If any state in this Union had adopted polygamy as its peculiar institution, could an inhabitant of that state take a dozen wives with him into the new territories, and defend his claim to live with them there, because he could do so at home?
Mann poses a hypothetical scenario to illustrate the absurdity of carrying polygamy into new territories, paralleling it with the issue of slavery.
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The wickedest white man, in a company of slaves, bears a charmed life.
Old Virginia was the first to sow this land of ours with slavery; she is also the first to reap the full harvest of destruction.
Behind these forty-one indictments for stealing stand drawn up, in battle array, against this same prisoner, seventy-four other indictments for transporting the very slaves whom he is charged to have stolen.
Did the law ever contemplate so cruel and revengeful a proceeding?
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