Abolition of the slave trade

“ We see then this great truth first apparent, that the abolition of the Slave Trade took its rise, not from persons who set up a cry for liberty, when they were oppressors themselves, nor from persons who were led to it by ambition, or a love of reputation among men, but where it was most desirable, namely, from the teachers of Christianity in those times. ”

“ It was a speech no less remarkable for splendid eloquence, than for solid sense and convincing reason; supported by calculations founded on facts, and conclusions drawn from premises, as correctly as if they had been mathematical propositions; all tending to prove that, instead of the West Indian plantations suffering an injury, they would derive a material benefit by the abolition of the Slave Trade. ”

“ The next year a bill was introduced, entitled "An act for the abolition of the slave trade," which also passed by large majorities. The friends of humanity were now exultant. The heroes of the mighty revolution which had been achieved in public sentiment exchanged congratulations, and expressed their gratitude to Heaven for so signal a victory. ”

“ For after all that I have stated, of it’s being rather the spirit of party, or at the utmost a mistaken apprehension of loss, than a just sense of interest, which animates the efforts of the great mass of West Indian Proprietors, yet there are many who, it cannot be denied, are prompted by a true persuasion that the abolition of the Slave Trade will materially lessen their gains. ”

“ He would now notice the objection, that other nations would not give up the Slave Trade, if we were to renounce it. But if the trade were stained, but by a thousandth part of the criminality which he and others, after a thorough investigation of the subject, charged upon it, the House ought immediately to vote for its abolition. This miserable argument, if persevered in, would be an eternal bar to the annihilation of the evil. How was it ever to be eradicated, if every nation was thus prudentially to wait till the concurrence of all the world should be obtained! ”

“ I do not see how we can escape from the conclusion that the slave-owner is an accomplice of the slave-trader. So long as a profitable market is kept open, the article will be supplied, despite of difficulties and dangers. The only way to stop the trade, is to shut up the market; and this can be done only by the entire abolition of the system of slavery. ”

“ Whereas, by entering into a patient discussion of the merits of the question; by bringing evidence upon it; by reasoning upon that evidence night after night, and year after year, land thus by disputing the ground inch as it were by inch, the Abolition of the Slave-trade stands upon a rock, upon which it never can be shaken. Many of those who were concerned in the cruel system have now given up their prejudices, because they became convinced in the contest. ”

“ In both cases therefore it was manifestly unjust, that a man should be made to labour during the whole of his life, and yet have no benefit from his labour. Hence the Slave-trade and the Colonial slavery were a violation of the very principle, upon which all law for the protection of property was founded. Whatever benefit was derived from that trade to an individual, it was derived from dishonour and dishonesty. ”

“ It is now notorious that the traffic in human beings has never been carried on so briskly as since its nominal abolition, while the sufferings of the victims, and the destruction of their lives, have been threefold greater than before.
Owing to this mistaken expectation of the effect of the Act of 1808 abolishing the slave-trade, the attention of philanthropists was in a great measure withdrawn from the subject of slavery for ten years or more. Meanwhile, the friends of “the peculiar institution” were busily engaged in extending its borders and strengthening its defences. ”

“ Supposing them in the first year to fail in their endeavours to obtain a share of the Slaves allowed to be imported, they may hope to be more fortunate in the second. Meanwhile the hope of a resource in the Slave market will prevent their exerting themselves in earnest in establishing the system by which they might secure an internal increase; and thus they might be drawn on from year to year to their own ruin, to the public injury, and to the misery of their unhappy Negroes. ”

“ The horrible system, too, which many had gone upon, of working out their slaves in a few years, and recruiting their gangs with imported Africans, would receive its death-blow from the abolition of the trade. The opposite would force itself on the most unfeeling heart. Ruin would stare a man in the face, if he were not to conform to it. ”

“ If obligations so powerful, if duties so clear and urgent, could be now so easily evaded, surely at the end of eight years some new pleas would be set up for the continuance of the trade, and the Abolitionists themselves would then be told, that, having formerly recognised the right of sacrificing the dictates of justice and humanity to considerations of expediency, they ought in common consistency to grant a new respite on the same or better grounds. ”

“ But may we not be allowed to assume a higher tone, and to ask, if this practice, though by a strange perversion of words it is called the Slave Trade, ought indisputably to be considered as a most enormous crime, rather than a commerce, is it not clearly our own duty to abstain from it, and to prohibit and to punish the perpetration of it by our own subjects, however it may still prevail in other countries? ”

“ There is reason to believe that the traffic is on the increase. Whether such increase is to be ascribed to the abolition of slave labor in the British possessions in our vicinity, and an attendant diminution in the supply of those articles which enter into the general consumption of the world, thereby augmenting the demand from other quarters, ... it were needless to inquire. The highest considerations of public honor, as well as the strongest promptings of humanity, require a resort to the most vigorous efforts to suppress the trade. ”

“ Practically this resolution put an end forever to the African slave trade so far as Virginia was concerned, and its abolition was subsequently confirmed during the war of the Revolution by a more formal act passed by the legislature in the year 1778, prohibiting the importation of slaves from any quarter, whether by sea or land, and providing that all brought into the State [ 20 ] in violation of the law should be free. ”

“ He trusted we should not think ourselves too liberal, if, by abolishing the Slave-trade, we gave them the same common chance of civilization with other parts of the world. If we listened to the voice of reason and duty this night, some of us might live to see a reverse of that picture, from which we now turned our eyes with shame. We might live to behold the natives engaged in the calm occupations of industry, and in the pursuit of a just commerce. ”

“ But, granting that all these suppositions should be unfounded, and that every one of these substitutes should fail for a time, the planters would be indemnified, as is the case in all transactions of commerce, by the increased price of their produce in the British market. Thus, by contending against the abolition, they were defeated in every part of the argument. But he would never give up the point, that the number of the slaves could be kept up by natural population, and without any dependence whatever on the Slave-trade. ”