The World and Everything in It: May 12, 2025

MARY REICHARD, HOST: 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.

ALITO: Well, I think you’re rewriting history. Do you think anti-Catholic bigotry had disappeared from Oklahoma by 1907?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, the Monday Moneybeat has President Trump found an off-ramp for the trade war? David Bahnsen is standing by.

And later, the WORLD History Book. The fight to end slavery in England.

GAUGER: Sympathy is the great source of humanity.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, May 12th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR:  China trade talks » 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 Bessent emerged from talks with Chinese officials in Switzerland, and told reporters:

BESSENT:  We will be giving details tomorrow, uh, but I can tell you that the talks were productive.

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 Ligeng also voiced optimism after the meetings.

LIFENG:  The atmosphere of the meeting was candid, in depth and constructive. The meeting achieved substantial progress and reached important consensus.

While it was not immediately clear what the two sides had agreed to, Trump on Friday said an 80% tariff on Chinese goods “seems right.” The current U.S. tariffs on goods from China add up to 145%.

Hamas to release U.S. hostage » Hamas has agreed to release its last surviving American hostage, in what’s being called a good will gesture with the United States. No word 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.

Trump Middle East visit / Iran » President Trump is also traveling to the Middle East today. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president will express his vision for the region:

TRUMP:  Where the United States and 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 on the brink of the golden age for both America and the Middle East.

The trip aims to secure more large investments in the United States, with a focus on economic partnerships.

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 Sunday. No big developments over the weekend, but officials called the latest meeting “encouraging” and plan more talks soon.

Ukraine peace talks » Western leaders over the weekend made a big push for a ceasefire in Ukraine. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer:

STARMER:  There's only one country that stands between peace and that's Russia.

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:

STARMER:  If he turns his back on peace, we will respond Working with President Trump. With all our partners, we will ramp up sanctions and increase our military aid for Ukraine's defense.

Vladimir Putin countered proposing direct peace talks in Turkey this coming Thursday. His spokesman Dmitry Peskov said:

PESKOV: 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 says the two sides could discuss a possible ceasefire during the meeting.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he’ll personally await Putin in Istanbul. He acknowledged Putin’s willingness to meet as a “positive sign,” but said a ceasefire must come first.

Newark airport » 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 as the clearest example of why the nation must update and overall the US air traffic control system.

DUFFY: 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. Um, and so this is, this is concerning.

But he told NBC’s Meet the Press, Duffy that there are currently backup measures and protocols in place to ensure the safety of flights.

Mayor arrested protesting immigration center » The Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Ras 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. Baraka, however, was denied entry. Federal authorities say he refused to leave, and that’s when he was arrested.

The mayor’s wife, Linda Baraka, said her husband did nothing wrong.

LBARAKA: They didn’t arrest anyone else. They didn’t ask anyone else to leave. They wanted to make an example out of the mayor.

And Democrats say Baraka was on public property and never should have been arrested.

But Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin says being a mayor does not give one legal authority at a federal facility.

MCLAUGHLIN:  If it was a typical U.S. citizen and they tried to storm into a detention facility that's housing dangerous criminals or any, any person at all, they would be arrested. Just because you are a public official does not mean you are above the law.

And McLaughlin says DHS is also investigating the actions of the trio of House Democrats at the ICE facility, adding that they could also face arrests.

I'm Kent Covington.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: 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! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time 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.

REICHARD: Here’s the core question: If a state pays for secular charter schools, does it 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 here: “... 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.

EICHER: 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. The aim was flexibility and innovation, and the movement grew fast. Today, about four million students now attend a charter school.

REICHARD: Laws on charter schools in 45 states, including Oklahoma, say essentially the same thing: that charter schools must be nonsectarian. That’s a nod to the establishment clause, states trying to ensure that public education is neutral on religion.

EICHER: 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, St. 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:

CAMPBELL: Under this Court's tests, St. Isidore is neither the government nor engaged in state action. There are already hundreds of families that have signed up for St. Isidore. They're part of Oklahoma's community too. They should not be treated as second-class.

REICHARD: 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 U.S. Supreme Court.

EICHER: Campbell for the school board argued the constitution does not require secularism , and efforts to require it are discriminatory.

CAMPBELL: But state law categorically bars religious groups and programs, deeming religion to be the wrong kind of diversity. That religious exclusion violates the Free Exercise Clause.

Turns out, recent Supreme Court rulings back that up. In the cases of Trinity Lutheran, Espinoza, and Carson, the high court ruled that states cannot shut out religious groups from public benefits merely because they are religious.

REICHARD: Lawyer Gregory Garre argued on behalf of Attorney General Drummond:

GARRE: Petitioners are not seeking 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 nondiscrimination requirements that apply to every other charter school….

Conservative justices jumped on that. Here’s Justice Brett Kavanaugh:

KAVANAUGH: 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 a 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…you can't treat religious people and religious institutions and religious speech as second-class in the United States.

Justice Samuel Alito read aloud from the attorney general’s own statements:

ALITO: 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. I doubt most Oklahomans would want their tax dollars to fund a religious school whose tenets are diametrically opposed to their own." And this is not an isolated statement. There are many.

GARRE: So thank you for asking that, Your Honor --

ALITO: Isn't that a very serious Masterpiece Cakeshop problem? This whole position that you're defending seems to be motivated by hostility toward particular religions.

GARRE: That's in --that's entirely incorrect, Your Honor

EICHER: Justice Alito pressed 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 Garre:

ALITO: Well, I think you're rewriting history. Do you think that anti-Catholic bigotry had disappeared from Oklahoma by 1907?

GARRE: 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…

Last summer, Attorney General Drummond put it plainly: If the state funds a Catholic charter school, what principle stops funding for Islamic schools teaching Sharia law—or devil worshipers propounding Satanism? That, he said, is exactly why the safest route is to keep religion out of public schools altogether.

REICHARD: But Justice Alito wasn’t finished with Garre.

ALITO: Could a school say we're going to be a LGBTQ-plus friendly school so that the books that elementary schoolchildren are going to read are going to have lots of LGBTQ-plus 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?

Garre said no, because Oklahoma law forbids teaching gender studies or race theory in public or charter schools.

ALITO: I’ll give you another example. 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.

GARRE: No, because they'd have to meet the state's academic standards, and that would not be allowed…

Justice Alito kept at it:

ALITO: I don't want this to be one-sided. So suppose a 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 their shortcomings and -we're not going to say a whole lot about the --the dark episodes in American history. Could they do that?

GARRE: No. Traditional Oklahoma public schools could not do that and charter schools cannot do that because --

ALITO: Where does it say that?

EICHER: Meanwhile, the liberal justices had their own concerns. Justice Sonia Sotomayor to lawyer Campbell for the school board:

SOTOMAYOR: Really, 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.

Justice Elena Kagan anticipated religious favoritism, intentional or not. Listen to this exchange with lawyer for the DOJ, John Sauer, in support of St. Isidore:

KAGAN: There's a big incentive to operating charter schools since 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 --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, I mean, either that's 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 --what's going to result is treating, shall we call them, majoritarian religions very differently from minority religions.

SAUER: First, I’d say is 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.

REICHARD: Arguing for the school itself was Michael McGinley. He reiterated the core point for his side:

MCGINLEY: St. Isidore is a private religious nonprofit. It was created by private actors and it is create --and it is controlled by a private board that consists of entirely private actors. It thus lacks the essential elements of a government entity.

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:

ROBERTS: This does strike me as a much more comprehensive involvement.

EICHER: Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from this case, possibly because of her friendship with an advisor to St. Isidore. That means the court could split 4 to 4. If it does, then the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling stands, and St. Isidore is on its own.

REICHARD:In an op-ed for the newspaper The Oklahoman, Attorney General Drummond wrote that he backs religious schools— his kids attended one— 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.

EICHER: 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 retiring in 2009. He’d been expected to be a conservative. Instead, he became known for siding with liberals and strengthening abortion rights.

REICHARD: Justice Souter co-authored the case often cited in tandem with Roe v Wade to find a right to abortion in the US Constitution.

Here’s Justice Souter announcing his part of the opinion in Planned Parenthood v Casey, just two years into his term, June 29th, 1992:

SOUTER: So to overrule in the absence of the most compelling reason to reexamine 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 standby 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 its faith with the people could sensibly expect credit for principle in the decision by which it did that.

EICHER: That 5-4 opinion led with the famous line of “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.

REICHARD: And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen. David heads up the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group. He is here now. Good morning to you, David.

DAVID BAHNSEN: Good morning, Nick, Good to be with you.

EICHER: Well, David, President Trump, last week, unveiled a bilateral economic agreement with the U.K. Steel and auto tariffs rolled back in exchange for ethanol sales, for Boeing orders, and for access to the beef market in Britain.

Now, we have talked over the last several weeks about a potential off-ramp from the tariff and trade war. Do you see the U.K. deal as the model?

BAHNSEN: There’s a few things it does that fulfill some of what I’ve been talking about. I am a little concerned, though, to refer to it as a normative for other situations. Remember, we run a trade surplus with the U.K. So if the whole theory of the case is that we are getting ripped off when we’re in a trade deficit, I have to assume that means that we’re ripping the U.K. off by selling them more than they sell us. Now I say it somewhat tongue in cheek. But it is the logical conclusion of that theory.

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 U.K., 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 autos. 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 speaker phone conversation and a framework.

But yes, I think that getting to a point of announcing a big deal is what the president wants. 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.

EICHER: I’d like to dive into the U.S.-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?

BAHNSEN: It has the potential to. It doesn’t appear to have rattled markets a lot this week, whether it be in commodity prices, currency, 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 us 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.

It’s a little premature to say, but nevertheless, it’s just another new event in what is a very complicated world these days.

EICHER: All right, well, to China now, David: Over the weekend, we had the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent 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?

BAHNSEN: You know, Nick, we’re really waiting on more detail—in terms not only of the meetings that took place with Secretary Bessent this weekend and the Chinese Vice Premier (who has been sort of tasked in his portfolio with handling trade). But really in the week to come is where you’re going to see what exact de-escalations do take place.

They’ve talked in the immediate aftermath about lowering the tariffs, but still leaving them high, just to give everyone a little breathing room. 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. Then from there, start working on an agreement that is going to call for, in my opinion, purchase agreement from China for certain products, opening of new markets, Chinese rhetoric and commitments around fentanyl.

Then, of course, some reciprocity in the economic terms. I think the headlines are going to be bigger on those first two points around China—purchase agreements, fentanyl—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.

EICHER: Okay, 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?

BAHNSEN: Well, I don’t believe so. But I think 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 always have to say that they’re looking at the data wherever it takes them.

So, if you come in and say, “Here’s what we’re going to do in four months,” you’ve undermined the credibility. 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 going to do, and it is what they’re going to do.

There’s a debate in economics as to whether the markets are trying to follow the Fed—or the Fed’s following the markets. I’ve always believed the latter, and I always will.

The range of expected rate cuts has changed a little bit. It was from maybe as low as three to as high as five cuts by the end of the year a month or so ago. Now has come down to three to four. There’s still almost certain probability of three rate cuts, 75 basis points, getting down to three and a half percent by end of the year. There’s also a significant possibility of that being at four, you know, a full 1%. But 1-1/4% seems to be off the table now. 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.

EICHER: 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. 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?

BAHNSEN: 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. 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 was 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 Dividend Café 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 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.

EICHER: David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. David writes at WORLD Opinions and at dividendcafe.com. Thanks … we’ll see you next week!

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, May 12th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. More than two hundred years ago, the British Empire’s economy ran on slavery. In the 1730s alone, England trafficked 170,000 Africans. Abolition seemed impossible.

EICHER: 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.

EMMA EICHER: On the morning of May 12th, 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 thirty years old, he’s short, standing at only five foot three.

But when Wilberforce opens his mouth to speak, a powerful voice fills the room.

Voice actor Jon Gauger reads from his speech.

JON GAUGER: 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.

Reporters are squashed in 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.

GAUGER: We are all guilty—we ought all to plead guilty, and not to exculpate ourselves by throwing the blame on others.

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:

GAUGER: 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?

Shortly after his conversion, Wilberforce joins abolitionist Thomas Clarkson’s investigation into the slave trade. As he learns more, he’s horrified at the evidence and convinced that England must be reminded of Biblical morality.

GAUGER: So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition.

Wilberforce resolves to act:

GAUGER: Let the consequences be what they would; I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.”

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:

GAUGER: So much misery condensed in so little room, is more than the human imagination had ever before conceived. Let anyone imagine to himself 6 or 700 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?

And Wilberforce leaves these final words resounding in everyone’s ears:

GAUGER: Sympathy is the great source of humanity.

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, explosive applause breaks out as his colleagues give three cheers for his hard won victory. He remarks to a friend:

GAUGER: I was myself so completely overpowered by my feelings that I was insensible to all that was passing around me.

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,

GAUGER: Thank God that I have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give twenty millions sterling for the Abolition of Slavery.

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.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: the new leader of the Roman Catholic church, Pope Leo the Fourteenth. The first U.S.-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 Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

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 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.” —II Corinthians 2:15-17

Go now in grace and peace.

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