The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1857-08-15
Agitation.

From o. w. Holmes grafton before the
Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College.l
THE MASSES TO BE EDUCATED BY AGITATION.
The effect of a popular agitation directed
towards practical end was the most effica-
cious means of educating the people. The
temperance movement had taught the mass
es more than all the logicans from Aristotle
to Whately, or all the preachers from Luther
to Beecher. 1t is the search after truth
which is the glory of the mind 1t was bet
ter to go to the bar of judgment, covered all
over with intellectual errors, bnt with heart
beneath sincerely DESTROYS of the truth, than
to go armed with the five points of Calvan-
ism, and the Compromise, which is the Amer
lean devil, beneath.
The agitation which he advocated was not
an accident which could be got rid Of No;
the mamma of Republican liberty must be
daily gathered, or it will rot. A Democrat
in office will harden into d despot unless a
million of eyes watch him continually. A
Tory is young Democrat gone to seed
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty re-
lax it, and deSpotism, like mist, steals over
the mirror of the Republic. Agitation by
somebody there must be. Drop the truth
into the midst of a nation, and there must DO
commissions, as when the giant turns under
Mount Etna. 1t is the indolent inactivity of
the masses which has allowed the government
to drift towards despotism so far as it has,
Despotism is bold-the masses are timid.
This it is which endangers the government
to-day.
THE SOUTH.
Our country is not homogeneous. One
half of it is seventeen hundred years behind
the nineteenth century-that part where the
faggot still burns, and where opinions are
met with fortunes. That country has ceased
to be Republican which meets the wild insan-
ity of opinion with anything but argument.
Universal suffrage Implies the most unfet-
tered wildness Of thought it presupposes
the most unchecked individualism of opinion.
THE SIXTEEN NORTHERN STATES.
Some men speak Of the Empire as vigorous
by its extent, and estimate its strength by
the number of States. The American Re-
public exists to day by the vigor of the Sax
on race, which has covered sixteen States
with industry ; that race which has more
brains in its hand than any other in its head.
That race, with only New England for its
anchorage, will cover the sea with commerce
and gather into its lap the wealth of the
world.
AGITATION THE SAFETY OF REPUBLICS.
God asks of US faith-that sublime faith
which believes not that human nature is
perfect, but that truth launched upon the
masses, is as safe as harbored in some aristo-
cratic class; that faith which regards toll,
struggles and contests with error as bless
ing sent from God. The natives of the
Sandwich Islands believed that the life of the
victim passed into that of the slayer so ev-
cry error gives back the strength with which
it was baffled.
Agitation is the safety of Republics. God
grant that the tumut may never cease, but
that from age to age prophets may arise to
break up the montony of wealth and arouse
the people to ideas as fast fading out to
trouble the waters that there may be health
in their glow. Agitation is the cold water
and daily bread of Republican life for the hu-
man race wandering in the Wilderness
There is no Canaan in politics. Distrust, saws
Demosthenes is the safety of Republics. If
the Alps, towering in icy grandeur are the en-
blem of comfortable despotism, ours is the
ever restless ocean which is always pure be-
cause it is never STILL