Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1858-1859, 1859-01-29


bers.
To tho Editors Of the Ainnssottan:
Before the lapse of the present Session
Minnesota will have learned lesson in poll
tics which, 1 trust, will not soon be forgotten
The query goes the round, repeated from
mouth to mouth, enquiring how it is that the
South, being in minority in Congress, still
maintains predominant inAuepces The re.
Spouse is readily suggested to any one famil.
lar with the persons and character of its mem
bers. The South, as general thing, sends
to Washington gentlemen Of known worth,
character and standing at home, and such
men always exert a preponderating power
wherever they may be. Such respectable
elements Of political force, when combined
into whole, as in the Congress of the Uni
ted States, exercise power that is irresista-
BILE. The tacit consent which conscious ina
bility Yields to intelligence acknowledges their
superiority, and yields to their demands.
This simple fact, which truth and justice
forces as to recognise, solves problem, which
might otherwise appear mysterious. With
them the landed or farming interests are rep
resented in Congress by the farmer. He al
lows no clamorous stump orator or political
huckster to thrust him aside and usurp his
place in the Councils of the nation. The
honest farmer represents community of far
III hat
pectful attention due alike to himself and his
constituents Bnt with us in Minnesota it is
very different We take our Indian trader
who had scarcely thrown aside his blanket
and moccasins and place him in the Senate of
the United States, esteeming his former sue
cess in Juggling through few small bills for
appropriations of an equivocal character
sufficient merit The very course which in
the South would damn Senator we endorse
and applaud.
Again: we pass by our most worthy and
widely known citizens, who would compare
equally with the best the South can select,
and send to the House of Representatives two
youthful stripplings who, before that event,
were unknown, and who will return to Min
nesota with but little less obscurity.
Public follies of this cast are always fol-
lowed by proportionate retribution. Look
at our present position before Congress! We
have pending the great Northern Mail Route
from Minnesota to Puget Sound. Open this
and our State becomes highway for emigra-
ton at once, from New York by way of
Lake Superior through Minnesota. Then too
the Pacific Railroad from st. Paul to the Pa
cific coast and who have we of any power or
influence in Congress to advocate them? l
would not undervalue the services of Gen.
Shields, but what can he do alone? Rice may
be for these enterprises, but his Bayfield,, and
former Railroad speculations, from which so
many suffered, are not forgotten, and from
the suspicious thus created, it were better for
Minnesota were he OH the other side.
In the House of Representatives what have
we? "Er nil nihI ft."
Minnesota, like Hamlet's poor ghostly faith
er, appears
"Doomed for a certain time to walk the night,
Till her foul crimes
Are burned and purged away"
Let the facts of the case, as they are, press
themselves home upon the farmers let them
arouse themselves and look abroad over the
political horizon, and see if they can discern
the value of vote? They can now, or nev-
er, see the agencies that Frustrated Minnesota
in the dust. They may see her almost with
out a representative in Congress, while her
Governor and State officers are racking their
ingenuity to devise ways to extort more and
more tax from the already impoverished far
mers.
Let the opposition cover these facts as they
may, murder will out; and when time shall
have disclosed their Vaccinations to the peo-
pie, "and the great day of their wrath shall
come, who will be able to stand"
MINNEsoTUs.