On the record
Why, sir, there is not a respectable village in the country, where, if a juggler or mountebank were to attempt to palm off upon his audience so flimsy a trick as this, he would not be hissed from the stage.
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Mann uses a theatrical metaphor to criticize the acceptance of flimsy justifications for slavery, suggesting that such arguments would be ridiculed in any respectable setting.
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