ABSTRACT
By the time the emancipation debates of 1823–4 began, Thomas Clarkson had already made his mark as a tireless supporter of antislavery legislation using his political influence and his writing. He was author of An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (1786) and An Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade (1788). Although he helped bring about the abolition of the trade, his goal had always been the emancipation of slaves. His influential two-volume work, A History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament in 1808 ends with this quotation: ‘Who knows but that emancipation, like a beautiful plant, may, in its due season, rise out of the ashes of the abolition of the Slave-trade’ (vol. 2, p. 586).
