On the record
It may be impolitic, unrighteous, atrocious; but if it be constitutional they must sustain it.
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gutenberg.orgHorace Mann: “It may be impolitic, unrighteous, atrocious; but if it be constitutional they must sustain it.”
Editor's note · Context
Mann argues that courts must uphold laws even if they are deemed immoral, as long as they are constitutional.
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More from Horace Mann
The man of independent circumstances has this liberty; and no man’s circumstances, not even the poorest and the humblest, should be so dependent as to take it away.
The kidnapper, Alberti, now lies in a Pennsylvania prison for carrying away a mother and her child; but the mother and the child are now groaning under the lash of a southern taskmaster.
Better be debarred from the privilege of voting at all, than to be mocked with the form, while cheated of the substance.
My instincts, reason, judgment, conscience, may all mislead; but from the first time, now years ago, when I heard this subject broached, my instincts, reason, judgment, conscience, have all been in its favor.
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