On the record
The “least” do not “feel its care,” but tremble and wail beneath its cruelty; while the “greatest” and the strongest are “exempt from its power;” for they made it not for themselves but for others.
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gutenberg.orgHorace Mann: “The “least” do not “feel its care,” but tremble and wail beneath its cruelty; while the “greatest” and the strongest are…”
Editor's note · Context
Mann highlights the disparity in how the law affects different classes, emphasizing its cruelty towards the vulnerable.
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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.
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.
A southern slave stands higher, politically, than a northern laborer, if the latter must vote as his employer dictates.
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.
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