The colonists averred with perfect truth that they did not commence this
fatal traffic, but that it was imposed upon them from without.
Nevertheless, all too soon did they lay aside scruples against it and
hasten to share its material benefits. Even those who braved the rough
Atlantic for the highest moral motives fell early victims to the
allurements of this system. Thus, throughout colonial history, in spite
of many honest attempts to stop the further pursuit of the slave-trade,
we notice back of nearly all such attempts a certain moral apathy, an
indisposition to attack the evil with the sharp weapons which its nature
demanded. Consequently, there developed steadily, irresistibly, a vast
social problem, which required two centuries and a half for a nation of
trained European stock and boasted moral fibre to solve.
93. ~The Moral Movement.~ For the solution of this problem there were,
roughly speaking, three classes of efforts made during this
time,--moral, political, and economic: that is to say, efforts which
sought directly to raise the moral standard of the nation; efforts which
sought to stop the trade by legal enactment; efforts which sought to
neutralize the economic advantages of the slave-trade. There is always a
certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil
simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized
in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral
weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called
for.
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