The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-07-20

GRAFTON OF EDWARD EVERETT.

GRAFTON OF EDWARD EVERETT.
In April last, Earl GREY, in the House
of Lords, gravely announced to the world
that the experiment of self-government in
the United States had proved failure, be-
cause the checks established by Washington
and his contemporaries on an unbalanced
democracy had been swept away by the
action of universal suffrage.
On the Fourth of July, in Faneuil Hall
the Cradle of American Liberty-EDwARD
EVERETT replied to the British nobleman,
and presented an exhibit of the progress of
this nation from l776 to the present time,
which meets, and efectually rebuts every
statement made by Earl GREY. We regret
we have not room for the entire oration, and
can only publish such extracts as serve to
give an idea of the character of the oration:
PROGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES.
The first object in the order of events,
after the discovery of America, was, of
course, its settlement by civilized man. 1t
was not an easy task-a mighty ocean sepa-
rated the continent from the elder world -
a savage wilderness covered most of the
country-its barbarous and warlike inhabi.
tants resisted from the first all coalescence
with the new comers. To subdue this
waste-to plant cornfelds in the primeval
forest-to transfer the civilization of Europe
to the new world, and to make safe and suffi-
cient arrangements, under political institu.
tions, for the growth of free principles-was
the great problem to be solved. 1t was no
holiday pastime-no gainful speculation
no romantic adventure; but grim, persistent,
weary toll and danger. That it has been
upon the whole performed with wonderful
success, who will deny? Where else in the
history of the world have such results been
brought about in so short time +? And if l
desired, as l do not, to give this discussion
the character of recriminati0n, might ] not,
dividing the period which has elapsed since
the commencement of the European settle.
ments in America into two portions, viz:
the one which preceded and the one which
has followed the Declaration of Indepen,
dence-the former under the sway of Eu-
ropean governments England, Holland,
France, Spain; the latter under the govern
ment of the independent United States
might 1 not claim for the latter,
under all the disadvantages of a new
government and limited resources, the
credit of greatly superior energy and prac-
tical wisdom in carrying on this magnificent
work? 1t was the inherent vice of the
colonial system that the growth of the
American colonies was greatly retarded for
a century in consequence of their being in
volved in ali the wars of Europe. There
never was period since Columbus sailed
from Palos, in which the settlement of the
country has advanced with such rapidity
as within the last sixty years. The COM
mencement of the Revolution found US with
a population not greatly exceeding two
millions; the census of 1900 little exceed
ed five millions; that of the present year
will not probably fall short of thirty-two
millions. The two centuries and half
which preceded the revolution witnessed the
organization of thirteen colonies, to which
the period that has since elapsed has added
twenty States. l own it has filled me with
amazement to find cities like Cincinnati and
Louisville, Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis,
not to mention those still more remote, on
spots which, within the memory of man,
were frontier military posts-to find rail-
roads and electric teIegraphs traversing
forests, in whose gloomy shades, as late as
1889, the wild savage still burned his cap
tives at the stake. The desponding or the
unfriendly censor will remind me of the
blemishes Of this tumultuous civilization /;
outbreaks of frontier violence in earlier and
later times acts of injustice to the native
tribes, Though the rOllcy of the government
toward them has in the main been paternal
and conseientiously administered the rough
ness of manners in infant settlements--the
collisions of adventurers not yet compacted
into a stable society-deeds of wild justice
and wilder ipjustice-border license, lynch
law. All these admit and l lament; but
a community cannot grow up at once from
the log-cabin, with the wolf at the door
and the savage in the neighboring thicket,
into the order and beauty of communities
which have been maturing for centuries.
We must remember, too, that all these
blemishes of an infant settlement, the insep-
arabic accompaniments of that stage of
progress and phase of society and life, have
their counterpart at the other end of the
scale, in the fostering iniquities of large
cities, the gigatic frauds of speculation and
trade, the wholesale corruptions, in word,
of older societies. When reflect that the
dav we celebrate found us feeble strip of
thirteen colonies along the coast, averaging
at most little more than one hundred and
fifty thousand inhabitants each, and that
this, its eighty-fourth return, sees US grown
to thirty three States, scattered through the
interior and pushed to the Pacific, averag-
ing nearly million of inhabitants, each q
we'll compaeted representative republic. Sc
curing to its citizens larger amount OF the