Page:The African Slave Trade (Clark).djvu/29

Rh

evils of barbarism, without its simplicity. No age, no sex, no rank, no condition, was exempt from the fatal influence of tills wide-wasting calamity. Thus it attained to the fullest measure of pure, unmixed, unsophisticated wickedness; and, scorning all competition and comparison, it stood without a rival in the secure, undisputed possession of its detestable preëminence."

The discussion in the British Parliament, while the question of the abolition of the slave trade was pending, brought out from the noble champions of freedom an array of facts that ought to arouse all Christian nations to the barbarities of this traffic. But the Christian nations need to be Christianized, especially this American nation, that is madly plunging anew into this accursed traffic. We need in an American congress a William Wilberforce, a Charles James Fox, a William Pitt, an Edmund Burke, a Thomas Erskine, a Granville Sharp, and a Thomas Clarkson, to move the nation, as these nolble men moved the British public, and thunder into the ears of the people the crimes and cruelties of man-stealing, until they rise in their might, and decree its annihilation.

It is impossible to conceive a more foul blot upon the American name, than the revival of this traffic at a day like this. It is reversing the wheels of civilization, and voluntarily going back to barbarism. It is giving the lie to our boasts of intelligence, humanity, and freedom. It is directly bidding defiance to the Almighty, and calling down