Yet the
agitation of this subject, whether for good or evil, in the United
States, is intimately connected with the whole movement in England. In
the earlier stages of the measures directed against the trade, a hearty
response was awakened here; nor could the subsequent act of emancipation
fail to produce an impression everywhere, and most of all among
ourselves. United to the English nation by strong affinities, one with
them in language and literature, yet cleaving still to the institution
which England had so energetically striven to destroy, could it be
otherwise than that such a movement on her part should awaken an eager
interest among us? Could such an event as the release from slavery
of eight hundred thousand negroes in the British Colonies pass by
unnoticed? To suppose this is preposterous. It is not too much to say,
that the effect of British emancipation was, at the time it took place,
to give in certain portions of the United States an increased degree of
life to the anti-slavery sentiment. No words could have been uttered,
which, reaching the shores of America, would have been half so emphatic
as this one act of the British nation.
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