Political Quotes

On the record
As for any arrogant or supercilious dictum, either that the law is constitutional or that it is not constitutional, unaccompanied by any reason or any reference, all reflecting men must regard it as sheer insolence, come from what quarter it may.
Said by
Horace Mann
Free Soil · Massachusetts

Editor's note · Context

Mann criticizes unsupported claims about the constitutionality of laws as arrogant and lacking substance.

Share

More from Horace Mann

Slavery is an unspeakable wrong to the conscience.

gutenberg.org

So far as legal rights against his oppressors are concerned, the slave lives in such a world of darkness.

gutenberg.org

The general system of slaveholding farmers and planters, in all times and places, has been, and now is, and ever will be, to cultivate much land, badly, for present gain,--in short, to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

gutenberg.org

And yet, infinitely flagrant as the anomaly is, the slave is amenable to the laws of the land for all offences which he may commit against others, though he is powerless to protect himself by the same law from offences which others may…

gutenberg.org

Other voices in this conversation