Should the northern members of the House prove true to their constituencies and their pledges, they would never allow the territories to be organized without the proviso; and the fear of such a prohibition would exclude slavery from the territories, as certainly as the prohibition itself.
Mann expresses the belief that northern representatives must uphold their commitments to prevent slavery in new territories.
Share
More from Horace Mann
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…
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.
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.
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.
Other voices in this conversation
