William Ladd

  • William Ladd
  • Born: May 10, 1778
  • Died: April 9, 1841

Advocate of peace and of a congress of nations, and first president of the American Peace Society, was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, the oldest son and the third of ten children of Eliphalet Ladd and Abigail (Hall) Ladd. After studying at Exeter Academy, Ladd entered Harvard College, from which he was graduated in 1797. He worked as a seaman for his father, a prosperous merchant and shipbuilder in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and in 1798 the twenty-year-old Ladd was given command of a brig. In 1799 he married Sophia Ann Augusta Stidolph of London and a year later settled in Savannah, Georgia. But after a few months, Ladd moved to Florida where he undertook an ambitious experiment on a cotton plantation in which he intended to demonstrate a means to abolish slavery by replacing black slaves with European settlers. The enterprise failed, however, and Ladd suffered a severe financial loss.hwwar-sp-ency-bio-328180-172954.jpg

After the death of his father in 1806, Ladd returned to Portsmouth, resuming his career as a sea captain. Moving to Minot, Maine, in 1814, Ladd purchased an estate that he managed with characteristic industriousness and skill, applying the latest methods of scientific farming.

In 1819 Ladd the Reverend Jesse Appleton, president of Bowdoin College and an advocate of peace societies that had recently been organized in several states. This encounter and a reading of A Solemn Review of the Custom of War by the Reverend Noah Worcester apparently converted Ladd to the cause of peace. In 1823-24, he wrote thirty-two articles for the Christian Mirror of Portland, Maine, which were collected and published in 1825 under the title Essays on Peace and War. In the introduction, he wrote: “... war is an evil which ought to be banished from civilized society, and it is the duty of every man to lend a helping hand to bring about so desirable an event. I felt it a duty which I owe to God and my fellow creatures to do something to hasten the glorious era when men shall learn war no more. ... He who does not give his prayers, his influence, his talents, and, if necessary, his purse to hasten the millenium, fails in his duty as a Christian and a man.” In 1827 he published a second collection of Essays on Peace and War in which he argued that “a spirit of war is in direct opposition to the spirit of the gospel.”

Ladd founded the American Peace Society in 1828, initially headquartered in New York City. He reluctantly became the first president and for several years edited the society’s publications, Harbinger of Peace (1828-1831) and the Calumet (1831-1834). Ladd wrote most of the articles until partial paralysis in 1833 forced him to suspend the Calumet, which was succeeded by the American Advocate of Peace.

“The Apostle of Peace,” as Ladd came to be affectionately known, tried to win all segments of the public to his cause. Between 1829 and 1832 he wrote several books in which he tried to reach young people and in 1836 published The Duty of Women to Promote the Cause of Peace. Demonstrating extraordinary dedication and energy, Ladd journeyed to various states, organizing, lecturing, and soliciting funds. In 1835, for example, he journeyed 1,300 miles, gave forty public lectures, and wrote numerous articles. Ladd had some success in enlisting the support of the churches, the press, and colleges. It was claimed that in 1838 more than 1,000 ministers had agreed to speak out against war at least once a year and articles on peace were published in the religious press. Peace societies were organized in several colleges including Dartmouth, Middlebury, and Amherst, and discussions of peace were common on many campuses.

At first Ladd admitted the right of defensive war, but then came to believe that all wars, defensive and offensive, were wicked and contrary to the spirit of the Gospel—a view that was endorsed by the American Peace Society in 1837. He published his most important work, Essay on a Congress of Nations, in 1840. In it he proposed a Congress of Ambassadors “for all those Christian and civilized nations ... for the purpose of settling the principles of international law by compact and agreement.” He also proposed a “Court of Nations, composed of the most able civilians in the world, to arbitrate or judge such cases as should be brought before it, by the mutual consent of two or more contending nations.” Ladd’s proposals found expression in subsequent international assemblies—the Hague Conference, the League of Nations, and the World Court. “If William Ladd had done nothing but write this essay,” concluded M. E. Curti, “his place in the history of the peace movement would have been a significant one.”

In late 1840 and early 1841 Ladd journeyed principally through upstate New York; although growing weaker, he was determined to proceed. In a letter dated February 3, 1841, he wrote that he “nearly fainted before I finished my lecture. ... The doctor told me that I had overdone myself. ...O, that I had another life to devote to the holy cause of Peace!... It is a cause to die for; and when I die, let it be in the pulpit pleading for Peace. It is to me the field of glory—the field on which my Saviour died.” Leaving New York, he spent several days in Boston before returning to Portsmouth on April 9; that very evening he died. On Ladd’s grave in Portsmouth, the American Peace Society had these words inscribed: “Blessed Are the Peace Makers For They Shall Be Called the Children of God.”

Ladd’s manuscripts are in the archives of the American Peace Society, Washington, D.C. The most thorough account of his life is M. E. Curti, The American Peace Crusade, 1815-60 (1929). For other accounts see J. Hemmenway, The Apostle of Peace (1872) and The Dictionary of American Biography.