Ladd, William (1778–1841)

US pacifist. A former sea captain, farmer, and abolitionist, he became a leading pacifist from c. 1819, founding a number of new peace groups. He lectured and wrote peace propaganda and was one of the first to link the goals of pacifism with those fighting for women's rights. Founding the American Peace Society in 1828, he became a Congregational clergyman in 1837 as a means of furthering his cause. The same year he forced the American Peace Society to condemn all war, defensive and offensive.

Ladd was born in Exeter, New Hampshire. He developed many techniques of pacifist propaganda, and was the first to make pacifism a political issue in the USA. 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.