On the record
Because, in the first place, I felt myself a moral and accountable being; and, as such, I could not do otherwise.
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gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Mann articulates his moral accountability as a reason for his actions against slavery.
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More from Horace Mann
Yet, by denying education to the slave, you destroy not merely the right, but the power, of personal examination in regard to all that most nearly concerns the soul’s interests.
The general system of slaveholding farmers and planters, in all times and places, has been, and now is, and ever will be, to cultivate much land, badly, for present gain,--in short, to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
No man of common sense, who has observed this result, can doubt for a moment that the system of free labor promotes the growth and prosperity of states in a much higher degree than the system of slave labor.
He that chooses to employ a sort of labor that yields only half as much to the hand as another sort would yield, makes a choice that is not only unprofitable, but deeply injurious to his interest.
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