Political Quotes

On the record
So that, as the value of a slave increases, the strength of the tenure by which he is held becomes less secure.
Said by
Horace Mann
Free Soil · Massachusetts

Editor's note · Context

Mann argues that as the value of enslaved individuals increases, their desire for freedom makes their bondage less secure, highlighting the paradox of slavery.

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Even cold, barren New England, though more than twice as thickly peopled, grew in population at a faster rate than these old slave states.

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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.

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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.

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They cannot do otherwise with laborers who work by compulsion, for the benefit only of their masters, and whose sole interest in the matter is to do as little and to consume as much as possible.

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