But instead of the sounder parts diffusing healthful influences, and gradually eradicating the disease, the diseased parts have shot their infection through all the veins and organs of the body politic, until, from the heart to the extremities, there is not now to be found an uncontaminated spot.
Mann uses a metaphor to describe how the spread of slavery has infected the entire political system of the United States.
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The north comes to the south, cuts their timber, carries it home, manufactures it, and then brings it back, wrought into a hundred different forms, to be sold to those who would see it rot before their eyes.
Mere knowledge, without the moral sense, can take no cognizance of the everlasting distinctions between right and wrong; and so the blind instinct, unguided by knowledge, will be forever at fault in its conclusions.
Here the two systems have worked side by side for ages, under such equal circumstances, both political and physical, and with such ample time and opportunity for each to work out its proper effects, that all must admit the experiment to be…
The dearest and most precious of all human rights is the right of private judgment in matters of religion.
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