Through the charity of
an estimable man, the eminent Abolitionist, Granville Sharp, he was
restored to health, when his unfeeling and avaricious master again
claimed him as bondman. The claim was repelled. After elaborate and
protracted discussion in Westminster Hall, marked by rarest learning
and ability, Lord Mansfield, with discreditable reluctance, sullying
his great judicial name, but in trembling obedience to the genius of the
British Constitution, pronounced a decree which made the early boast a
practical verity, and rendered Slavery forever impossible in England.
More than fourteen thousand persons, at that time held as slaves, and
breathing English air,--four times as many as are now found in this
national metropolis,--stepped forth in the happiness and dignity of free
men.
With this guiding example I cannot despair. The time will yet come when
the boast of our fathers will be made a practical verity also, and
Court or Congress, in the spirit of this British judgment, will proudly
declare that nowhere under the Constitution can man hold property in
man.
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