Without the Ordinance, the Revolution itself, in its application to that territory, and the treaty of 1783, by which its ample domain was secured to the Union, would have been shorn of their glory, and robbed of their value.
Mann argues that the Ordinance was crucial for preserving the integrity and significance of the American Revolution and its territorial gains.
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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.
I answer, that this difference which they so be-little and disparage will often be all the difference between freedom and bondage, between life and death, between honor and infamy, between happiness and perdition.
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.
But such largesses to slavery as kings could not afford to give, and the robbery of an entire race of all its rights,--yes, and with authority, too, to make us help commit the robbery,--these are “factitious and imaginary” causes of…
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