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The World and Everything In It
5.12.25 State funding for charter schools, the UK trade deal, and the fight to end slavery
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- [00:06]
Mary Reichardt
Good morning. Today on legal docket, the fine line between religious neutrality and religious hostility. A Supreme Court case with the potential to be a landmark ruling highlights our unsavory past.
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Gentner Drummond
I think you're rewriting history. Do you think that anti Catholic bigotry had disappeared from Oklahoma by 1907?
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Nick Icker
Also today, the Monday money beat has President Trump found an off ramp for the trade war? David Bonson is standing. And later, the world history book, the fight to end slavery in England.
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William Wilberforce
Sympathy is the great source of humanity.
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Mary Reichardt
It's Monday, May 12th. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Mary Reichardt.
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Nick Icker
And I'm Nick Icker. Good morning.
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Mary Reichardt
Up next, the news with Kent Covington.
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Kent Covington
The United States and China have reportedly agreed to de escalate the trade war between the world's two biggest economies. On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant emerged from talks with Chinese officials in Switzerland and told reporters we will be giving.
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Gentner Drummond
Details tomorrow, but I can tell you that the talks were productive.
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Kent Covington
President Trump over the weekend on social media said, we want to see an opening up of China to American business. Chinese Vice Premier He Lifong also voiced optimism after the meetings.
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Nick Icker
The atmosphere of the meeting was candid.
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Gentner Drummond
In depth and constructive. The meeting achieved substantial progress and reached important consensus.
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Kent Covington
While it was not immediately clear what the two sides had agreed to, Trump on Friday said 80% tariffs on Chinese goods seems right. The current U.S. tariffs on goods from China add up to about 145%. Hamas has agreed to release its last surviving American hostage in what's being called a goodwill gesture with the United States. No word yet on what Hamas might receive in return. White House Special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff is traveling to the region today ahead of Edan Alexander's expected release. President Trump is also traveling to the Middle east today. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said the president will express his vision for.
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Gentner Drummond
The region where the United States and.
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Emma Eicher
Middle Eastern nations are in cooperative relationships and where extremism is defeated. In place of commerce and cultural exchanges, this trip ultimately highlights how we stand.
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Nick Icker
On the brink of the golden age.
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Gentner Drummond
For both America and the Middle East.
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Kent Covington
The trip aims to secure more large economic investments in the United States. Trump's first foreign trip of his second term will include stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. His tour of the region comes against the backdrop of ongoing nuclear talks with Iran. Officials completed a fourth round of meetings on Sunday. No big developments to speak of, but officials called the latest meeting encouraging and plan more talks Soon. Western leaders over the weekend made a big push for a ceasefire in Ukraine. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer there's only.
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Gentner Drummond
One country that stands between peace and that's Russia.
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Kent Covington
Leaders from Britain, France, Germany and Poland visited Kyiv, where they, along with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanded an unconditional 30 day ceasefire to begin today. Starmer, speaking for that coalition, said of Russia's Vladimir Putin, if he turns his.
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Gentner Drummond
Back on peace, we will respond. Working with President Trump, with all our partners, we will ramp up sanctions and increased our military aid for Ukraine's defense.
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Kent Covington
Putin countered, proposing direct peace talks in Turkey this coming Thursday. His spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said President Putin is open for peace negotiations without any preconditions, without any preconditions, meaning he will not agree to a ceasefire in advance. Instead, he said the two sides could discuss a possible ceasefire. During the meeting, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he will personally await Putin in Istanbul. He acknowledged Putin's willingness to meet as a positive sign, but said a ceasefire must come first. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy plans to reduce the number of flights in and out of Newark, New Jersey's largest airport for the next several weeks. The airport has struggled with technical issues causing flight delays and cancellations. Just yesterday, a telecommunications problem slowed traffic. That came just days after Duffy pointed to Newark Liberty International Air as the clearest example of why the nation must update and overhaul the US Air traffic control system.
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David Bonson
The equipment that we use, much of it, we can't buy parts for new we have to go on ebay and buy parts. If one part goes down, you're dealing with really old equipment. We're dealing with copper wires, not fiber, not high speed fiber. And so this is concerning.
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Kent Covington
But he told NBC's Meet the Press that there are currently backup measures and protocols in place to ensure the safety of flights. The mayor of Newark, New Jersey. Ross Baraka has a pretrial hearing this week for a trespassing charge. Federal authorities arrested him at a newly opened detention center for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Democratic mayor joined three members of Congress Friday for what they described as an oversight visit. The lawmakers were allowed in, but Baraka was denied entry. Federal authorities said they arrested him when he refused to leave. The mayor's wife, Linda Baraka, said her husband did nothing wrong.
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Emma Eicher
They didn't arrest anyone else. They didn't ask anyone else to leave. They wanted to make an example out of the mayor.
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Kent Covington
And Democrats say Baraka was on public property and never should have been arrested. But Department of Homeland security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin says being a mayor does not give one legal authority at a federal facility.
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Nick Icker
If it was a typical US Citizen and they tried to storm into a detention facility that's housing dangerous criminals or any, any person at, they would be arrested. Just because you are a public official does not mean you are above the law.
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Kent Covington
And McLaughlin says DHS is also investigating the actions of that trio of House Democrats at the ICE facility, adding that they could also face arrests. I'm Kent Covington. And still ahead, the Supreme Court takes a look at the fine line between religious neutrality and religious hostility on legal docket plus, the Monday money beef. This is the world and everything in it.
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Mary Reichardt
It's the world and everything in it for this 12th day of May, 2025. We're so glad you've joined us today. Good morning, Mary. I'm Mary Reichert.
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Nick Icker
And I'm Nick Eichert. Time now for legal docket. A Roman Catholic charter school approved by the state of Oklahoma, then blocked by the state's own Supreme Court has sparked one of the most important U.S. supreme Court cases this term on religious liberty and public education.
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Mary Reichardt
Here's the core. If a state pays for secular charter schools, does it then have to pay for religious ones too? Or does the Constitution forbid that? The line is between the free exercise clause of the First Amendment and its establishment clause. The two clauses are right. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The case is Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, and it sets up a direct constitutional clash.
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Nick Icker
Now, to understand why this case could change the face of public education across the U.S. let's begin by understanding charter schools. They started about 30 years ago as a taxpayer funded alternative to regular public schools. And the aim was flexibility and innovation. The movement grew fast and today about 4 million students now attend a charter school.
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Mary Reichardt
Laws on charter schools in 45 states, including Oklahoma, say essentially the same thing, that charter schools must be non sectarian. That's a nod to the establishment clause. States trying to ensure that public education is neutral on religion.
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Nick Icker
But what some see as neutrality, others see as hostility. This dispute arose when Oklahoma's charter school board voted 3 to 2 for the creation of a virtual school named for the patron saint of the Internet, Saint Isidore of Seville. The school's purpose was to bring Catholic education to underserved rural areas. At the Supreme Court, the school board's lawyer was Jim Campbell of Alliance Defending Freedom. He set it up this way.
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David Bonson
St. Isidore was privately created by two Catholic organizations and it is controlled by.
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Gentner Drummond
A privately selected board of directors.
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David Bonson
Under this court's test, St. Isidore is neither the government nor engaged in state action. There are already hundreds of families that have signed up for St. Isidore.
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Gentner Drummond
They're part of Oklahoma's community too.
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David Bonson
They should not be treated as second class.
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Mary Reichardt
But for Oklahoma's Attorney General, Republican Gentner Drummond, the Catholic involvement was precisely the sticking point. He sued and won on the prevailing theory that public education means secular education. The state Supreme Court went along as well. So both the school board and the school appealed to the US Supreme Court.
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Nick Icker
Campbell for the school board argued the Constitution does not require secularism and efforts to require it are discriminatory.
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David Bonson
But state law categorically bars religious groups and programs different, deeming religion to be the wrong kind of diversity. That religious exclusion violates the free exercise clause.
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Nick Icker
Turns out recent Supreme Court rulings back that up. In the cases of Trinity Lutheran, Espinosa and Carson, the high court ruled that states cannot shut out religious groups from public benefits merely because they are religious.
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Mary Reichardt
Lawyer Gregory Garr argued on behalf of Attorney General Drummond, petitioners are not seeking.
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Gentner Drummond
Access to Oklahoma's program on equals terms. They seek a special status, the right to establish a religious charter school plus an exemption from the non discrimination requirements that apply to every other charter school.
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Mary Reichardt
Conservative justices jumped on that. Here's Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
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Gentner Drummond
All the religious school is saying is don't exclude us on account of our religion. I mean if you go and apply for to be a charter school and you're an environmental studies school or you're a science based school or you're a Chinese immersion school or you're English grammar focused school, you can get in and then you come in and you say oh we're a religious school. It's like oh no, can't do that. That's too much. That's scary. We're not going to do that. And our cases have made very clear of saying you can't treat religious people and religious institutions and religious speech as second class in the United States.
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Mary Reichardt
Justice Samuel Alito read aloud from the Attorney General's own statements.
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Gentner Drummond
While many Oklahomans undoubtedly support charter schools sponsored by various Christian faiths, the precedent created by approval of the application will compel approval of similar applications by all faiths. On I doubt most Oklahomans would want their tax dollars to fund a religious school whose tenants are diametrically opposed to their own. And this is not an isolated statement. There are many. So thank you for asking. Isn't that a master Isn't that a very serious masterpiece cake shop problem? This whole position that you're defending seems to be motivated by. By hostility toward particular religions. That's entirely incorrect, you, Honor.
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Nick Icker
Justice Alito continued to press the issue by pointing to Oklahoma's constitutional ban on state money for religious schools. This was modeled after the Blaine Amendment, a failed 19th century measure fueled by anti Catholic bias. It didn't pass at the federal level, but several states adopted junior Blaine amendments. Listen to this exchange between Justice Alito and lawyer Garr.
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Gentner Drummond
I think you're rewriting history. Do you think that anti Catholic bigotry had disappeared from Oklahoma by 1907? I think, your Honor, of course there were those who held that distasteful and odious bigotry. But the laws that the Oklahoma Constitution provision is based on long predated that.
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Nick Icker
Last summer. Attorney General Drummond put it plainly. If the state funds a Catholic charter school, then what principle stops funding for Islamic schools? Teaching sharia a law, or devil worshippers propounding Satanism? That, he said, is exactly why the safest route is to keep religion out of public schools altogether.
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Mary Reichardt
But Justice Alito wasn't finished with Gar.
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Gentner Drummond
All right, could a school say, we're going to be a LGBTQ friendly school so that the books that elementary school children are going to read are going to have lots of LGBTQ characters, same sex couples, and they are going to send the message that this is a perfectly legitimate lifestyle? They're going to tell the little kids, if you. Your parents may say you're a boy or a girl, but that doesn't mean you really are a boy or a girl. Could they do that?
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Mary Reichardt
Garr said no, because Oklahoma law forbids teaching gender studies or race theory in public or charter schools.
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Gentner Drummond
Could a school say, we're a progressive school and we're going to do everything the state wants you to do, but we're going to teach history from the 1619 project standpoint? No, because they'd have to meet the state's academic standards.
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Mary Reichardt
Justice Alito kept at it.
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Gentner Drummond
I don't want this to be one sided. So suppose the school says, we're going to teach American history like the way it was taught in 1955. So we're going to celebrate the founding fathers and we're not going to say anything about. About their shortcomings, and we're not going to say a whole lot about the dark episodes in American history. Could they do that? No. Traditional Oklahoma public schools could not do that, and charter schools could not do that.
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Nick Icker
Where does it say that meanwhile, the liberal justices had their own concerns. Justice Sonia Sotomayor to lawyer Campbell for the school board.
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Gentner Drummond
What you're saying is the free exercise clause trumps the essence of the establishment clause, because the essence of the establishment clause was we're not going to pay religious leaders to teach their religion. And here you can only be a teacher in this school if you're willing to accept the teachings of the Catholic Church.
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Nick Icker
Justice Elena Kagan anticipated religious favoritism, intentional or not. Listen to this exchange with lawyer for the DOJ, John Sauerkraut, in support of St. Isidore.
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Gentner Drummond
There's a big incentive to operating charter schools. It's everything is funded for you. I mean, so I think that there are going to be. There's a line out the door if you can do this consistent with your religious belief. All I'm suggesting to you is this notion that the state can do this while still maintaining all its various curricular requirements. Either that sort of fantasy land, given the state of religious belief and religious practice in this world, or if it's not, it's only because what's going to result is treating, shall we call them majoritarian religions very differently from minority religions.
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Kent Covington
First, I'd say that if there is in fact a line out the door, so to speak, that line out the door will increase the diversity of options for parents and students in states that have programs that are similar to Oklahoma.
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Mary Reichardt
Arguing for the school itself was Michael McGinley. He reiterated the core point for his side.
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Nick Icker
Saint Isidore is a private religious nonprofit. It was created by private actors, and.
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Gentner Drummond
It is controlled by a private board.
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Nick Icker
That consists of entirely private actors. It thus lacks the essential elements of a government entity.
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Mary Reichardt
Chief Justice John Roberts authored all of those more recent major rulings that expanded religious access to public benefits. He was mostly quiet during this oral argument, though still he seemed to be weighing whether St. Isidore crosses a line that the earlier cases did not.
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Gentner Drummond
This does strike me as a much more comprehensive involvement.
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Nick Icker
Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from this case, possibly because of her friendship with an advisor to Saint Isidore. That means the Court could split four to four. And if it does that, then the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling stands and St. Isidore is on its own.
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Mary Reichardt
In an op ed for the newspaper, the Oklahoman Attorney General Drummond wrote that he backs religious schools. His kids attended one. But he says tax dollars shouldn't fund religious schools. Let families use tax credits instead. A decision in this case could rewrite the rules for what counts as public in public education. We'll find out by the end of June.
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Nick Icker
One more note. On Thursday, retired U.S. supreme Court Associate Justice David Souter died at the age of 85. Appointed by President George H.W. bush in 1990, Justice Souter was on the bench less than 20 years before he retired in 2000. He had been expected to be a conservative. Instead, he became known for siding with liberals on the court and strengthening abortion rights.
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Mary Reichardt
Justice Souter co authored the case, often cited in tandem with Roe v. Wade, to find a right to abortion in the U.S. constitution. Here's Justice Souter announcing his part of that opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, just two years into his term, June 29, 1992.
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Nick Icker
So to overrule in the absence of the most compelling reason to re examine a watershed decision would subvert the Court's legitimacy beyond any serious question. The promise of constancy, once given, binds the Court for as long as the power to stand by the decision survives and the understanding of the issue has not changed so fundamentally as to render that commitment obsolete. A willing breach of it would be nothing less than a breach of faith. And no court that broke it its faith with the people could sensibly expect credit for principle and the decision by.
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Gentner Drummond
Which it did that.
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Nick Icker
That 5 to 4 opinion led with a famous line, liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt. Yet doubt remained in the years following until Roe and Casey were both overturned with the Dobbs decision in 2022.
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Mary Reichardt
And that's this week's legal docket.
- [19:32]
Kent Covington
Additional support comes from Ambassadors Impact Network, helping entrepreneurs with a purpose find the.
- [19:39]
Gentner Drummond
Support they need to thrive with faith aligned financing options.
- [19:43]
Kent Covington
More@ambassadorsimpact.com and from Pensacola Christian College Academic Excellence Biblical Worldview Affordable Cost Go pcci.
- [19:58]
Nick Icker
Edu World.
- [20:09]
Mary Reichardt
Coming up next on THE World and everything in it, the Monday Money Beat.
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Nick Icker
It's time now to talk business, markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bonson. David heads up the wealth management firm the Bonson Group and he is here now. Good morning to you, David.
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David Bonson
Well, good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.
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Nick Icker
Well, David, President Trump last week unveiled a bilateral economic agreement with the UK Steel and auto tariffs rolled back in exchange for ethanol sales for Boeing orders and for access to the beef market there. Now we have talked over the last several weeks about a potential off ramp from the tariff and trade war. Do you see the UK Deal as the model for other countries?
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David Bonson
There's a few things that it definitely does that fulfill some of what I've been talking about. I'm a little concerned to refer to it as a normative for other situations because you have to remember that we run a trade surplus with the UK and so if the whole theory of the case is that we are getting ripped off when we're in a trade deficit, I assume that means that we're ripping the UK off by selling them more than they sell us. Now, I say it somewhat tongue in cheek, but unfortunately it's actually kind of the logical conclusion of that theory. But you can't necessarily assume that the deals are going to get worked out with the countries that we have a trade deficit with, the same way that a country like UK which really should be a layup. We had a 25% tariff imposed on them for steel and aluminum. Reportedly that's going away entirely. We had a 25% tariff on auto. Apparently that's going down to 10,000. They've agreed to buy some equipment from Boeing. We've agreed to buy some automobiles from Rolls Royce. Other than that, I really do want to see the fine print. I want to see the actual deal. All we have so far is kind of a speakerphone conversation and a framework. But yes, I think that getting to a point of announcing a big deal is what the President wants. And so far we have that with UK Then we'll see where things go from here with India, Vietnam, Japan, and obviously the big one is China. And we'll know more here in the aftermath of the Secretary's meetings in Switzerland this last weekend, very soon.
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Nick Icker
Well, David, I would like to dive into the US China trade talks in just a minute, but you were listing out potential trade partners and at the top of the list was India. But we have India and Pakistan edging toward conflict and we're talking about two nuclear armed neighbors. Do you think that these rising tensions could potentially spill over and derail or at least complicate trade negotiations with India?
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David Bonson
It has the potential to. It doesn't appear to have rattled markets a lot this week, whether it be in commodity prices, currency, or let alone interest rates and equity markets. There wasn't a big aftermath. But I do believe if that were to escalate, it could enhance volatility and it would very likely provoke U.S. involvement on the India side. I mean, India is the ally there relative to Pakistan. And so that has the potential to be a factor in the way that deal goes. But it's a little premature. But nevertheless, it's just another new event in what is a very complicated world these days.
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Nick Icker
All right, well, to China now, David, over the weekend we had the Treasury Secretary Scott Besant meeting with the Vice Premier of China in Switzerland. It was set up as a de escalation summit. So beyond any of that, what concrete steps do you think we should be looking for in the days ahead?
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David Bonson
You know, Nick, we're really waiting on more detail in terms of not only the meetings that took place with the Secretary this weekend and the Chinese Vice Premier who has been sort of tasked in his portfolio of handling trade, but really in the week to come is where you're going to kind of see what exact de escalations do take place. They've talked about in the immediate aftermath lowering the tariffs, but still leaving them high, just to give everyone a little breathing room. And then I think you'll start to see more specifics. So the sequence of events I'm expecting is a little bit of de escalation, but still with very high tariffs just to allow some trade to continue. And then from there start working on an agreement that is going to call for, in my opinion, a purchase agreement from China for certain products, opening of new markets, Chinese rhetoric and commitments around fentanyl, and then, of course, some reciprocity in the economic terms. I think the headlines are going to be bigger on those first two points around Chinese purchase agreements, fentanyl. And then last will be what the tariff percentages end up being. But it's just too early out of the Switzerland meeting to know more.
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Nick Icker
All right, David. The Fed left interest rates steady once again last week, emphasizing data dependency, while markets have still more or less priced in three or four rate cuts by the end of the year. Do you think the Fed is genuinely in a wait and see mode, or is this patently an exercise in maintaining its own credibility while the trade war and the effect of tariffs remains unresolved?
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David Bonson
Well, I don't believe so, but I think that that is definitely the posture that for over 30 years the Fed has had to take is in order to maintain central bank credibility, they have to always say that they're looking at the data wherever it takes them. And so if you come in and say, here's what we're going to do in four months, you've undermined the credibility because you're basically saying we're not looking at the data over the next four months. We've already made up our mind. But 98% of the time, the futures market four months out, six months out, has priced in what they're gonna do, and it is what they're gonna do. So there's a debate in economics as to whether or not the Markets are trying to follow the Fed or the Fed's following the markets. And I've always believed the latter and I always will. And the range of rate cuts has changed a little bit. It was from maybe as low as 3 to as high as 5 cuts by the end of the year a month or so ago, and it now has come down to 3 to 4. There's still almost certain probability of three rate cuts, 75 basis points getting down to 3.5% by end of the year. And really significant possibility of that being at 4, you know, a full 1%. But one and a quarter seems to be off the table now. But the difference is that if you do get significant economic deterioration this summer, I think that additional rate cuts will be right back on the table. But the Fed's doing exactly what we thought they would do. They're referring to the data as it is now, leaving open the fact that the data may change both on the inflation side and economic health and growth side and then ultimately will respond at the right time. What they don't want to do is respond ahead of it and be accused of giving in to political pressure.
- [27:41]
Nick Icker
All right, David, before we go, you did mention last week that we should be paying attention to the weekly unemployment filings as kind of a real time barometer of where we are on the jobs market. And the claims last week came in dipping modestly below expectations. Again, I know it's a small sample, but what do you take from that report?
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David Bonson
Well, you know, if you're looking at the three week averages as I am, every week matters because you're every week getting a new three week average and the three week average has not moved. But you're right in the weeds. The three week average has not moved because one week was way above expected and one week was below expected. When all said and done, no, the three week average is not showing yet that there is pressure on unemployment. The issue I would point to, and it was in my DividendCafe.com chart of the week this weekend is 77% of job openings are with businesses with under 250 employees. Small businesses is where I think the big vulnerability is. And that's where I believe the vulnerability is with this trade war. If the tariffs end up disproportionately hurting small businesses that don't have the clout to get exceptions and waivers, that don't have the capital markets access to get through it, and they end up freezing a lot of hiring, I think that will put some upward pressure on the unemployment. So again, it's just a broken record week after week, but for good reason. All eyes are on how quickly they can put an end to this trade war.
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Nick Icker
David Bonson, founder, managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bonson Group. David writes at world opinions and dividendcafe.com David, thank you. Hope you have a great week and we'll see you next time.
- [29:33]
David Bonson
Thanks so much, Nick.
- [29:59]
Nick Icker
Today is Monday, May 12th. Good morning. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported world radio. I'm Nick Iger.
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Mary Reichardt
And I'm Mary Reichard. Up next, the world history book. More than 200 years ago, the British empire's economy ran on slavery. In the 1730s alone, England trafficked 170,000 Africans. Abolition seemed impossible.
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Nick Icker
But as the years went by, abolitionists revealed the horrors of the slave trade and a faithful politician took up the cause. World's Emma Eicher brings us the story.
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Emma Eicher
On the morning of May 12, 1789, the British palace of Westminster is packed with people. They're all craning their necks to see the man who will introduce a very controversial bill. He's the Yorkshire member of Parliament, William Wilberforce. He rises from the wooden bench to address the crowd. He looks smart, wearing breeches, a heavily embroidered silk waistcoat and a cloth coat with a high collar. Traditional parliament garb. And at 30 years old, he's short, standing at only 5 foot 3. But when Wilberforce opens his mouth to speak, a powerful voice fills the room. Voice actor John Gager reads his speech.
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William Wilberforce
I march forward with a firmer step in the full assurance that my cause will bear me out and that I shall be able to justify upon the clearest principles every resolution in my hand, the avowed end of which is the total abolition of the slave trade.
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Emma Eicher
Reporters are squashed into the public gallery above the benches, quickly taking longhand notes. Below them, more than 300 members of parliament are listening, and opponents get ready to interject. It's called cut and thrust. Anyone can interrupt a speech if they object to something, and they do. Sometimes the House of Commons is so loud, it's hard to hear who's winning the debate. But this is the beginning of a long address. Over the next four hours, Wilberforce introduces the bill that would abolish slavery in Britain. For the past few years, he's raised the issue of abolition many times, all with the same disappointing result. There's too much money and power at stake to bring about radical reformation. But Wilberforce has made impressive friends and is a strong speaker. Now. He wields his formidable political influence to make the British MPs listen to him. And on this particular Tuesday, Wilberforce's address becomes the most important of his life.
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William Wilberforce
We are all guilty, and we ought all to plead guilty and not to exculpate ourselves by throwing the blame on others.
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Emma Eicher
Wilberforce's fiery conviction against slavery began four years earlier during what he called his great change. He became a Christian, and it transformed him. He gave up gambling and drinking and started writing books in defense of the faith. He wrote this in his book. Inadequate Conceptions of the Importance of Christianity.
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William Wilberforce
Is it not the great end of religion and in particular the glory of Christianity, to curb the violence, to control the appetites and to smooth the asperities of man? To make us compassionate and kind and forgiving, one to another. To make us good husbands, good fathers, good friends, and to render us active and useful in the discharge of the relative social and civil duties.
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Emma Eicher
Shortly after his conversion, Wilberforce joins abolitionist Thomas Clarkson's investigation into the slave trade. As he learns more, he becomes horrified at the evidence and convinced that England must be reminded of biblical morality.
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William Wilberforce
So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition.
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Emma Eicher
Wilberforce resolves to act.
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William Wilberforce
Let the consequences be what they would. I, from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.
- [33:46]
Emma Eicher
For decades, the British slave trade has been lurking out of sight and out of mind. Most of the public doesn't know the depths of its evils. Wilberforce sets out to expose them. He tours slave ships and interviews cruel slave captains alongside Clarkson. And they publish their findings in pamphlets to distribute now in Parliament, his voice rings out, describing the horrors of slave ships sailing from the West Indies.
- [34:10]
William Wilberforce
So much misery condensed in so little room is more than the human imagination had ever before conceived. Let anyone imagine to himself six or seven hundred of these wretches chained two and two, surrounded with every object that is nauseous and disgusting, diseased and struggling under every kind of wretchedness. How can we bear to think of such a scene as this?
- [34:38]
Emma Eicher
And Wilberforce leaves these final words resounding in everyone's ears.
- [34:43]
William Wilberforce
Sympathy is the great source of humanity.
- [34:47]
Emma Eicher
Applause is forbidden in the House, so Wilberforce sits down to silence. But reporters hurry off to publish glowing reviews of his speech the next day. Many consider it the best ever given by an mp. One reporter writes that Liverpool merchants hung their heads in sorrow for the African occupation of bolts and chains is no More. But Wilberforce's triumph is short lived. Parliament considers the bill, requesting more evidence, stalling for time. After all, the government itself has a vested interest in the slave trade. Britain's very economy depends on it. Wilberforce presses on. He returns to the floor with more evidence, but still nothing happens. He reintroduces the abolition bill almost every year from 1790 to 1800. Though public enthusiasm for the cause ebbs and flows, Wilberforce never wavers. Finally, in 1807, after 18 long years, the House of Commons overwhelmingly passes a bill to abolish the slave trade for good. It only goes so far as to stop the sale of slaves in British ports. And slaves already in Britain won't be freed. But it's still a step forward. When the final vote is tallied, Wilberforce buries his head in his hands, tears streaming. And despite convention, his colleagues give three cheers for his hard won victory. He remarks to a friend, I was.
- [36:07]
William Wilberforce
Myself so, so completely overpowered by my feelings that I was insensible to all that was passing around me.
- [36:14]
Emma Eicher
And the fight isn't over yet. Wilberforce continues to work to liberate slaves in Britain, which doesn't happen until 1833. With the slavery Abolition Act. The government finally ends the institution of slavery and repays the farmers for their lost workers. At that point, Wilberforce is in retirement with failing health. When he hears that the bill will be passed in Parliament, he says, thank.
- [36:37]
William Wilberforce
God that I have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give 20 million sterling for the abolition of slavery.
- [36:51]
Emma Eicher
William Wilberforce dies just three days later, having lived to see his life's work achieved at last. That's this week's world history book. I'm Emma Eicher.
- [37:17]
Nick Icker
Tomorrow, the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Leo xiv. The first US born Pope. He'll lead close to a billion and a half Catholics around the world. We'll talk about his background, his beliefs and what his selection may mean. That and more tomorrow. I'm Nick Iger.
- [37:34]
Mary Reichardt
And I'm Mary Reichardt. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. The Bible records the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth. For we are are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To one, a fragrance from death to death. To the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not like so many peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God in the sight of God, we speak in Christ. Verses 15 through 17 of 2 Corinthians 2 go now in grace and peace.