In 1834 slavery was abolished throughout the British dominions.
The earnest labors of the Abolitionists, Clarkson, Wilberforce,
Macaulay, and others, had secured the abolition of the slave
trade thirty years before (1807), but the united opposition of
the colonial planters to a reform which would deprive them of the
services of their chattel laborers postponed the consummation of
the humanitarian measure. The reformed Parliament proved less
sensitive to the planters' arguments. It destroyed the system
forever, making a cash compensation to the owners.
A third question, on which Earl Grey's ministry took high moral
ground, was a redress of another of the ancient wrongs of
Ireland. The Church of England was by law established in that
most distressful country, and the people, though mostly Roman
Catholics, were under the necessity of paying tithes for the
support of a church which they detested, and which indeed, in a
large part of the island, had no existence except for purposes of
taxation. The Irish protest, as has often been the case, took the
form of violence and outrage, the so-called "Tithe War," which
postponed rather than hastened the redress of their grievance.
But in 1835 the ministry of Lord Melbourne relieved the peasants
of this part of their many burdens.