Adam Smith on the Late Resolution of the Quakers of Pennsylvania

Abstract

Abstract Adam Smith famously stated in The Wealth of Nations that the recent decision of the Quakers of Pennsylvania to free their slaves showed that they cannot have owned very many, but, like other leading European figures, he was misled by a false report spread by Benjamin Rush. The Pennsylvania Quakers had not yet decided on requiring their members to liberate their slaves. When they did resolve on emancipation, pushed by a wave of acclamation for having supposedly already done so, they freed more than a hundred slaves.