Amazing Grace

This afternoon I had the delight of watching Michael Apted's Amazing Grace. I really enjoyed the film!

The prompt for this blog was to explore the reasons for why William Wilberforce experienced so much opposition when trying to abolish the slave trade. The movie presented, through characters and situations, several reasons for which abolition faced so much opposition.

First, the members of the House of Lords voiced concerns about their constituencies - that those they represented would be injured by the abolition of the slave trade. The Lord who represented Liverpool expressed his opposition citing a wish to help rather than hurt the community he represented. Although the Lords were obviously not elected and therefore not directly accountable to their constituencies, they did feel a duty to represent the interest of their respective boroughs. As we discussed earlier in the semester, members of the House of Lords felt that they spoke for the interest of the people, even when they were not elected by the people. (It was for this reason that the colonies were considered represented in Parliament even when they elected no representative to the House of Commons).

Secondly, the MPs often had business interests themselves in the West Indies. Mr. Wilberforce himself addressed this concern on the floor of Parliament. He was asking the Lords to overlook their own personal gain for the good of humanity, which ideal is so often less than popular. That's not a vote-getter. (Modern parallel: you've got to make "living green" financially or socially appealing to people, because the majority of people aren't going to get a Prius or start recycling just based on a moral appeal.)

Third, Wilberforce's health could have totally prevented the bill from ever being passed if it had not have been for his incredible willpower. This was a point that the film underscored. The film showed his bouts of sickness and his refusal of the laudanum treatment the doctors offered him for fear that his mind would not be as sharp, at the expense of the defense of the bill. The film presented his illness in a way that highlighted Wilberforce's devotion to the cause of abolitionism, and indeed it seems to be the case that he gave up his very life to pass the final bill outlawing the slave trade; he passed away only three days after the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

Fourth, abolitionism in England was associated with insurrection and revolution, which ideas disgusted Wilberforce himself. This becomes obvious in the movie during the telling scene of his conversation with his close friend and associate in the anti-slavery cause, Thomas Clarkson. Clarkson speaks of the revolution in the United States and of the one brewing in France, certain that England is next in line. (Clarkson makes, by the way, some interesting points - that if they're battling slavery, they should also be battling oppression of poor laborers, of gender equality... But change is gradual, which word is so distasteful to Wilberforce in the film, as it pertains to emancipation and abolition.) Characters like Clarkson developed unsavory reputations because of their association with the "wine" of the French Revolution (curiously the same image Charles Dickens uses in A Tale of Two Cities to talk about the blood that flowed through the streets of Paris during that time of chaos). The movie made a point that abolitionism became a very unpopular subject in large part because of such undesirable associations. Wilberforce's humanitarian motion came to be synonymous with chaos and anarchy, whereas in the film, Wilberforce expressed the idea that even an imperfect order is better than no order at all.

The first blow to the anti-abolition conservatives thus had to come in disguise, in the form of a seemingly patriotic, anti-French bill on neutral flags. On the surface, the law had nothing to do with the slave trade, but in effect wiped out 80% of the trade. With this initial blow, and with rearrangements in the Prime Minister's cabinet (putting antislavery Lord Charles Fox in a high place, who is a very interesting character, by the way), the death knell of the slave trade was sounded. Somewhat ironically, it was the Prime Minister's death (or at least as the story was framed by the film) who was Wilberforce's best friend from his youth - the two were at Cambridge together - that enabled the necessary turnovers in the government. During his life, this William Pitt the Younger couldn't appear to oppose the anti-abolition king (crazy King George), although his truest sentiments, the movie seemed to show, may have lain closer to those of Wilberforce.

Overall, I really enjoyed this film! The dialogue was interesting, and it's from the conversations and ideas of the characters that I've gotten the majority of my ideas for this post. Plus, the beautiful costumes, the scenery... I'm excited to be in England this summer!