For God, Family and Republic

Amazing Grace: The Movie is the 2007 biographical motion picture capturing the life and work of Britain's premier abolitionist who pressed for the end of the slave trade. It was released just in time for the bicentennial.

"America and Britain, two nations who are children of the same family, and brothers in the same inheritance of common liberty."
—William Wilberforce declared from House of Commons speech 19 July 1811

Profoundly inspired and influenced by her mother country Great Britain, America voted to end the slave trade no less than seven days after the British Parliament's vote in 1807. Two hundred years later, the heirs of the English common law tradition can unite to remember the legacy of abolitionist William Wilberforce and his associates. It is a time to reflect upon the need for equal justice before the law and reconciliation among disparate peoples across the world.

In 1840, a statue to the memory of Wilberforce was placed in Westminster Abbey bearing the epitaph:

"To the memory of William Wilberforce (born in Hull, August 24th 1759, died in London, July 29th 1833); for nearly half a century a member of the House of Commons, and, for six parliaments during that period, one of the two representatives for Yorkshire. In an age and country fertile in great and good men, he was among the foremost of those who fixed the character of their times; because to high and various talents, to warm benevolence, and to universal candour, he added the abiding eloquence of a Christian life. Eminent as he was in every department of public labour, and a leader in every work of charity, whether to relieve the temporal or the spiritual wants of his fellow-men, his name will ever be specially identified with those exertions which, by the blessing of God, removed from England the guilt of the African slave trade, and prepared the way for the abolition of slavery in every colony of the empire: in the prosecution of these objects he relied, not in vain, on God; but in the progress he was called to endure great obloquy and great opposition: he outlived, however, all enmity; and in the evening of his days, withdrew from public life and public observation to the bosom of his family. Yet he died not unnoticed or forgotten by his country: the Peers and Commons of England, with the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker at their head, in solemn procession from their respective houses, carried him to his fitting place among the mighty dead around, here to repose: till, through the merits of Jesus Christ, his only redeemer and saviour, (whom, in his life and in his writings he had desired to glorify,) he shall rise in the resurrection of the just."

"It was the faithful, persistent and enduring enthusiasm of...William Wilberforce...and [his] noble co-workers, that finally thawed the British heart into sympathy for the slave, and moved the strong arm of that government in mercy to put an end to his . Let no American withhold a generous recognition of this stupendous achievement. What though it was not American, but British...it was...a triumph of right over wrong, of good over evil, and a victory for the whole human race."
—Frederick Douglass

Amazing Grace Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound) That sav’d a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see. ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears reliev’d; How precious did that grace appear, The hour I first believ’d! Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; ’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home. The Lord has promis’d good to me, His word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures. Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail, And mortal life shall cease; I shall possess, within the veil, A life of joy and peace. The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine; But God, who call’d me here below, Will be forever mine. John New­ton, Ol­ney Hymns (Lon­don: W. Ol­i­ver, 1779)