Slavery: letters and speeches

BY HORACE MANN, THE FIRST SECRETARY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BOARD OF EDUCATION.
BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY B. B. MUSSEY & CO. 1851.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by Horace Mann, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.
TO THE YOUNG MEN OF MASSACHUSETTS THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY Dedicated BY THE AUTHOR.
This work comes from one in whose mind present Memories are taking the place of early Hopes. It is specially addressed to those in whose minds future Memories will soon take the place of present Hopes. Hence a fitting occasion presents itself for the statement of a few principles, by whose unerring guidance the exulting Hopes of Youth may always be transformed into the happy Memories of Age.
The Youth of all climes and times have a common attribute. The desire of happiness is a universal desire. God fixes this element in the core of life. Far back in our moral organization, before human conduct can come in to control or modify, this longing for happiness, this hope of future welfare, is radicated in the soul; so that it seems to have been the first attribute which was taken for the constitution of our nature, and around which the other attributes were gathered, rather to have been added to the rest as a secondary or incident. The desire of some form of happiness being secured, as a motive power, it seems to have been left very much to the option of each individual to select his own objects of enjoyment, whether noble or ignoble, and to devise his own means for obtaining them, whether righteous or unrighteous.
The emulous and aspiring youth of a Free People will always find much of their private, and most of their public welfare, indissolubly connected with the institutions and laws of their country. In these, therefore, their interest is both public and personal;—it pertains to the citizen as well as to the man. All great moral questions, though touching them but lightly at first, will come closer and closer home, as long as they live;—growing into greater importance for their posthumous memory than for their living fame, and affecting the fortunes of their posterity even more than their own.