author
William Ellery Channing
1780–1842
A leading voice in early American Unitarianism, his sermons joined clear moral thought with a deep belief in human dignity and freedom. His writing helped shape religious debate in New England and influenced wider movements for reform.
1 Audiobook
Slavery
by William Ellery Channing
About the author
Born in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1780, William Ellery Channing became one of the best-known American preachers of the early nineteenth century. After graduating from Harvard, he served for decades as minister of Federal Street Church in Boston, where his sermons earned a wide readership far beyond his own congregation.
Channing is often remembered as a central figure in the rise of American Unitarianism. He argued for a generous, rational Christianity centered on conscience, moral growth, and the worth of every person, and he became so closely associated with the movement that he was widely called its leading spokesman.
He was also an essayist and public moral thinker whose influence reached beyond theology. His writings on religion, self-culture, and social questions helped shape New England intellectual life, and he spoke out against slavery in his later years. He died in Bennington, Vermont, in 1842.