Speech Of The Hon Horace Mann On The Fugitive Slave Law Delivered At Lancaster Mass May 19 1851

Author : Horace Mann
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9781330919026
Total Pages : 22 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (19 download)

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Download or read book Speech of Honorable Horace Mann written by Horace Mann and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Speech of Honorable Horace Mann: Delivered at Lancaster, May 19, 1851, on the Fugitive Slave Law We thought that Massachusetts was the impregnable citadel of freedom; but unconstitutional and inhuman laws, dictated by slaveholders, are now executed amongst us, and at our very doors; and the individual whom for thirty years this state had delighted to honor, now pollutes its air by cheering on the hunt of men. Thank God, there is a part of our people who, while they suffer, resist. Only a portion amongst us have reached that lowest depth of degradation, where they surrender, not their limbs only, but their wills, to the hateful service of their masters. Slavery has done its perfect work, only when the soul is enslaved. I rejoice to believe that we have not only seven thousand in this our Massachusetts Israel, who have not bowed the knee to Baal, but seven hundred thousand; and recent events foretell not only an increasing number, but a more determined spirit. Why is it, fellow citizens, that Massachusetts stands first, or among the first, in 1851, in her hostility to the Fugitive Slave Law? I answer, for the very reason that she stood first in her hostility to the encroachments of the British crown in 1776. And in less than seventy-five years from this time, those who oppose, and those who defend this inhuman law, will stand, historically, as wide asunder, and will share as high an honor, or suffer as deep an ignominy, as is now awarded to the lovers of Freedom and the minions of power at the era of the revolution. Let all Young Men beware not to be seduced by any temptations of immediate profit or mistaken honor, to lift a hand in defence of this law. If they do, then before they have lived out half their lives they will be as ready as old Cranmer to thrust the offending member into the flames, and to say with him, "this hand, this wicked hand, has offended." Gentlemen, we in Massachusetts are a Union-loving, and law-abiding people. Mr. Webster and his "retainers," may spare their breath in exhorting us to abide by the Union. Such a work in this Commonwealth, is a work of supererogation. He knows, and they know, that the number of disunionists in this State, can be counted on a man's fingers and toes. Whatever influence they exert, must flow from their zeal, their talents and their private character. - They derive none from numerical force. Were they all to settle in one of our small towns, they would be outvoted by its inhabitants. I regard these ever-repeated appeals made to Massachusetts men and to New England men to stand by the Union, as not merely obtrusive, but as affrontive and insulting. Besides, when a man undertakes the mission of going round the country, preaching honesty, or temperance or chastity, he provokes the inquiry whether he is more honest, temperate or continent than those whom he exhorts. If the union of these States now is, or has ever been verging towards a point of danger, it is solely and only because ambitious men and mercenary men at the North have given it that direction by recognizing Southern threats and bravadoes as realities, and thus encouraging them. Let the greatest coward sec that his threats are acknowledged as verities, and he will adopt the cheap mode of threatening, instead of the hazardous one of acting. Could the Chinese have frightened away the British fleet by their battery of wooden cannon, having the middle of the ends painted black for a muzzle, they would have been fools to incur the expense of brass or iron. But John Bull did not care whether the cannon were of wood or of metal, and at his first fire the Celestials scampered. But here, when a few men in a few States pointed their wooden guns at us, Mr. Webster, Gen. Cass and others, for their own ambitious purposes, cried out that the Union was in danger. I say, then, if the Union of these States ever has been in any proximity to danger, it was not from menaces uttered by the South, bu