Source: CCTV.com
03-28-2009 17:49
Meanwhile, on the Tibetan plateau, the serf-owners, in their closed environment, could not see the beauty of the outside world. So there was no movement for change.
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Tibet's unique situation meant the conditions did not exist for revolution. An external force would be needed, to provide the impetus.
In Washington, the U.S. capital, opposite the Washington Monument, stands the Lincoln Memorial. It commemorates Abraham Lincoln, who is widely acclaimed as the man who freed the slaves.
There was a time when the white-owned plantations of the American south were covered with black slaves trafficked from Africa. This was an obvious violation of the statement in the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal.
The American Civil War broke out in 1861. The armies of the north, fighting under the anti-slavery banner, triumphed, and President Lincoln declared the abolition of slavery. Thus, America's black slaves gained their freedom.
The American Civil War was the climax of a worldwide Abolition Movement. Since the beginning of the 19th century, other countries had, one by one, been outlawing slavery, as a violation of human dignity.
The British government banned the slave trade in 1807, and outlawed slavery in 1833.
The French government outlawed slavery and the slave trade in 1848.
In Prussia, the government passed the "October Edict" in 1807, which broke the relations of ownership between master and serf.
In 1861, the Russian government adopted the "Emancipation Manifesto", by which the country's serfs gained their freedom.
