Anti-slavery Electioneering

With all the talk about special interest group politics (damn that "Professional Left"!) it's worth pointing out that "special interests" have also contributed to some of the brighter moments in human history and that the dirty work of politics can achieve real accomplishments.

Take the poster below. As quick context: In 1832, after almost fifty years of campaigning the English anti-slavery movement was on the cusp of achieving the emancipation of all slaves in the English empire. While suffrage was very constricted in England, some people could vote, and professional anti-slavery organizations and citizen committees worked to elect pro-abolition candidates and punish those whose who stood in their way. This campaign also built on momentum caused by the so-called "Baptist War," a slave revolt in Jamaica which is widely seen as hastening emancipation by only further revealing the utter brutality of the slave owners and the instability of the slave system in the British Caribbean. Slavery would end in the empire two years later with the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 (a bill that was in many ways deeply flawed, but still a major step forward for human freedom).