Mr. William Smith rose.  He wondered how the last speaker could have had the boldness to draw arguments from scripture in support of the Slave-trade.  Such arguments could be intended only to impose on those, who never took the trouble of thinking for themselves.  Could it be thought for a moment, that the good sense of the House could be misled by a few perverted or misapplied passages, in direct opposition to the whole tenor and spirit of Christianity; to the theory, he might say, of almost every religion, which had ever appeared in the world?  Whatever might have been advanced, every body must feel, that the Slave-trade could not exist an hour, if that excellent maxim, “to do to others as we would wish that others should do to us,” had its proper influence on the conduct of men.

Nor was Mr. Stanley more happy in his argument of the antiquity and universality of slavery.  Because a practice had existed, did it necessarily follow that it was just?  By this argument every crime might be defended from the time of Cain.  The slaves of antiquity, however, were in a situation far preferable to that of the Negros in the West Indies.  A passage in Macrobius, which exemplified this in the strongest manner, was now brought to his recollection.  “Our ancestors,” says Macrobius, “denominated the master father of the family, and the slave domestic, with the intention of removing all odium from the condition of the master, and all contempt from that of the servant.”  Could this language be applied to the present state of West India slavery?

It had been complained of by those who supported the trade, that they laboured under great disadvantages by being obliged to contend against the most splendid abilities which the House could boast.  But he believed they laboured under one, which was worse, and for which no talents could compensate; he meant the impossibility of maintaining their ground fairly on any of those principles, which every man within those walls had been accustomed, from his infancy, to venerate as sacred.  He and his friends too laboured under some disadvantages.  They had been charged with fanaticism.  But what had Mr. Long said, when he addressed himself to those planters, who were desirous of attempting improvements on their estates?  He advised them “not to be diverted by partial views, vulgar prejudices, or the ridicule which might spring from weak minds, from a benevolent attention to the public good.”  But neither by these nor by other charges were he or his friends to be diverted from the prosecution of their purpose.  They were convinced of the rectitude and high importance of their object; and were determined never to desist from pursuing it, till it should be attained.

But they had to struggle with difficulties far more serious.  The West Indian interest, which opposed them, was a collected body; of great power, affluence, connections, and respectability.

Artifice had also been employed.  Abolition and emancipation had been so often confounded, and by those who knew better, that it must have been purposely done, to throw an odium on the measure which was now before them.