. . . the federal government represents the locomotive, and the seceding
states the cow in the following story:
When George Stephenson, the celebrated Scotch engineer, had
completed his model of a locomotive he presented himself before the British
Parliament, and asked the attention and support of that body. The grave M. P.’s looking sneeringly at his
invention asked
“”So you have made a carriage to run only by steam have you?”
“Yes my lords.”
“And you expect your carriage to run on parallel rails so
that it can’t go off do you?”
“Yes my lords.”
“Well, now, Mr. Stephenson, let us show you how absurd your
claim is. Suppose when your carriage is
running upon these rails at the rate of twenty or thirty miles per hour, if you’re
extravagant enough to even suppose such a thing possible, a cow should get [in]
its way. You can’t turn out for her –
what then?”
“Then ‘twill be bad for the cow, my lords.”
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye,
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 8, 1862, p. 2
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