Political Quotes

Horace Mann: “However much a man may reverence the constitution, though he may make it an idol and worship it, yet I mean to show him…”

On the record
However much a man may reverence the constitution, though he may make it an idol and worship it, yet I mean to show him that this law is an unholy thing in its presence.
Said by
Horace Mann
Free Soil · Massachusetts

Editor's note · Context

Mann asserts that even deep reverence for the constitution cannot justify the existence of an immoral law.

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These are but specimens of what the Fugitive Slave law has already done, before the public mind has become familiarized with its brutalities, and while there is yet some sensibility to the claims of justice and mercy left among us.

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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…

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