"To abolish a _status_ which in all ages God has sanctioned, and
man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class
of our fellow-subjects, but it would be extreme cruelty to the African
savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre or intolerable
bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state
of life; especially now, when their passage to the West Indies, and
their treatment there, is humanely regulated. To abolish this trade
would be to '--shut the gates of mercy on mankind.'"

One of the first steps of Clarkson and his associates was the
formation of a committee of twelve persons, for the collection and
dissemination of information on the subject.

The contest now began in earnest, a contest as sublime as any the
world ever saw.

The abolition controversy more fully aroused the virtue, the talent,
and the religion of the great English nation, than any other event or
crisis which ever occurred.

Wilberforce was the leader of the question in Parliament. The other
members of the antislavery committee performed those labors which were
necessary out of it.

This labor consisted principally in the collection of evidence with
regard to the traffic, and the presentation of it before the public
mind. In this labor Clarkson was particularly engaged. The subject was
hemmed in with the same difficulties that now beset the antislavery
cause in America. Those who knew most about it were precisely those
whose interest it was to prevent inquiry. An immense moneyed interest