On the record
You could abolish slavery there if you would; you do not; and therefore the sin of its continuance is yours, as much as if it existed in New York or Massachusetts.
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gutenberg.orgHorace Mann: “You could abolish slavery there if you would; you do not; and therefore the sin of its continuance is yours, as much as…”
Editor's note · Context
Mann challenges the North's inaction on slavery in the District of Columbia, claiming shared guilt for its existence.
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More from Horace Mann
A southern slave stands higher, politically, than a northern laborer, if the latter must vote as his employer dictates.
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.
The man of independent circumstances has this liberty; and no man’s circumstances, not even the poorest and the humblest, should be so dependent as to take it away.
Why, fellow-citizens, the ballot is worse than useless, if it be not FREE!
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