our institutions; passing the bounds of our European dominion, and in the New World, as in the Old, proclaiming that freedom is the birthright of man—­that distinction of colour gives no title to oppression—­that the chains now loosened must be struck off, and even the marks they have left effaced—­proclaiming this by the same eternal law of our nature which makes nations the masters of their own destiny, and which in Europe has caused every tyrant’s throne to quake!

“But they need feel no alarm at the progress of light who defend a limited monarchy and support popular institutions—­who place their chiefest pride not in ruling over slaves, be they white or be they black, not in protecting the oppressor, but in wearing a constitutional crown, in holding the sword of justice with the hand of mercy, in being the first citizen of a country whose air is too pure for slavery to breathe, and on whose shores, if the captive’s foot but touch, his fetters of themselves fall off.  To the resistless progress of this great principle I look with a confidence which nothing can shake; it makes all improvement certain; it makes all change safe which it produces; for none can be brought about unless it has been prepared in a cautious and salutary spirit.

“So now the fulness of time is come for at length discharging our duty to the African captive.  I have demonstrated to you that everything is ordered—­every previous step taken—­all safe, by experience shown to be safe, for the long-desired consummation.  The time has come, the trial has been made, the hour is striking; you have no longer a pretext for hesitation, or faltering, or delay.  The slave has shown, by four years’ blameless behaviour, and devotion to the pursuits of peaceful industry, that he is as fit for his freedom as any English peasant, ay, or any lord whom I now address.

“I demand his rights; I demand his liberty without stint.  In the name of justice and of law—­in the name of reason—­in the name of God, who has given you no right to work injustice; I demand that your brother be no longer trampled upon as your slave!  I make my appeal to the Commons, who represent the free people of England; and I require at their hands the performance of that condition for which they paid so enormous a price—­that condition which all their constituents are in breathless anxiety to see fulfilled!  I appeal to this House.  Hereditary judges of the first tribunal in the world—­to you I appeal for justice.  Patrons of all the arts that humanise mankind—­under your protection I place humanity herself!  To the merciful Sovereign of a free people I call aloud for mercy to the hundreds of thousands for whom half a million of her Christian sisters have cried aloud—­I ask that their cry may not have risen in vain.  But first I turn my eye to the throne of all justice, and devoutly humbling myself before Him who is of purer eyes than to behold such vast iniquities, I implore that the curse