Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1878-09-04
Daily Nennrbet yournal.
REMARKS OF
SENATOR BLAINE
MINNEAPOLIS FAIR,
Tuesday, Sept. 8, 1878.
Mr.. PRRsIDENr:

Mr.. PRRsIDEsT:
An asseublage of the citizens of Minnesota,
coming together to rejoice over abundant harvests,
and to view the bountiful products of their State
is we'll caculsted to inspire recolections that
Of interest beyond the limits of the audience that
now honor me with their attention.
Near he borders Of your State, on the banks of
the great river now flowing in our sight, there
resides in the full vigor Of an honora BILE old
age, long my acquaintance and my friend, whose
career calls wildly to mind the wonderful progress
of the Northwest. In the last two years of Genl
Jackson's Presidency, George W. Jones the del
egate in Congress from that vast area now form
ing the States Of Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and
Minnesota, together with that part Of the territory
Of Dakota north OF the Missouri River and east Of
the White Earth. In the last preceding Federal
census the total civilized population of the entire
territory of Michigan was less than 80 ,000,--ad-
veDturous men, standing the outposts Of cvliza-
tion, and accepting and conquering the hardships
Of the frontier There were at that time--forty-
three years ago-but two newspapers of any kind
whatever, published in the whole country Of which
| have spoken, and not one Of these west of Lake
Michigan. To-day the same country has eight
Senators, twenty mine Representatives, and one
Delegate In Congress; has railroads aggregating
eleven thousand miles 10 length, and i've hundred
millions In cost; has seventy-seven daily news
papers, and more than eleven hundred weekly or
monthly publications; has great Cities larger than
Philadelphia or New York when the United States
had taken its second census, and chosen its third
President; has population as great, excluding
the slaves of that day, that Of the whole country
which defed Great Britain to a second contest in
1875 produces q larger amount of bread stuhs than
the entire Union produced when General Jones en-
tered Congress- and contains more wealth than
owned in the eighteen states that divided th cir
electoral votes between James Madison and Dewitt
Clinton for the Presidency. Such facts as these
may we'll cause us TO give thanks to God and vir-
t,,nu for thaaa nf a,I
good government which have made all this progress
possible.
Geographically, the State of Minnesota is a land
Of singular and surprising interest. Lying about
equi-distant from the great oceans the east, on
the west, the north and the south, her situs-
tion compared with her sister states is entirely
peculiar, and in respect is without parallel on
any continent. Her surface forms the central
watershed of North America, and not far from
where stand, streams have their modest sources
that finally lose themselves in direction through
Hudsons Bay in the Arctic waters; in another
through the chain Of the great lakes in the broad
Atlantic; and third through the Mississippi River
in the Gulf of Mexico. To the westward, nature
has raised an insurmountable barrier to the water
course, but the invention of man has overcome the
obstacle, and through the power of steam. and over
the road of iron there is already projected and part
ly achieved that great commercial highway to the
Pacific, foretold by LaSalle, when standing the
banks Of the st. Lawrence, by the rapids whose
name perpetuates his prophecy, pointing to the un-
trodden west. whittier he had already turned his
face he pronounced to his doubling companions
the inspiring word La Chine.
Viewed historically, that which constitutes
the State of Minnesota has had many and rapid
changes in its sovereignty any disputed territory
in Europe-fought over armed hosts, set 10
motion by the ambition of kings the jealousy of
rival races of men. This fair land was under the
dominion of France during the regns of Louis XIV
nd vapds had Tharv lla wh. lad .
French colony to Louisiana for its first Governor,
and Bienvile, who founded New Orleans, for its
second; was pswned by the Regent Orleans in
his scheme with John Law for creating value
out of moonshne, and made. with other terri
tory the basis of that vast swindle in paper
money projected by the Mississippi Company, in
which real estate in Minnesota, in the undisputed
possession of the savage and the wild beast became
the shadowy foundation in Paris Q hundred and
sixty years ago, of a far greater monetary credit
than it could have to-day In the same financial
market with all its Improvements and its great in
trinsic value Again, under the dominion in part of
George Third Of England, who compelled to yield
his right to your soil by the treaty of l7s3 and
withdraw the last Red coat by the treaty of 1895.
Still farther for thirtyseven years all the west
side Of your dividing river, was attached to the
crown Of Spain during the reigns of the third and
fourth Charles, and given up by the latter in the
year 1900 to France, when for period of three
brief years, the larger half Of Minnesota had
Napoleon Bonaparte for its sovereign ruler The
First Consul always did business on basis OF had
cash, and he transferred the French possessions in
America to the United States for fifteen millions of
dollars. Eighty years before that time John Law
and his speculative partner, the Duke of Orleans,
had made the same possessions the basis for an issue
of paper money amounting to nearly three thousand
million of francs. Some reflections are naturally
suggested by these facts, which would perhaps not
be entirely pertinent to an address before sgri
| ,It I M ha mn rdopa1 fn-
the inference that the resources Of great country"
do not afford sound and secure basis for an en-
larged paper currency.
But these changes of European sovereignty over
the soil of Minnesota, are not more striking or
more strange than the rapid transformations of its
government since it came under the sovereignty Of
the United States 1t comes to us as forgotten his
tory, when we recall that the eastern half Of your
state was claimed during the Revolutionary struggle
As part Of Virginia, by no less a Governor than