"North Star" Office,
Rochester March 22^d 1850.
Hon: Horace MannMann, Horace

Noted American education reformer Horace Mann (1796-1859) was the youngest son of a yeoman farmer from Franklin, Massachusetts. Admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1823, Mann practiced law in Dedham and Boston until 1833 and was elected to the Massachusetts General Court (1827-33). From 1833 to 1837 he served in the state senate, advocating state care for the insane and manifest-ing an interest in educational reform. As secretary (1837-48) of the first state Board of Education and as editor (1838-48) of his semimonthly Common School Journal, Mann promoted a tax-supported system of public school education, seeing a nonsectarian common school education as an economic leveler and the foundation of democratic government. In 1848 Mann succeeded John Quincy Adams as Whig representative for Massachusetts's eighth congressional district, and two years later he was reelected as a Free Soiler. In the U.S. Congress, Mann was an outspoken opponent of the extension of slavery in the territories and thus opposed the 1850 compromise measures. During the last years of his life, Mann acted as the first president (1852-59) of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Horace Mann, Slavery: Letters and Speeches (Boston, 1853), 225, 324; Jonathan Miserly, Horace Mann: A Biography (New York, 1972); Ernest Cassara, "Reformer as Politician: Horace Mann and the Anti-Slavery Struggle in Congress, 1848-1853," Journal of American Studies, 5:247-63 (December 1971); Larry Gara, "Horace Mann: Antislavery Congressman," The Historian, 32:19-33 (November 1969);ACAB, 4:190-91; NCAB, 3:78-79; DAB, 12:240-43. :—Allow a fugitive from Slavery to thank you for the kind letter, which you were pleased to send him, a few days since, and for the kind words, you were pleased to say of the "Star." My views on the Constitution and union (which you think erronious) do, in no degree, lessen the gratitude with which I contemplate your noble labors. The circular—was sent to you without my knowledge—I mention, this as an apology for addressing you at all—and to assure you of my unwillingness in any way, to tresspass upon your valuable and closely occupied time.
With Sincere respect and Gratitude—
Frederick Douglass