On the record
It is better that animadversion should be wrong than that it should not be free.
Source
gutenberg.orgHorace Mann: “It is better that animadversion should be wrong than that it should not be free.”
Editor's note · Context
Mann argues that it is preferable to allow free expression, even if it leads to incorrect conclusions, rather than to suppress it.
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More from Horace Mann
Let me read to you the disparaging and contemptuous remark of the address on that great palladium of human liberty, the trial by jury.
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.
A southern slave stands higher, politically, than a northern laborer, if the latter must vote as his employer dictates.
Why, fellow-citizens, the ballot is worse than useless, if it be not FREE!
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