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HE proposition that we are here to maintain is so simple, so clear, that when one is called upon to justify it, one scarcely knows what to say. The fact is, it is not our business to justify it; the onus of proof lies on the other side. How do they justify their monstrous proposition that one half of the human race shall have no political rights?

When Wilberforce started his campaign against slavery, it was scarcely Wilberforce's business to defend the proposition that no man has the right to make a chattel of another. The burden of proof lay on the slave-holder. How dared he violate elemental human rights? We, too, appear here not as defendants but as plaintiffs; not to beg and protest, but to demand and denounce. We accuse! We accuse the opposition of barbarism and injustice. We call upon Parliament to redress this historic wrong. 200