Ladd, William

(1778–1841) sea captain, farmer, pacifist; born in Exeter, N.H. A sea captain turned farmer, turned abolitionist, there is no historical record of his transformation to fulltime pacifism (1819). He founded new peace groups, appointing able lieutenants. He lectured and wrote peace propaganda and was one of the first to link the goals of pacifists with those fighting for women's rights. Founding the American Peace Society (1828), he became a Congregational clergyman (1837) as a means of furthering his cause. The same year he forced the American Peace Society to condemn all war, defensive and offensive. Developer of many techniques of pacifist propaganda, he was the first to make pacifism a political issue in America. In his Essay on a Congress of Nations (1840) he was one of the first to predict that there would someday be an international organization like the United Nations.

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