St. Cloud Democrat. [volume] (Saint Cloud, Stearns County, Minn.) 1858-1866, 1860-10-04

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GREAT sPEE0HoF GOV. SEWARD.
THE POLITICAL POWER OF THE WEST.
TO SECURE IT We MUST Be TRUE TO FREEDOM
DELIVERED AT ST. PAUL, SEPT. 18th.
FELLOW CITIZENS One needs to have had
something of my own experience of living in q
State at an early period Of its material devel-
opment and social Improvement and growing
up with its growing greatness, to be able to
appreciate the feeling with which am op-
pressed on this my first entrance into the Cap
ital Of the State Of Minnesota. Every step Of
my progress since reached the Northern
Mississippi, has been attended by an agreeable
and constantly increasing surprise. had
early read the works in which the geographer
had described the scenes around me, and T. had
studied these scenes minutely in the finest pro-
ductions of art; but still the grandeur, the
luxuriance, the geniality Of the region were
but imperfectly conceived before I saw these
sentinel walls that look down on the Missis-
sippi-seen as beheld them-just when the
earliest tinges Of Fall give the rich variety of
hues to the American forest. thought hew
much of taste and genius had been wasted in
celebrating the Highlands of Scotland and the
mountains Of Palestine, before civilized man
had reached the banks of the Mississippi
And then that beautiful Lake Pepin seen, at
the close Of the day, when the autumnal green
of the shores was lost in q deep blue hue that
emulated that of the heavans; the moistened
atmosphere reflected the golden rays of the
setting sun, and the skies above seemed to
come down to complete the gorgeous drapery
of the scene. 1t was piece Of upholstery
such as no hand but that of nature could have
made. This magnificent Lake, said to my
self, is fitting vestibule to the Capital Of Min
nesota-a State which / have loved, which
ever shall love, for more reasons than time
would now allow me to mention, but chiefly
because it was one Of the three States which
my voice had been potential in bringing into
the Federal Union. Every one of the three
was free State, and believe on my soul, that
Of the whole three, Minnesota is the frcest Of
all. Loud Applause 1 find myself now,
for the first time on the highlands in hecentre
of the continent of North America, equidistant
from the waters Of Hudson's Bay and the Gulf
of Mexico, from the Atlantic Ocean to the ocean
in which the sun sets-here on the spot where
spring up almost side by side, aud SO near
that they may kiss each other, the two great
rivers of the continent, the one of which pur-
suing its strange, capricious, majestic, viva
cious course through rapids, and cascade, lake
after lake, bay after bay, and river after river,
till at last, after couse Of $500 miles it
brings your commerce into the ocean midway
to tho ports of Europe, and the other, which
meandering through woodland and prairie
like distance Of 2,509 miles, taking in tributa-
ry after tributary from the East and from the
West, bringing together the waters from the
Western declevity Of the Alleghanies and the
the Rocky Mountains, finds the Atlantic Ocean
in the Gulf Of Mexico. [Applause. Here
is the central place where the agriculture of
the richest regions of North America must be-
gin its magnificent supplies to the whole world.
EApplause. l. On the East, all along the shore
Of Lake Superior, and on the West, stretching
in one broad plain, in a belt quite across the
Continent, is country where State after State
is yet to rise and whence the productions for
the support of human society in other crowd
ed States must forever GO forth. This is then
q commanding field but it is as commanding
in regard to the commercial future, for power
is not to reside permanently on the; eastern
slope Of the Allegheny Mountains, nor in, the
been controlled at last by the people of the in
terror. The people Of the inland and Of the
upland. those who inhabit the sources of the
mighty waters, are they who supply all States
with the materials Of wealth and power. The
seaports will be the mouths by which We shall
communicate and correspond with Europe, but
the power that shall speak and shall communi-
cate and express the will Of men on this cohti-
nent, is to be located in the Mississippi Valley,
and at the source of the Mississippi and the
St. Lawrence: Loud applause In other
days, studying what might perhaps have SEEM
ed to others visionary subject, I have; cast
Of power Of the North American people. Ihave
| looked at Quebec and at New Orleans, at Wash
ington and at San Francisco, at Cincinnati and
| at St. Louis, and it has been the result of my
best conjecture that the seat of power for North
America would yet be found in the Valley Of
Mexico ;. that the glorious Aztec Capitol would
be renewed, and that city would become ult;-
mately the Capital Of the United States d
America. But have corrected that view, and
now believe that the last seat of power on
the great continent will be found somewhere
within . radius not very far from the very spo!
where.I stand, at the head Of navigation on
Iterranean Lakes. . Loud applause,] Fellow
citizens, have often seen, but never will
great surprise, that on the occasion Of al revi
val Of religion, the oldest, the most devout, th'
most religious preacher he whose life seemed
to me and to the world to be better ordered &C
cording to the laws of God and of Affection tt
mankind, has discovered, that he had been en-
tirely mistaken in his own experience, and tina
he now found out to his great grief ana aston
ishmentt that. he had: never. before been convert
ed,f and that now for; the first time he had be
Econe 4 Christian daughter. Willie standin
There, il almost fall into the notion that af
in thec category Of that preacher; ,[lapghter,
and although cannot charge myself with hay
ths duties that owed Is sf9 Society 9and the spir
that belongs to an American eitizsnjo I:hav
! never until now. occupied that place whence
! could grasp the whole grand panorama a of tt
{ continent, for the happiness 81 whose prese.
people audtof whose future Emil]ions,9it, isttt
duty Of an American statesman to labor,