Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/141

Rh he were still the hired man of Mr. Strikeandblow, and set to do blacksmithing. The President and Vice-President, the two-and-thirty Governors, the Judges, chief and puny, all the honourable members of Congress, three hundred of them, all the State legislators, about six thousand by my counting—these are all servants, operatives in that great national mill which is owned by Mr. American People, a respectable gentleman who is rather a new comer on this continent, though of pretty ancient family. He has some personal property, three million square miles of real estate, well fenced on the east and west by a natural ditch, pretty distinctly bounded on the north by the grounds of his father, old Mr. English People, a very respectable gentleman, and a rich, not to be meddled with in haste, a citizen of very eminent gravity. On the south the border line is not less clear, but more variable: there Mr. People abuts on his poor relations, whom he respects not because he fears not, and so he turns his cows into their pastures, and sends his naughty boys to rob their hen-roosts, and steal their water-melons, and commit manifold waste and damage. I say all these functionaries are but servants in the great mill where Mr. American People is trying to manufacture welfare. Ministers abroad are his bagmen, runners, drummers, and other factotums, whom he sends off on his public business. Generals and commanders, with epaulettes on their shoulders, and plumes in their bonnets, and red coats on their backs, and tinkling ornaments all about them, with their manifold subordinates, are only the sea and land police, to prowl about this great national mill, and see that no stranger comes to steal or kill. Let them wear their finery with what pride they may, and strut their hour, and talk big: he holds them all to strict account, and to the chiefest of them, every four years, says, “Depart thou hence: thou must be no longer steward. Give place to a more honourable man than thou.” In the State all this vicariousness is gone; office is a trust, not a right; the select man is a servant, the selecting people master. For personal conduct and reputation each man is amenable to the common humanity of all, for personal character amenable only to God. But each official operative in the national mill for conduct and character must answer not only to his God, but to the people, the mill-owner.