Abolition
Challenges
Image: Pro-slavery political cartoon showing some against the abolitionist movement (Seymour, 1832).
“[We cannot] conceive any proposition in the present state…more injurious to the wellbeing of our domestic concerns…to abridge the sources of our riches, our revenue, and our power.”— Manchester-based cotton manufacturers in their 1806 petition ("Petition from Manufacturers...", 1806).
“I consider to have proved [the Anti-Slavery Society] a curse…and which will eventually prove a curse to the nation.”— Sir C. B. Codrington, a slave owner, in the 1832 Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter (Macaulay, 1832).
“It must be by some other class of the human species…[who can] endure that degree of labour and fatigue which no Europeans could do.”— Sir William Pulteney, slave owner, in 1805 abolition debate ("Slave Trade Volume 3...", 1805).
In 1783, Parliament rejected a Quaker motion to ban the slave
trade. William Wilberforce attempted to pass bills to prohibit
slave importation into the West Indies annually from 1792-1799
and 1802-1805, but was consistently rejected
(Thorne, 1986; "Great Britain Abolishes Slavery: 1833", 2014).
Painting: The House of Commons in 1793 (Hickel, 1793).
“In 1805 an abolition bill failed in Parliament, for the eleventh time in 15 years…Thomas Clarkson was sent on a tour of the committees nationwide to rally support for a second petitioning campaign.”— UK Parliament ("Parliament Abolishes the Slave Trade", 2011).
(Slaves Cutting the Sugar Cane, 1823).