The paper supported abolition – but backed payment for enslavers, and criticised more radical campaigners. In the US civil war, the editors refused to support the north
As an avowedly liberal newspaper committed to economic and individual freedom, the Manchester Guardian condemned slavery and supported its abolition. But it also excused enslavers and supported payment to compensate them for their loss of human “property”.
“The most important object of the statesman”, the paper announced in an 1828 editorial summarising its ideology, was “whatever is calculated … to aid the creation of wealth”. The paper vocally backed the campaign against slavery in the British empire – going so far as to encourage readers to sign petitions to this effect. But its stance on the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act insisted on the “justice” of a £20m payment to enslavers – which would be worth billions today – as well as the requirement that enslaved Africans served additional years in bondage as apprentices to their erstwhile owners.
