All the arguments which I have ever heard, or seen, on this point, gratuitously assume, that the persons reclaimed and transported will have an honest master, be surrounded by kind friends, and have a lawyer at hand whom they can consult with every day, and money in their pockets to fee him.
Mann critiques the naive assumptions made about the conditions faced by those who are reclaimed and transported, emphasizing the harsh realities of their situation.
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Men of Massachusetts! moral and religious men! lovers of freedom and of your country, were you prepared for this?
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.
But such largesses to slavery as kings could not afford to give, and the robbery of an entire race of all its rights,--yes, and with authority, too, to make us help commit the robbery,--these are “factitious and imaginary” causes of…
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.
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