Yes, British people were prepared to pay to abolish slavery. They weren’t just against it in the abstract; they wanted to make a personal contribution to hasten the end of the foul business. The debt was only recently paid off. Surely a cause for pride rather than shame. #BBCQT
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Replying to @DanielJHannan
Surely grubby and regrettable if it was pragmatically necessary. It's a lot of money for the slave-owners
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Replying to @sundersays
And what was the alternative? To carry on with years, maybe decades, more of the horror?
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Replying to @DanielJHannan
If it was pragmatically necessary, I can accept the grubby compromise. But it can't be a source of pride that the money was paid, since it accepts the case that the human beings were property, so had to accept the principle/legitimacy of slavery to bring it to an end.
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Replying to @JamesSpivey1 @DanielJHannan
Question here was not whether to do it. But whether to take pride in it. "The abolitionists agonised over it" David Olusoga has written, on exactly this point about slavery and property. So this was a c19th view as well.
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Replying to @sundersays @JamesSpivey1
Very true. My point is that the willingness of taxpayers to make a substantial contribution shows that support for abolition was not just lip service. People really meant it. At a time when slavery was widespread across the world, that should indeed be a source of pride.
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Replying to @DanielJHannan @JamesSpivey1
Ok. In the sense of being willing to pay a price. But it's a big share of GDP for slave owners and not for slaves
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By giving the sums of money to the West indies plantation owners, they could pay (if not a living wage) for those former slaves to work as apprentices, and so still have an income to buy food and survive, rather than unemployed and die. Slavery should not have happened either way
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OR YOU COULD HAVE GIVEN THE MONEY TO THE FORMER SLAVES
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