James W.C. Pennington and the Peace Cause

Abstract This chapter reconstructs Pennington’s involvement with the international peace cause, which emerged after the Napoleonic Wars, followed by the formation of the American Peace Society (APS) in 1828. There were significant intersections between the peace cause and the antislavery movement, and Pennington seamlessly moved between the two. In 1843, he attended the First General Peace Congress, which met in London shortly after the Second World Anti-Slavery Convention. In 1849 and 1850, he once again attended Peace Congresses in Paris and Frankfurt. In his speeches, Pennington portrayed war and slavery as twin evils (both were rooted in lust for power and wealth, and driven by prejudice) that ought to be rooted out together by Christian reform efforts. As the chapter also shows, however, the 1850s saw growing tensions between Pennington’s commitment to nonviolence, his political abolitionism, and his eventual support for Black self-defense against mob violence and the Civil War.