On the record
The law might just as well have made color conclusive, not only that the respondent was a slave, but that he ran away from the man who claims him.
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gutenberg.orgHorace Mann: “The law might just as well have made color conclusive, not only that the respondent was a slave, but that he ran away…”
Editor's note · Context
Mann argues against the idea that a person's skin color could serve as definitive proof of their status as a slave.
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More from Horace Mann
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…
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.
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.
Better be debarred from the privilege of voting at all, than to be mocked with the form, while cheated of the substance.
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