Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/177

SUMNER Nay, the proceedings I now arraign derive their fearful consequences only from this connection. In now opening this great matter, I am not insensible to the austere demands of the occa- sion; but the dependence of the crime against Kansas upon the slave power is so peculiar and important, that I trust to be pardoned while I impress it with an illustration which to some may seem trivial. It is related in Northern mythology that the god of Force, visiting an enchanted region, was challenged by his royal entertainer to what seemed a humble feat of strength — ^merely, sir, to lift a cat from the ground. The god smiled at the challenge, and calmly placing his hand under the belly of the animal with superhuman strength strove, while the back of the feline monster arched far up- ward, even beyond reach, and one paw actually forsook the earth, until at last the discomfited di- vinity desisted ; but he was little surprised at his defeat when he learned that this creature, which seemed to be a cat and nothing m.ore, was not merely a cat, but that it belonged to and was a part of the great Terrestrial Serpent, which, in its innumerable folds, encircled the whole globe. Even so the creature whose paws are now fastened upon Kansas, whatever it may seem to be, constitutes in reality a part of the slave power which, in its loathsome folds, is now coiled about the whole land. Thus do I expose the extent of the present contest, where we encounter not merely local resistance, but 167