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.orgHorace Mann: “Just so, because human tribunals cannot know with certainty who is a slave and who is free, the constitution gives the…”
Editor'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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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.
The liberty of voting includes all other liberties.
Let me read to you the disparaging and contemptuous remark of the address on that great palladium of human liberty, the trial by jury.
These are but specimens of what the Fugitive Slave law has already done, before the public mind has become familiarized with its brutalities, and while there is yet some sensibility to the claims of justice and mercy left among us.
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