On the record
All such punishments not only nourish the love of freedom, but breed the purpose of revenge; and it is a kind of lesson which a brutalized nature is always prone to retaliate with improvements.
Source
gutenberg.orgHorace Mann: “All such punishments not only nourish the love of freedom, but breed the purpose of revenge; and it is a kind of lesson…”
Editor's note · Context
Mann argues that harsh punishments not only fail to deter the desire for freedom but can also incite a desire for revenge.
Share
More from Horace Mann
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.
The man of independent circumstances has this liberty; and no man’s circumstances, not even the poorest and the humblest, should be so dependent as to take it away.
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…
A southern slave stands higher, politically, than a northern laborer, if the latter must vote as his employer dictates.
Other voices in this conversation
