On the record
And think you that this is the country, and this the age, in which the republican maxim that the MAJORITY must govern, can be long and barbarously reversed?
Said by
Lewis Tappan
Source
gutenberg.orgLewis Tappan: “And think you that this is the country, and this the age, in which the republican maxim that the MAJORITY must govern…”
Editor's note · Context
Tappan questions the sustainability of a system where the majority is oppressed, emphasizing the importance of majority rule.
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More from Lewis Tappan
Statesmen may differ about policy, or the means to be employed in the promotion of the public good, but surely they ought to be agreed as to what prosperity means.
Cotton is the product of slave labor, and its profits at home are confined almost exclusively to the slaveholders.
In a community so unenlightened as yours, it is a matter of course, that the arts and sciences must languish, and the industry and enterprise of the country be oppressed by a general torpor.
Slavery is maintained by you whom it impoverishes and degrades, not by those upon whom it confers wealth and influence.