Jonathan Ward

Jonathan Ward (1769–1860) was a Congregational minister and author in New Hampshire. The clearest surviving record tied to his writing is American Slavery, and the Means of Its Abolition (Boston, 1840), published under the name Rev. Jonathan Ward after an address delivered at Plymouth, New Hampshire.

In that book, Ward presents himself as someone whose opposition to slavery had developed over many years. He mentions reading William Wilberforce’s writings decades earlier and describes earlier public comments and sermons in which he condemned the contradiction between American ideals of liberty and the reality of slavery.

He also seems to have occupied a cautious middle ground within the antislavery movement: firmly opposed to slavery itself, but uneasy with some of the rhetoric and tactics used by more radical abolitionists. That combination of moral conviction, religious language, and careful persuasion gives his work its distinctive voice.