'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
In this tautly written account of one of the most dramatic moments in Benjamin Franklin's many-faceted life, there is enough to engage one's interest that a number of its imperfections can be overlooked.
Famed British abolitionist William Wilberforce began his profoundly influential political career when he was just 21. Four years later, already in position to gain great political power because of his close friendship with the young Prime Minister William Pitt, Wilberforce converted to Christianity and spent months agonizing over whether to retire from the political scene.
"So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the trade's wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition," he wrote. "Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition."
