"Abolition would have come faster without independence" DM
Matthews wants, retrospectively, to see slavery ended early, historically. That is one of his biggies. That is one big goal of his liberal Whig analysis.
My view is that the anti slavery movements, were only one part of dumb and dumber Western liberalism, the kind of liberalism that ultimately is now destroying the West as a civilization, and has long since destroyed the British Empire as its strongest power.
The British rammed the anti slavery issue up their Great Power adversaries' asses, when it suited them, either domestically or in foreign policy. Their merchant marine could always quietly continue to run slaves on the side, while liberal members wrung their hands in Parliament for the benefit of their liberal mostly women abolitionist advocates.
Britain had inherited dominance of the trade from France after the Seven Years War. And of course, Britain's and America's enormous cotton industries were completely dependent on American cotton plantation slavery, so anti slavery initiatives were shooting each of them in the foot.
The colonial allies were some of the same European adversaries who had piled on against Britain when the colonies had rebelled. The Colonies had been defended by Britain in the Seven Years War, just a few years before they then rebelled!
The very last thing these Great Power colonial had wanted was equality or liberty either in America or back in Europe: what they had wanted was to gain an advantage against their old enemy, the enemy which had just defeated them in the Seven Years War and had taken over the world (including the slave trade).
Whether slavery was ended fast, slow, or never, anywhere, is not the important point. Matthews started out missing the more important issues leading to his true statement about the American Rebellion.
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