William Wilberforce
historical figure · 1 work · 5 mentions · 8 anchored passages
Wilberforce
in the texts
Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England
Evangelical leader and MP associated with the humanitarian crusade against cruelty, including the abolition of the slave trade.
It contained among its members Fox and Wilberforce;
In the detestation of cruelty, Benthamite free-thinkers, Whig philanthropists, such as Fox, Tory humanitarians, such as Pitt, and Evangelicals who followed Wilberforce, were substantially at one.
But the omnipotence of Parliament—turned into a reality, and directed by bold reformers towards the removal of all actual or apparent abuses—might well alarm, not only adventurers who found in public life a lucrative as well as an honourable profession, but also statesmen, such as Pitt or Wilberforce, uninfluenced by any sinister interest.