On the record
This was certainly a most novel mode of erecting and commissioning a Court of judicature, with the power of life and death, expressly authorized to act independently of "the laws of the land.
Said by
Lewis Tappan
Source
gutenberg.orgLewis Tappan: “This was certainly a most novel mode of erecting and commissioning a Court of judicature, with the power of life and…”
Editor's note · Context
Tappan comments on the unusual and extralegal nature of a court established by slaveholders to enforce their will.
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Slavery is maintained by you whom it impoverishes and degrades, not by those upon whom it confers wealth and influence.
The slaveholders form a powerful landed aristocracy, banded together for the preservation of their own privileges, and ever endeavoring, for obvious reasons, to identify their private interests with the public welfare.
There is not a State or Territory in the Union in which you, fellow-citizens, have not an overwhelming majority over the slaveholders; and the majority is probably the greatest in those in which the slaves are the most numerous, because in…
Or the People--for they will be THE PEOPLE--may resolve to be free, and you and all you hold dear may be sacrificed in the contest.