People are better fed, better housed, and better clothed, than they were fifty years ago. The number of books in lowly houses has increased tenfold, and I think that the family life is better and closer now than it was then.

This is a self-governing people, and we look to see what effect this great progress towards individualism has had upon political affairs. It is to be noted, in the first place, that this individualism is simply the result of mental independence. Mental independence is the product of the resources of knowledge and thought. These resources have been partly the result, and partly the cause, of the personal advancement which I have indicated so imperfectly.

That this independence should assert itself in political affairs was inevitable. Accordingly, this half century has been signalized by great manifestations of free political action. Formerly political inconsistency was an unpardonable apostasy; it is now merely venial. Formerly the masses followed; now they lead. Their leading is not always wise, but that is not the question. The fact is what we are seeking.

This independence of thought and action has been asserted and sustained by an unprecedented intellectual activity. The crowd often now debates ably, whereas formerly it merely hurrahed or dogmatized.

The political contest of 1896 was upon abstract and most difficult questions of finance and economics. I say nothing here as to the merits of that most remarkable controversy, but I will say that no political subject was ever debated so thoroughly and well by the masses of the people. There was, of course, much unfounded assertion and a deal of delirious prophecy; but, allowing for all these, there was a stock of information, and a vigor of argument employed by men talking with each other, never before equalled..

This is as it should be in a nation whose people settle everything. A people so endowed as ours will settle a disputed issue wisely, and much more speedily than was done in the earlier times, when irreflection, ignorance, and passion, were too often the prey of the demagogue or the victim of the wise man gone wrong. No more potent guaranty of our power and perpetuity has been produced, in our one hundred and twenty

five years of development, than this subjection of political questions to individual independent opinion.

Of course, individual independence of action upon political subjects is sometimes ruinously destructive. Free thought is always in rebellion. If resisted too obdurately by ancient and evil institutions, it crushes and wrecks, by force irresistible, the entire social fabric of which they are a part. The French Revolution was such an event. It was the product of individual thought which for fifty years protested, remonstrated, suffered, and was often crushed only to rise again, until it possessed itself of the physical force of thirty millions of people, and swept into one chaos of destruction the good and the bad of a state which had stood for nearly a thousand years. The most salutary changes, both in the social and in the material world, are gradual; and the more imperceptible in their progress, the better they are. Had France been plastic a hundred years ago, the lava of the Revolution would not have buried so many institutions under its tide of fire, and Napoleon would never have appeared as conqueror, emperor, and reformer.

It is not to be doubted that the people of the United States will assimilate, and will concentrate into unitary action, the many and diverse forces of individual thought and action. They have always done so. If we look back over our history, we see many great events and emergencies of the most dangerous character which our fathers never foresaw, which were encountered, controlled, and settled, in every instance, to the increase of our power and stability. What other nation could have suffered and triumphed as did the United States in our civil war? Unprecedented as the mere military result was, it was slight compared with the fact that, during the generation which suffered and prevailed in it, the people of the North and South speedily reunited in a great National identity of patriotism and power.

The Louisiana purchase was an event of unexampled magnitude of its kind. To many of our greatest and purest statesmen, it seemed sinister, and manifestly destructive of our institutions and polity. But with the cession from Mexico it has become the very essence of our invincible strength as a Nation.

Present conditions of a similar character, which at once create anticipations of benefit, or apprehensions of evil, that

have no limits in the compass of the imaginations which conceive them, will, by the wisdom of a great people whose thought, speech, and action are free, be settled and wisely adjusted to the conditions and destinies of a civilization which has moved from its European and American seats across the great oceans, and which is touching with its creative hands the dark and inert masses of Oriental and African humanity.

Considering the evolution of the last fifty years, its mass, its spirit, its momentum and direction, we are warranted in believing that our country is now, as it has been heretofore, an agency of that Providence which guides and moves nations to the realization of every aspiration of humanity for better conditions, moral, intellectual, spiritual, and physical.

NOTE BY THE SECRETARY.

An address on the first of the two following subjects was expected to be given by Senator Knute Nelson, and on the second, completing the series of this Anniversary Celebration, by Gen. James H. Baker.

Senator Nelson, however, having recently returned from a long visit in Norway, his native land, found many and important duties requiring his attention before the opening of Congress, so that he felt obliged to decline the invitation of the Anniversary Committee. At the monthly meeting of the Historical Society, November 13th, the Committee secured the promise of Gen. John B. Sanborn to speak on the same subject that had been assigned for Senator Nelson, the address being thus without time for studied preparation.

Still later, a telegram was received from Gen. Baker, detained by business which had called him to New York City, saying that he could not be present at the Anniversary. In his place and on the subject announced for him, when only a part of one day remained, Col. William P. Clough consented to speak, that each theme in the series planned by the committee might be presented.

MINNESOTA IN THE NATIONAL CONGRESS DURING

THESE FIFTY YEARS.

BY GEN. JOHN B. SANBORN.

Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: It was only at the close of the Historical Society meeting, on Monday evening, that I was notified by the committee and asked to fill this place. Hence I appear before you with no preparation whatever, except what any man has who has been identified with the affairs of Minnesota for forty-five years. In the celebration of this anniversary, a day of so much importance in the history of our Society and our State, all papers should be prepared with a great deal of care, every idea being thoroughly considered and fairly expressed. It seems scarcely proper, therefore, for me to proceed with any remarks upon this subject, which had been assigned to Senator Nelson.

It can be treated of course in a great many ways, but it cannot be treated by me in any adequate manner this evening. The addresses that have already been given, and the papers that have been prepared and read, have made frequent reference to the grand achievements of the people of this State. One of the most distinguished parts of this history of fifty years consists in the patriotic and honorable public services of her senators and representatives in Congress.

Minnesota had no life, corporate or otherwise, until Congress passed the act providing for the organization of the territory, on the third day of March, 1849. The land had been a wilderness, as it then was, from the dawn of creation. Of course, Adam was the original owner of this territory, and I think (although this may differ a little from the ideas of our distinguished Bishop Whipple) that the people whom we found

here when this was organized as a territory had descended from Cain and not from Abel. Under the marked influence that he has brought to bear upon them, however, it would be difficult now to substantiate the idea that they were descendants of Cain.

The organization of Minnesota as a territory brought her into immediate contact with the great powers of Congress and of the United States. No such powers of government exist anywhere else on the earth, nor have they ever existed, I think, in any period of the history of the race. When we speak of the authority of Congress, that does not fully come to our mind. It comprises the power of negotiating treaties with foreign nations, of regulating commerce with foreign nations, with the several states of the Union, and the Indian tribes; the power to raise and support armies, all expressed in five words, from which at times spring armies of a million men to protect and maintain these powers and enforce them; to provide and maintain a navy, from which navies sometimes spring, under the operations of Congress, that are capable of sweeping all other navies from the seas; and then that last, grand, transcendent power, to make laws to carry into effect all the foregoing powers and all other powers vested in the government of the United States or in any department or office thereof.

When Minnesota sent her first territorial delegate to Congress, and more definitely when statehood entitled her to send senators and representatives to Congress, she became a participant in the administration of those powers. She shared in the deliberations of Congress by her successive territorial delegates; and since her admission to statehood she votes on all questions, as when war shall be declared, or peace made, and what action shall be taken in regard to commerce and all those great relations which make states and make nations. This commenced, as I stated, on the third day of March, 1849. The white inhabitants of this territory were then few. My friend Moss was here at that time, and there were three or four thousand others.

But what was done then? From the provisions that are included in that act have flowed all the great results which have been referred to by the previous speakers. Among these are