On the record
Just so, because human tribunals cannot know with certainty who is a slave and who is free, the constitution gives the trial by jury, before any man in a free state shall be deprived of his freedom.
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gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Mann asserts that the trial by jury is essential to determine freedom, as the law cannot definitively identify who is a slave.
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Her lowland neighbors of Maryland and the Carolinas were not far behind at the seeding; nor are they far behind at the ingathering of desolation.
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Behind these forty-one indictments for stealing stand drawn up, in battle array, against this same prisoner, seventy-four other indictments for transporting the very slaves whom he is charged to have stolen.
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