34 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Tell us not of Plantagenets, 

 Hapsburgs and Guelphs, whose thin bloods crawl 

 * Down from some victor in a border-brawl. 



we spring from the blood of the people. 



We, as a people, arc veiy impatient of and sensitive to 

 the criticism of foreigners. Yet the Tory press of England 

 only reflects the spirit of our own statements concerning 

 our people, our institutes and our government. One would 

 very naturally think, should he read some of our own news- 

 papers in times of great political excitement, that we were 

 just on the point of open rebellion, and that our public 

 men were a pack of self-seekers, without moral principles 

 and wanting what most scoundrels have — brains. We are 

 continually complaining of a want of statesmanship and la- 

 menting the absence of great men. This statement, how- 

 ever, is not true. It is very difficult to see a great man 

 when he is near to you. No man is a hero to his valet. 

 We look back to the time when Webster, Clay and Cal- 

 houn were in the Senate. We call it an age of giants, but 

 Webster did not enter upon his greatest influence until a 

 decade after his death. John Marshall had to wait a cen- 

 tury for the people to recognize his colossal genius, and we 

 forget that he was burned in effigy by his own generation. 

 We see these men in a very different light from their con- 

 temporaries. We have never lacked great men, and I do 

 not believe we do now or ever shall. 



But, supposing the leading men of this generation are in- 

 ferior to those we have produced in time that has passed, is 

 there any danger overhanging the republic on that account? 

 It is only in an absolute monarchy that a great man finds an 

 open field for his powers. In a republic or a monarchy 

 like that of Great Britain, he is checkmated by forces too 

 strong for the individual to contend with. In a govern- 

 ment like ours there is a factor which, when it makes itself 

 heard, no statesmanship, however astute, can successfully 

 oppose. This is " the common intellect, rough-hewing po- 

 litical truths at the suggestions of common wants and com- 

 mon experience." " The changes," says John Stuart Mill, 

 "and the greater changes which will be made in our insti- 



