all very well, but slavery for god sake..........

isn't it all a bit like these people who say Saddam Hussein would have fallen anyway. Hitler could have been stopped from getting to power in the first place.

the trouble is that in there are some real villains and they don't give up power easily, and they are clever and cunning and resourceful - and you can wait for them to die, like Stalin - but they ruin a lot of lives while you're waiting. another 60 years of slavery?....... some people made it as free men in that time, and started to set examples that others could aspire to, and generally kick start civilisation.

sometimes you just have to oppose evil, confront it. Not all the people fighting in the devil's cohorts will be evil, and that's a damned pity.

some people saw the fight against slavery as just such a cause. and if you'd been a slave, I think that's exactly how it would have felt.