Witherspoon and Beattie on the Philosophy of Common Sense Abolitionism

This article examines the philosophy of common sense abolitionism in the thought of John Witherspoon and James Beattie. It explores the timely question of how Witherspoon reconciled his moral philosophy with his complex relationship to slavery. Witherspoon baptised a runaway slave, taught anti-slavery sentiments in his course of lectures on moral philosophy, personally tutored three black freemen, enslaved at least two people of colour, and voted against the immediate abolition of human bondage in New Jersey. These activities seemingly appear to be contradictions. However, the transatlantic contexts of an emerging abolitionist movement during the American War of Independence harboured radically different approaches to abolish the institution of chattel slavery. Witherspoon drew from the example of another Scottish Enlightenment moralist, Beattie, on emancipation. Like Beattie, Witherspoon consistently advanced a belief in the divinely inspired self-evident or ‘common sense’ understanding of universal liberty, which applied to all races, in response to David Hume’s mitigated scepticism and racism. They shared a gradual approach to preparing enslavers and enslaved for the inevitable end of human bondage as a condition deemed incompatible with Christianity. This article argues that their philosophy of common sense abolitionism exemplified Scottish Enlightenment thought on either side of the Atlantic. By exploring the philosophical origins and pedagogy of their anti-slavery and gradual approach to abolishing the institution of chattel slavery, this comparative case study sheds new light on the legacies of Witherspoon at Princeton and Beattie at Marischal College, Aberdeen.