Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/186

Rh would get the biggest brass dog-collar I could find and put it around my neck, and have my owner's name on it, in great, large letters, so that everybody might see whose dog was." In the individual States, I think there is not a single anti-Slavery government. I believe Vermont is the only State that has an anti-Slavery Supreme Court; and that is the only State which has not much concern in commerce or manufactures. It is a State of farmers.

For a long time the American Government has been controlled by Slavery. There is an old story told by the Hebrew rabbis, that before the flood there was an enormous giant, called Gog. After the flood had got into full tide of successful experiment, and everybody was drowned except those taken into the ark, Gog came striding along after Noah, feeling his way with a cane as long as a mast of the "Great Republic." The waters had only just come up to his girdle. It was then over the hill tops, and was still rising—raining night and day. The giant hailed the Patriarch. Noah put his head out of the window and said, "Who is there?" "It is I," said Gog. "Take us in; it is wet outside!" "No," said Noah, " you're too big; no room. Besides, you're a bad character. You would be a very dangerous passenger, and would make trouble in the ark; I shall not take you;" and he clapped to the window. "Go to thunder," said Gog: "I will ride after all;" and he strode after him, wading through the waters and keeping out of the deep holes, and mounting on the top of the ark, with one leg over the larboard and the other over the starboard side, steered it just as he pleased, and made it rough weather inside. Now, in making the Constitution, we did not care to take in Slavery in express terms. It looked ugly. So it got on the top astride, and it steers us just where it pleases.

The slave power controls the President, and fills all the offices. Out of the twelve elected Presidents, four have been from the North, and the last of them might just as well have been taken by lot at the South anywhere. Mr. Pierce, I just now said, was Texan in his latitude. His conscience is Texan ; only his cradle was New Hampshire. Of the nine Judges of the Supreme Court, five are from the slave States — the Chief Justice from the slave States. A