two essential points: (1) condemnation of despotic political power and the demand for self-government by civil society in the name of liberty and the rule of law; (2) assertion of the principle of the inadmissibility and ‘uselessness of slavery among ourselves’, or of the principle on whose basis England—and, prospectively, Europe—possessed ‘too pure’ an air to be able to tolerate the presence of slaves on its ‘soil’.
