On a subject of vast importance and gravity,--a subject reflected from every feature of this case,--I was born, and from my birth have been trained up, in one set of ideas; and I mean no discourtesy when I say that you have been born and trained in another set of ideas.
Horace Mann: “On a subject of vast importance and gravity,--a subject reflected from every feature of this case,--I was born, and from…”
On the record
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Mann discusses how his upbringing and beliefs differ from those of his audience, indicating a fundamental divide in perspectives.
Share
More from Horace Mann
A southern slave stands higher, politically, than a northern laborer, if the latter must vote as his employer dictates.
Why, fellow-citizens, the ballot is worse than useless, if it be not FREE!
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.
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.





