The new house that Jack built

"This version of 'The House that Jack Built' is a patriotic parable in which the bags of malt are free speech, free labor, free press, free schools, etc.; the rat is slavery, the cat is vigilance, the dog is secession, etc., etc. ... Free speech and a free press, by which this country is now supposed to be so peculiarly distinguished, were thus given to the enlightened freemen, whose votes, of course, could not be obtained by the generous handing out of political plums, which at that time was held to be bribery and corruption." --