A History of Slavery and its Abolition/Section 14
SECT. XIV.—HISTORY OF THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.
With inexpressible pleasure we turn to this more delightful page of the subject, and though we have yet many weary steps to travel before we reach the goal, they will, we trust, be pursued with interest and enlivened by expectation.
"The name of the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance; but the name of the wicked shall not." In accordance with these established axioms of sacred truth, as far as our little influence is concerned, we have suffered the names of the perpetrators of particular instances of cruelty and oppression to sink in silence and oblivion; but we will endeavour to collect at least the names of those who have distinguished themselves as the advocates of suffering humanity, and whose names ought to pass with honour down the stream of time. Wherever the record of their deeds shall reach, those who come after them shall praise God that ever they lived, that they were stirred up to sanction and uphold the righteous cause, and that at length success was granted to crown their persevering efforts. For the sake of clearness, these worthies will be divided into three classes. Those who expressed liberal sentiments, or in any way opposed the oppression of the negroes, before any systematic efforts were made in their behalf; those who avowedly aimed at the abolition of the slave-trade, with the measures they adopted, by which it was accomplished; and those who have been instrumental in effecting the abolition of slavery itself.