A Voice for the Voiceless in the House of Commons

On the evening of October 28, 1787, William Wilberforce sat at his oak desk in his home at Old Palace Yard, Westminster, and scratched a single line into his journal: "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the reformation of manners." He was twenty-eight years old, a Member of Parliament for Yorkshire, and two years into a faith that had utterly reoriented his life.

What drove Wilberforce was not abstract principle but concrete horror. He had read the testimony of surgeon Alexander Falconbridge, who documented enslaved Africans chained in ship holds with barely eighteen inches of vertical space, crossing the Atlantic in conditions no Parliament member would tolerate for livestock. These men, women, and children had no seat in the House of Commons, no voice in the halls where their fate was debated. So Wilberforce resolved to be that voice.

For nearly two decades he spoke, argued, and persisted. On February 23, 1807, the House of Commons finally passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act by a vote of 283 to 16.

Proverbs 31:8-9 commands, "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute." The Almighty does not ask whether the voiceless are convenient to defend. He asks whether we will open our mouths on their behalf. Wilberforce did. The question for every believer is simply this: whose cause is waiting for your voice?