Minnesota weekly times. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1854-1859, 1855-01-02

number Of those, who, in their extreme liberality
and nationalism, love to prefer every other state
to that which gave them birth who, natives Of N.
England, delight to tell Of former residence in
South Carolina or Alabama, and to hail from
thence, or born in Ohio, claim q Kentucky birth
right in their administration Of the &c chivalry"
of others, sinking their own manhood, No; am
pround to acknowledge myself citizen Of Maine,
no mean State. And, sir, at this hour, when we
meet, not merely as citizens of Minnesota, but as
once belonging to that beloved New England
which gave us birth, we may surely be pardoned
some feeling of pride in the States which several
ly claim us as their sons and neutrality-suspicious.
expressions, which, in any but a Yankee might be
deemed boastfu. ..
My pride, sir, in my native State, springs not
from the fertility of its soil, the midness of its
climate, its mineral wealth, nor yet its unbound
ed agricultural resources. No; the gifts which
Nature has so beautifully bestowed upon her Sis
ter States of the South and West, have been
grudgingly doled out to her, and perhaps it is as
we'll for her, as it certainly is far better for the
States more favored which she has helped to COL
onize, that her rugged and comparatively sterile
soil, and her inhospitable climate have compelled
her inhabitants to put forth every energy to Sc
cure comfortable subsistence.
We need not go beyond the States next adj
joining us, to see the cnervating effects of a too
bountiful bestowment of natures gifts. Where
herds of swine round and plump enough to tempt
Jew to ALLURE his religion, run wild through the
oak openings, and to obtain supply of corn it is
only necessary to plant label in the spring, and
to climb the stalk for the ears in the fall, the ut
most aspirations of the inhabitants are satisfied
by &c hog and hominy /" but where even the nee
essaries of life only be obtained by hard work,
the people grudge not the extra exertion neces-
sary to secure the comforts and luxuries of life.
If the curious traveller through the rural districts
of Maine sees no apparently l;mitless fields of
stately, waving corn and golden wheat extending
far as the eye REACH neither does he see the
cabin of the proprietor of such field, occupied
by men and women, children and pigs, as tenants
in common of its one or two rooms, nor does he
find cows and oxen, horses and sheep, seeking un-
der the lee of ailfence, shelter from the winter
wind that wildly sweeps over the prairie, but in
stead, the white cottage of the farmer, with its
companying co:course of well filled barns, meets
him at every turn, while the red school-house on
almost every hillside, filled with, or surrounded
by troop of noisy urchins, serves to explain in
measure how it is, that New England, after sending
forth her yearly swarm of lawyers, doctors and
ministers, farmers, mechanics and specu-
lators, has always still &c few more left of the
same sort"
And the ever present village church, with its
heavenward pointing spire, gives unmistakabe
evidence that the dwelers in the land do not for
get, in their eagerness to gatherworldly gear that
there are higher interests than those of the body
or the pocket.
Under their hard necessity for toll, the inhabi-
tants Of the Pine Tree State have by the habits Of
industry and thrift thus forced upon them, brought
under contribution to them the whole world
With cunning handicraft, they have put together
the rockmaplc from their lofty hills, the towering
pine from their swamps, the pitch-pine from the
sunny South, iron from old England, and hemp
from Russia, and straghtway the noble ship glides
from the stocks to her native element, walking
- g. the waters like a thing life.o
The white sails of her shipping stud every sea,
and the daring advent urer who reaches port
which Bath or Biddeford, a Penobscott or Quad
dy keel has never ploughed, may safely land and
take possession in the name of his sovereign, for
there the foot of civilized man has never trod.
fear that in this gloriGcation of my native
State, am wearying your patience, but the re-
marks have made apply with equal force, n,uta-
It's mutdndis, to the native States of all of you.-
The industry and energy, the calculating shrewd-
ness and keen foresight which are said to charac-
terize the New Englander, all sprung from the
difficulties with which he has had to grapple from
his childhood, the struggle with which has made
him strong. No excessive bestowments of natures
gifts has taken from him all motive for exertion,
and when the Yankee goes forth from the home of
his childhood to push his fortune in the wide, wide
world, it is with those clements Of character and
habits of body which render his success sure, if
ne be worthy son Of our common mother. He
may be s'hampered" with some I" narrow hcred-
ltary dogmas," such as, "honesty is the best pol
icy," and others of that ilk but he is troubled
with no inconvenient "largeness" of ideas, and
has early learned not to despse g the day of small
things" and preferring even place at the foot of
fortunes ladder, to mourning the guilt Of ScLuy-
ASi3 ~ Ai0'AO AteiC OF DullOS
up a fame, which shall, years afterward, be held
out as an encouragement to some future son of
New England to persevere in the same habits of
honesty, industry and thrift. ''- .,. :. - ,
Be itours to see to it that the fame of New Eng
land receives stain at the hands of those of her
children, who have received in relation to Mime
sota the command ego ye in and possess it .
Letthe school-house and the church go with our
most advanced pioneers and our whole lives
whether public private, show that the religious
principle, which formed so controlling an element
in the character 81 our fathers, has not been 4
sscxushed out' from the breasts 4 Of ps, their
children. ,dILd YTiD M juIAl
9th. Vermont, the Green Mountain State She
nerer surrenders. T. ~ l'lilil a. ~ IaJrf ~
Mr.. Day, Of st. Anthony. responded After,
what has just been said it may SEEN improper for
meto say that am Unexpectedly called upon to
respond to this toast in the place Of one who was
prepared But sir must at least take pride in
declaring myself native Of Vermont. Vermont
born of quarrel between New England and New
York. Sir, she never sttrrenders. She is small
but her vallies and hills are clothed in everlasting
green, and who does MT know that her we'll tried
fro thof toms of he, 20,