The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-10-12
The Future Seat OF Power and Pop
ulatiOn.

From the New York World.
Senator Seward said in his recent speech
at st. Paul: 800
The power of this government hereafter is not
to be established either on the Atlantic or the
Pacific coast. The seaports will be the mouths
by which we shall communicate and correspond
with Europe but the power that shall speak
and shall communicate and express the will of
men on this continent, is to be located in the
Mississippi Valley. and at the sources of the
Mississippi and the st. Lawrence. Loud ap.
plause.l In other days, studying what might,
perhaps, to others, trihing and visionary, l
have cast about for the future, the ultimate,
central seat for the North American people.
had looked at Quebec and at New Orleans, at
Washington and at San Francico, at Cincinnati
and at st. Louis, and it had been the result of
my best conjecture, that the seat of power for
North America would yet be fonnd in the Val
ley of Mexico, that the glOries of the Aztec ca.
pital would be renewed, and that city would
become ultimately the capital of the United
States of America. But have corrected that
view, and now believe that the ultimate, last
seat of power on this great continet will be
found somewhere within a radius not very far
from the very spot where stand at the head
of navigation on the Mississippi river.
In nearly all the speeches made in the
course of bis western journey, Mr.. Seward
has given utterance to statements like the
above, exhibiting a wider reach of view than
is common to many men now 10 public life,
and, so far as they are just, most distinctly
making the difference between a statesman
and the common herd of politicians. The
prediction with which he fattered the pride
and the hope of the people of Minnesota, is
a remarkable one, made en- PEASANT, and
without demonstration, but doubtless the
result of careful study of the movements
of population, industrial power and trade
upon the American continent.
A few facts and obvious differences from
them will show the probability of Mr.. Sew
ards prediction. The centre of population,
as well as industrial power in North Ame-
RIGA, moves toward the Pacific from year to
year in obedience to laws above human
control and in line of direction which it is
not possible for political influences or Sec
tional seal, in the long run, to defect. The
coming census, which will include the re.
cords of our great growth during the last
decade, has unsupported revelations in its
leaves. But thep were visible prophecies
in the census of ten yeart ago. That docu.
ment showed that. including the United
States proper, the Canadas and contiguous
provinces, the present centre of our popu-
latiOn, white and black, is a little west of
Pittsburg, and the center of industrial and
productive power a little further to the east
and north. Compare this fact with their
position before the great wave of emigra-
ton had swept over the West and left it
populous The comparison proves that the
movement of both these centres is to the
westward and to the north of west, and the
census of 1860 will abundantly verify it.
In five or six more decades those centres
will have touched or passed Chicago. An
area of great circle drawn through Pitts
burg and Chicago, then, is the line from
which this centre of population and power
will not greatly depart. Projected west
ward it falls not far from the point indicat.
ed by Senator Seward as the ultimate seat
of power in America. That it cannot pass
far beyong that point is clear, from the con.
fguration of the Countrywide narrowness
OF the Pacific coast states--the position Of
the great American desert, and Of the Mis-
souri, river, and the remarkable westward
DETECTION of the line of the Rocky mountain
range in Nebraska.
Foreign commerce, and the concentra-
ton of wealth and industrial activity which
it favors, might be reckoned disturbing ele-
ments in these speculations but it is not
probable that they will ever be proportion
ally much greater than now, and, as we OBJ
served yesterday, in referring to Mr.. Lind
says speech at Boston, already the entire
foreign commerce of the country is exceeded
by that of the great lakes to say nothing of
that of the Mississippi and it tributaries.
Nor will the climate of the Northwest alter
the case. The northward DETECTION of the
isothermals, after passing west of the great
lakes, is, on the contrary, a fact in favor of
the prediction.
The line OF the movement of these centres
of industry and power, is the unerring in.
dex to the path on which the highway over
the continent should be built in order to
accommodate best the greatest number now,
and to provide for the future necessities of
an increased population, The wisdom OF
choosing more central route tor the Paci-
fc railway and telegraph, rests, however,
upon higher political considerations, all the
less to be overlooked now, if by the gather
ed momentum of population and productive
power they shall come hereafter to be over.
borne.