Webster’s comment is, that this case, “if it have any analogy to the matter,” means, that if a man’s horse “stray into his neighbor’s field, he cannot lead him back without a previous trial by jury to ascertain the right.” Was ever the plain meaning of a sentence more exactly changed about, end for end?
Mann critiques Webster's misinterpretation of a legal analogy, highlighting the importance of precise language.
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Men of Massachusetts! moral and religious men! lovers of freedom and of your country, were you prepared for this?
Better be debarred from the privilege of voting at all, than to be mocked with the form, while cheated of the substance.
Let me read to you the disparaging and contemptuous remark of the address on that great palladium of human liberty, the trial by jury.
A southern slave stands higher, politically, than a northern laborer, if the latter must vote as his employer dictates.
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