SPEECH OF HORACE MANN, OF MASSACHUSETTS, ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES, AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF A DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION. DELIVERED IN THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 15, 1850.

[Mann, Horace]:

Edité par Boston: Redding and Company, 1850.

A propos de cet article

Boston edition of a speech by Horace Mann before the United States House of Representatives in which Mann declares his opposition to the extension of slavery in the territories. Horace Mann (1796-1859) was an education reformer, politician, and abolitionist from Massachusetts. In 1848, following the death of John Quincy Adams, Mann was elected to the U.S. House to serve out the remainder of Adams's term. For more than a decade, Mann had fought for education reform as secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, and he hoped his seat in Congress would give him the opportunity to bring about reform at the national level. Instead, however, Mann found himself preoccupied with what was perhaps the most pressing political issue of the day: slavery and its extension in the territories. This is the subject of the present speech, given on the floor of the House of Representatives on February 15, 1850. In it Mann states his opposition to slavery and its extension on moral and legal grounds. Embracing "[t]he epithet 'Free-Soiler,'" Mann insists that he "will engage in any honorable measure most likely to secure freedom to the new Territories" and "resist any and every measure that proposes to abandon them to slavery." Mann goes on to adopt the rallying cry, "No more slave Territories, no more slave States." Given the South's ultimatum of extension or secession, Mann closes with what turned out to be his most forceful and most controversial statement: "In conclusion, I have only to add, that such is my solemn and abiding conviction of the character of slavery, that under a full sense of my responsibility to my country and my God, I deliberately say, better disunion, - better a civil or a servile war, - better any thing that God in his providence shall send, than an extension of the bounds of slavery." Much to Mann's disappointment, later that year saw the passage of the Compromise of 1850, which not only failed to prohibit slavery's extension in the territories, but worse still, Mann thought, included the Fugitive Slave Act, which required the return of escaped slaves to their owners while denying them the rights of habeas corpus and a trial by jury. Mann's outspoken opposition to the act, as well as his criticism of fellow Whig Daniel Webster, who helped broker the compromise, cost Mann the party's nomination for his congressional seat in 1850. However, in a turn of events that in retrospect made his comments from the previous February about being a "Free-Soiler" seem prophetic, Mann managed to secure the Free Soil nomination before going on to win reelection by a landslide. This copy bears the bookplate of Walter L. Pforzheimer (1914-2003), a lawyer, intelligence officer, and book collector. Pforzheimer was one of the founders of the Central Intelligence Agency, having served as an Army Air Force intelligence officer and worked on a number of operations for the Office of Strategic Services - the forerunner to the C.I.A. - during World War II. Among these was an operation called the "Yale Library Project," a mission for which Pforzheimer, as a member of the Yale Library Associates, used his role as a cover to launder money for the O.S.S. In 1956, Pforzheimer founded the C.I.A.'s Historical Intelligence Collection and went on to serve as the collection's first curator. The rear wrapper of this Boston edition notes other speeches on slavery published by Redding and Company, including by Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and William Seward. Another edition of Mann's speech appeared the same year in Washington, D.C., and the speech was reprinted the following year as part of a collection of Mann's speeches on the subject. A powerful speech attacking slavery from one of the most contentious legislative sessions in the history of the United States Congress. LIBRARY COMPANY, AFRO-AMERICANA 6323. DUMOND, p.77. ANB 14, pp.424-27. Ernest Cassara, "Reformer as Politician: Horace Mann and the Anti-Slavery Struggle in Congress, 1848 1853".

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: SPEECH OF HORACE MANN, OF MASSACHUSETTS, ON THE SUBJECT OF SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES, AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF A DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION. DELIVERED IN THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 15, 1850.
• Éditeur: Boston: Redding and Company, 1850.