Eighteen Years of Defeat

In May 1789, a young William Wilberforce rose in the House of Commons and delivered a three-hour speech against the British slave trade. His evidence was devastating. His moral argument, unassailable. Parliament voted him down anyway. He tried again the next year. And the next. The slave merchants of Liverpool celebrated each defeat from their mahogany-paneled offices, their fortunes swelling with every ship that crossed the Atlantic.…