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 commit against him.
Horace Mann: “And yet, infinitely flagrant as the anomaly is, the slave is amenable to the laws of the land for all offences which he…”
Editor's note · Context
This statement highlights the paradox of slave law, where slaves are punished for crimes but cannot defend themselves against others' crimes.
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These are but specimens of what the Fugitive Slave law has already done, before the public mind has become familiarized with its brutalities, and while there is yet some sensibility to the claims of justice and mercy left among us.
A southern slave stands higher, politically, than a northern laborer, if the latter must vote as his employer dictates.
Better be debarred from the privilege of voting at all, than to be mocked with the form, while cheated of the substance.
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.





