Would a wretch, vile enough to rob a man of his liberty, carry him five hundred or a thousand miles, and then go to a shire town during a session of the court, and give his pretended slave a purse of money with which to fee a lawyer for investigating his right to freedom?
Mann critiques the moral implications of slavery and the legal system that supports it.
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The institution of slavery is against natural right.
This is the reciprocity of slave law.--to be forever liable to be proved guilty, but never able to prove himself innocent; to be subject to all punishments, but, through his own oath, to no protection.
Her lowland neighbors of Maryland and the Carolinas were not far behind at the seeding; nor are they far behind at the ingathering of desolation.
And yet, infinitely flagrant as the anomaly is, the slave is amenable to the laws of the land for all offences which he may commit against others, though he is powerless to protect himself by the same law from offences which others may…
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