A million and a half are left; five hundred thousand of these will have attachments to their own parents or children, or to their masters, too strong to be broken; or they may be so degraded as to be contented with bondage; for their contentment is always one of the measures of their degradation.
Mann discusses the challenges faced by enslaved individuals in escaping due to familial ties and contentment with bondage.
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Has the fact never yet come to the knowledge of the magistrates of the District of Columbia, that the constitution of the United States declares that “excessive bail shall not be required”?
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.
But the impious hand of man divorces these twin capacities, wherever it denies knowledge.
Cast it off, West Virginians, whilst yet you have the power; for if you let it descend unbroken to your children, it will have grown to a mountain of misery upon their heads.
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