If the south expects to rid itself of agitation and abolitionism by rupturing its bonds with the north and substituting an alliance with Great Britain for our present constitution, they may envy the wisdom of the geese who invited the fox to stand sentinel over them while they slept.
Mann critiques the idea of the South aligning with Britain as a solution to its problems, using a metaphor about geese and a fox.
Share
More from Horace Mann
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.
But such largesses to slavery as kings could not afford to give, and the robbery of an entire race of all its rights,--yes, and with authority, too, to make us help commit the robbery,--these are “factitious and imaginary” causes of…
Men of Massachusetts! moral and religious men! lovers of freedom and of your country, were you prepared for this?
Other voices in this conversation
