On the record
It is proposed not to break old fetters and cast them away, but to forge new ones and rivet them on.
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gutenberg.orgHorace Mann: “It is proposed not to break old fetters and cast them away, but to forge new ones and rivet them on.”
Editor's note · Context
In this statement, Mann critiques the proposal to impose new restrictions on freedom rather than liberate individuals.
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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.
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.
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.
Men of Massachusetts! moral and religious men! lovers of freedom and of your country, were you prepared for this?
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