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But a minority of seven from the slaveholding states controlled a majority of sixteen from the free states,--ominous even at that early day of a fate that has now relentlessly pursued us for sixty years.
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gutenberg.orgHorace Mann: “But a minority of seven from the slaveholding states controlled a majority of sixteen from the free states,--ominous…”
Editor's note · Context
Mann reflects on the early political dynamics that foreshadowed the ongoing conflict over slavery in America.
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Let me read to you the disparaging and contemptuous remark of the address on that great palladium of human liberty, the trial by jury.
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.
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.
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.
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