10&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CCY0102419093&docType=Monograph&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=SBN-2013&prodId=SABN&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CCY0102419093&searchId=R5&userGroupName=vic_liberty&inPS=true

[4] Rush, “An Address,” 4.

[5] Rush, “An Address,” 4-7.

[6] Rush, “An Address,” 7.

[7] Rush, “An Address,” 14.

[8] Rush, “An Address,” 16-17.

[9] Rush, “An Address,” 27.

[10] Rush, “An Address,” 28.

[11] Rush, “An Address,” 31-32.

[12] Encyclopedia Britannica s.v. “Abolitionism,” accessed 29 Jan 2024,  https://www.britannica.com/topic/abolitionism-European-and-American-social-movement