The American state of California, a portion of the Mexican Upper California, came, as we have already said, into the possession of the United States through their Mexican conquests, and, as the event has proved, has supplied an important epoch not only in the history of the United States, but of the world itself.

The first discoverer of Upper California was Sir Francis Drake, in the year 1579, when, having doubled Cape Horn, he coasted the Pacific shore in the vain hope of discovering a passage to the Atlantic Ocean, and took possession of the country, to which he gave the name of New Albion, in the name of his sovereign, Queen Elizabeth. This discovery, however, not being followed up by colonisation, the English lost the right of possession, which was claimed by the Spaniards as a portion of the conquests of Cortez, which were prior to the discovery of Sir Francis Drake.

In 1603, Philip III. of Spain sent out Sebastian Viscaino to examine the coast of Upper California in search of suitable harbours for the Spanish East India ships. He discovered and took possession of San Diego and Monterey, giving on his return glowing descriptions of the beauty and fertility of the country. The Spaniards, however, made but little progress in colonisation, owing in part to the hostility of the natives. Their principal, and in fact first permanent settlement was at San Diego, but the coast, nevertheless, was frequented by their ships on account of its valuable pearl-fisheries. Although the Spanish government did not consider the colonisation of Upper California worth the expense, priests of the Franciscan order established several missionary stations, in the hope of converting the natives. Twenty-one stations were thus formed on the most fertile lands, each occupying about fifteen square miles. The buildings of those stations were contained in an enclosure of adobe or sun-dried brick. To the principal missions was attached a presidio, where was a quadrangular fort, in which was placed a company of soldiers for the protection of the missionaries, and to assist them also in bringing the refractory natives under their influence. The result was, that about half the Indians in the missionary district became nominal Christians and menial labourers at the same time. The very constitution of these missions, however, was calculated to prevent any effectual colonisation of the country by the whites, inasmuch as, while the missionaries themselves were monks and nuns, the soldiers at the presidios were not permitted to bring their wives with them; so that homes did not immediately spring up there as among the wiser colonists, who understood by this means how to attach the settler at once to the soil. Neither was money allowed to be in circulation, and the Padre of the mission held everything under his control. As might be expected, therefore, these missions never took deep root in the country, and only the few places where families were allowed to settle, are those in which towns sprung up, of which Ciudad de Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco were the principal, no one of which, in the year 1840, contained 1,000 inhabitants. Of the general population of Upper California, Humboldt states, that in 1802 it consisted of 15,562 converted Indians and 1,300 of other classes; in 1840 it is estimated that the number of whites was 5,000, of mistigoes or mixed 2,000, and of natives about 18,000. From this time, when the American exploring parties, of which we shall speak presently, had opened as it were a door into these hitherto unknown regions, and the advancing tide of western emigration reached its threshold, population began rapidly to increase; so that the Hon. Butler King states, in his official report, that “in 1846 Colonel Fremont had little difficulty in calling to his standard some 500 fighting men, and that, at the close of the war with Mexico, from 10,000 to 15,000 Americans and Californians, exclusive of converted Indians, were then in the territory. The immigration of American citizens in 1849, the year following the cession of California to the United States, was estimated at 80,000, that of foreigners at 20,000.”

We are indebted to Mrs. Willard for the greater portion of the following rapid sketch:—

“This country during the Spanish rule constituted a part of the viceroyalty of Mexico or New Spain. When Mexico became a federal republic, not finding California sufficiently populous to form a state, she established over it a territorial government. The Californians, like the Mexicans, sometimes had their revolutions, and declared themselves independent; but they always returned again to their allegiance, and till the opening of the war between the republics of America and Mexico, they were governed as a territory of the latter. Los Angeles was the seat of the territorial government; a member of the eminent family of Pico was at its head, and General Castro, the military chief, made Monterey his residence.

“A few years since the country between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific was as little known as the centre of Africa. In the years 1803 and 1804, Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, sent out by President Jackson, explored the Missouri to its sources, crossed the Rocky Mountains in latitude 47°, then struck upon the head waters of the Columbia, and followed its source to the Pacific Ocean. Settlements succeeded these discoveries and those subsequently of Captain Grey. The purchase of Louisiana from France, in 1803, carried the American dominion from the Mississippi to the heights of the Rocky Mountains. All the country beyond those mountains and south of Oregon was, previous to the late war with Mexico, in the possession of that country, and in 1840 its place on the map of the world was a blank.

“The American government in 1838, sent out, chiefly for the benefit of trade and commerce, a naval exploring expedition under Captain Charles Wilkes, to coast the American continent to the south and west, and to explore the islands of the Pacific. Captain Wilkes was directed to make surveys and examinations of the coast of Oregon and the Columbia River, and afterwards along the coast of California, with especial reference to the Bay of San Francisco. After executing this order in August and September, 1841, he pronounced the harbour of San Francisco to be ‘one of the finest, if not the very best in the world.’ The town, then called Yerba Buono, he said, consisted of one large frame building, occupied by the Hudson Bay Company; the store of an American merchant, a billiard-room and a bar; the cabin of a ship occupied as a dwelling; besides out-houses, few and far between. The most prominent man in the region was Captain Sutter, a Swiss by birth, and once a lieutenant in the Swiss guards of Charles X. of France, but who had immigrated from Missouri to California. Having obtained from Mexico a grant of land thirty leagues square, he located his residence within it and near the confluence of the American river with the Sacremento; here he built a fort at the junction of the rivers and laid out a town, to which he gave the name of New Helvetia, but which has since been called Sacremento City. Captain Wilkes reported favourably of the soil and productions of the country.

“In 1842, John C. Fremont, at that time a lieutenant of topographical engineers, being ordered on an exploring tour, left the mouth of the Kansas in the month of June with a party of about twenty. He travelled along the fertile valley of this river; struck off upon the sterile banks of the Platte River, followed its South Fork to St. Vrain’s Fort, and thence northerly to Fort Laramie, on the North Fork of the same stream. Following up, from this point, the North Fork and then its affluent the Sweet Water River, he was conducted by a gentle ascent to that wonderful gateway in the Rocky Mountains called the South Pass. He had found on his lonely way a few straggling emigrants bound to Oregon, but not one to California. Having explored the vicinity of the South Pass, his orders were executed, and he returned.

“The next year, again under the auspices of government, and with a party of thirty-nine, he set out earlier in the season, with special orders to examine and report upon the country between the Rocky Mountains and the line of Captain Wilkes’s explorations on the Pacific coast. He now crossed the Rocky Mountains further south, and where they were 8,000 feet in height. He then examined and laid open, by his report, the region of the Salt Lake, having reached that extraordinary expanse of salt water by following its beautiful affluent, the Bear River.

“Fremont, now brevet captain, was, on September 19th, at Fort Hall, on his way to Oregon. Here he met a Mr. Chiles, the only emigrant he had yet seen to California. Having, in the manner dictated by his orders, explored Oregon, he turned south and commenced his route to California, by traversing in winter the terrible and dangerous snows of the Sierra Nevada. From this seemingly interminable way, the lost and famished wanderers emerged upon the waters of the Sacremento, and they followed its affluent, the American Fork, to Sutter’s Fort, ignorant of the golden treasures beneath their feet, soon to set in motion a rapidly concentrating population from every corner of the world. After their wants had been kindly supplied by Captain Sutter, the party travelled south and beheld and enjoyed the vernal beauties of the flowery valley of the San Joaquin. Turning then to the southern extremity of the Sierra Nevada, they next passed the arid waste of the Great Desert Basin.

“They had discovered and named on their way new rivers and mountain passes; and had laid open regions which had heretofore, except to the hunter and the savage, been but the hidden recesses of nature. They had explored California and made known an overland route.”

Mr. Polk entered upon the presidential office resolved to carry out the Mexican war, as well as to make its results advantageous to his country by putting her in possession not only of New Mexico but of California also, the importance of which he fully estimated as opening up a great commercial state on the Pacific, even before its almost fabulous wealth of gold had become known.

The Mexican war went on, the American interests being advanced at every step, and finally the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo established peace between the two republics, and gave the United States government possession of that vast territory which she coveted with a prescient wisdom, and which it assuredly was the will of God that she should people with her industrious and enterprising sons.

This treaty, which put the Americans in possession of California, was signed in February, 1848, and by a coincidence so extraordinary, that had it been imagined by a writer of fiction, it would have been considered improbable, if not impossible, the discovery of the gold was made within one month from that time. The first gold was found in the lands of that Captain Sutter whom we have already mentioned, on the American Fork of the Sacremento, and almost immediately afterwards in various other localities. The possession of the vast extent of what was so lately Mexican territory, with its framework of society so different to that of the United States, had caused considerable anxiety in the minds of many thoughtful men as to the result. It was feared that many years must pass before a sufficient number of American citizens had settled in these new lands to fuse the old elements into a congruous mass, and that before this should take place bloodshed and disruption might have made the acquired territory a dear purchase. But Providence, who overrules human events for the wisest and best purposes, signally set at rest all these doubts, by permitting the discovery of the gold, which would act as the most tempting lure to call away, not only from the older states, but from the very ends of the earth, a population which would at once sweep away the old influences and begin all anew. Gold, which in so many instances had been a dire curse, was here converted into a blessing.

The tide of emigration set in. In the following year, 1849, 30,000 souls from the United States alone emigrated to California. No outpouring of people in the Middle Ages ever equalled this. We will give a little sketch of this great movement from the graphic and elegant pen of Bayard Taylor, who saw with his own eyes what he describes:—

“Sacremento city was the goal of the emigration by the northern routes. From the beginning of August to the last of December, scarcely a day passed without the arrival of some man or company of men and families, from the mountains, to pitch their tents for a few days on the banks of the river, and rest from their months of hardship. The vicissitudes through which these people had passed, the perils which they had encountered, and the toils they had endured, seem to me without precedent in history. The story of 30,000 souls accomplishing a journey of more than 2,000 miles through a savage and but partially explored wilderness, crossing on their way two mountains equal to the Alps in height and asperity, besides broad tracts of burning desert and plains of nearly equal desolation, where a few patches of stunted shrubs and springs of brackish water was their only stay, has in it so much heroism, daring and sublime endurance, that we may vainly question the records of any age for its equal. Standing as I was at the closing stage of that grand pilgrimage, the sight of those adventurers, as they came in day by day, and the hearing of their stories, had a more fascinating, because more real interest, than the tales of the old travellers which so impress us in childhood.

“It would be impossible to give, in a general description of the emigration, viewed as one great movement, a complete idea of its wonderful phases. The experience of any single man, which a few years ago would have made him a hero for life, becomes mere common-place when it is but one of thousands; yet the spectacle of a great continent, through a region of 1,000 miles from north to south, being overrun with these adventurous bands, cannot be pictured without the relation of many episodes of individual bravery and suffering. Without giving an account of the emigration generally, I will content myself with a sketch of what was encountered by those who took the northern route, the great overland highway of the continent, that very route which we have described Captain Fremont as having opened.

“The great starting-point for this route was Independence, where thousands were encamped through the month of April, waiting until the grass should be sufficiently high for their cattle, before they ventured on the broad ocean of the plains. From the 1st of May to the 1st of June, company after company took its departure from the frontier of civilisation, till the emigrant trail from Fort Leavensworth on the Missouri, to Fort Laramie at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, was one long line of mule-trains and wagons. The rich meadows of the Nebraske, or Platte, were settled for the time, and a single traveller could have journeyed for the space of 1,000 miles, as certain of his lodgings and regular meals as if he were riding through the agricultural districts of the middle states. The wandering tribes of Indians on the plains, the Pawnees, Sioux, and Arapahoes, were alarmed and bewildered by this strange apparition. They believed that they were about to be swept away for ever from their hunting-grounds and graves. As the season advanced, and the great body of the emigrants got under way, they gradually withdrew from the vicinity of the trail, and betook themselves to grounds which the former did not reach. All conflicts with them were thus avoided.

“Another and more terrible scourge, however, was doomed to fall upon them. The cholera, ascending the Mississippi from New Orleans, reached St. Louis about the time of their departure from Independence, and overtook them before they were fairly embarked on the wilderness. The frequent rains of the early spring, added to the hardships and exposure of their travel, prepared the way for its ravages, and the first 300 or 400 miles of the trail were marked by graves. It is estimated that about 4,000 persons perished from this cause.

“By the time the companies reached Fort Laramie the epidemic had expended its violence, and in the pure air of the elevated region they were safe from further attack. But then the real hardships of their journey began. Up and down the mountains that arise in the Sweet Water Valley; over the spurs of the Wind River chain; through the Devil’s Gate, and past the stupendous mass of Rock Independence, they toiled slowly up to the South Pass, descended to the tributaries of the Colorado, and plunged into the rugged defiles of the Tampanozu Mountains. Here the pasturage became scarce, and the companies were obliged to take separate trails in order to find sufficient grass for their teams. Great numbers also suffered immensely for want of food, and were compelled to kill their horses and mules to keep themselves from starvation. Nor was it unusual for a mess, by way of variety to the tough mule-steaks, to kill a quantity of rattlesnakes, with which the mountains abounded, and have a dish of them fried for supper.”

We have already spoken of the assistance rendered to these vast trains of adventurers by the Mormons, then lately settled at their new city on the Great Salt Lake. “Remarkable,” says Bayard Taylor, “must have been the scene which was presented during the summer. There a community of religious enthusiasts, having established themselves beside an inland sea, in a grand valley shut in by snow-capped mountains, 1,000 miles from any other civilised spot, and dreaming only of rebuilding the Temple and creating a new Jerusalem, were aroused by the advance of these vast pilgrim-bands. And indeed, without this resting-place in mid-journey, the sufferings of the emigrants must have been much aggravated. The Mormons, however, whose rich grain lands in the valley of the Utah River had produced them abundance of supplies, were able to spare sufficient for those whose supplies were exhausted. Two or three thousand who arrived late in the season remained in the valley all winter.

“Those who set out for California had the worst yet in store for them. Crossing the alternate sandy wastes and rugged mountain chains of the Great Basin to the Valley of Humboldt’s River, they were obliged to trust entirely to their worn and weary animals for reaching the Sierra Nevada before the winter snows. The grass was scarce and now fast drying up in the scorching heat of midsummer. The progress of the emigrants along the valley of Humboldt’s River was slow and toilsome in the extreme. This river, which lies entirely within the Great Basin, and has no connexion with the sea, shrinks away towards the end of summer and finally loses itself in the sand at a place called the Sink. Here the single trail across the desert divided into three branches, many companies stopping at this place to recruit their exhausted animals, though exposed to the danger of being detained there the whole winter by the snows of the Sierra Nevada. Another large body took the upper route through Lawson’s Pass, which leads to the head of the Sacremento Valley; while the greater number fortunately chose the old and travelled trails leading to Bear Creek and the Yuba, by way of Truckee River, and to the head waters of the Rio Americano.

“After leaving the Sink of Humboldt’s River, and crossing a desert of about fifty miles in breadth, the emigrants reached the streams which are fed from the Sierra Nevada, where they found good grass and plenty of game. The passes, however, were terribly rugged and precipitous, leading directly up the face of the great snowy ridge. As, however, these mountains are not quite 8,000 feet above the level of the sea, and are reached from a plateau of more than 4,000 feet, the ascent is comparatively short, while on the western side more than 100 miles of mountain country must be passed before reaching the level of the Sacremento Valley. Many passes in the Sierra Nevada were never crossed before the summer of 1849. All the emigrants concurred in representing this western slope of the mountains as an abrupt and broken region, the higher peaks of barren granite, the valleys deep and narrow, yet in many places timbered with pine and cedar of immense growth.”

The advance parties arriving at San Francisco, brought the news of the thousands who remained behind, and who, but for help, would probably perish either among the terrible passes of the mountains or in the great desert of the Sink. Relief companies were, therefore, despatched into the Great Basin to succour the emigrants remaining there, and who for want of provisions could not proceed. Not only did the authorities of San Francisco exert themselves for this purpose, but private individuals also. Major Rucker despatched a party with supplies and fresh animals by way of the Truckee River to the Sink of Humboldt’s River, while he himself took the command of the expedition to Pitt River and Lawson’s Pass. The first party, after furnishing provisions on the road to all whom they found in need, reached the Sink, and started the families who were still encamped there, returning with them, and bringing in the last of the emigration only a day or two before the heavy snows came on, which entirely blocked up the passes. Major Rucker also brought in his company of emigrants after immense labour, and Mr. Peoples, an auxiliary whom he had found it necessary to send out in another direction, accomplished also his work of mercy. A violent storm, relates this gentleman, came on as they were passing the mountains of Deer Creek, and the mules, unaccustomed to the severe cold, sank down and died one after another. The people, whose spirit of enterprise and power of endurance seemed in many deadened by their sufferings, were forcibly compelled to hurry forward with the remaining animals. The women, who seemed to have much more energy and endurance than the men, were mounted on mules, and the whole party pushed on through the bleak passes of the mountains in the face of the storm. By extraordinary exertions, they were all finally brought into the Sacremento Valley, with the loss of many wagons and animals.

“The greater part of those who came in by the lower routes,” continues Bayard Taylor, “started after a season of rest for the mining region, where many of them arrived in time to build themselves log-huts for the winter. Some pitched their tents along the river, to wait for the genial spring season, while others took their axes and commenced the business of wood-cutting in the timber on its banks, and which wood, when shipped to San Francisco, paid them well.”

“By the end of December, the last man of the overland companies was safe on the western side of the Sierra Nevada, and the great interior wilderness resumed its ancient silence and solitude until the next spring; when again it would become populous with these modern crusaders.”

Nor was the emigration to California confined alone to those who reached it by land. Ships thronged the beautiful harbour of San Francisco, bringing in their thousands likewise. So great was the concourse, that between the 7th of December, 1848, and the 20th of January, 1849, ninety-nine vessels left the ports of the United States alone for California, and from Oct. 1849, to Oct. 1850, nearly 49,000 emigrants arrived by sea at San Francisco, and about 20,000 by land.

At the presidential election of 1848, General Zachary Taylor, the hero of the Mexican war, was chosen president, and Millard Fillmore, of New York, vice-president. The following year, Minnesota, adjacent to the head waters of the Mississippi, was admitted into the Union.

The vast growth of the national territory, and the consequent increase of states governments which would sooner or later take place, gave rise to the most violent contests between the slavery and the non-slavery parties which as yet had been known. The north and the south were again arrayed against each other, and the secession from the Union was the threat to which South Carolina again resorted. Whilst this great political battle was being fought in congress during the sessions of 1849–50, California, which had so suddenly acquired a population far exceeding that required by the Constitution for the establishment of a territorial government, could obtain no guidance or aid from congress, excepting merely a law regarding the revenue. Amid this perplexing and difficult state of affairs, however, the sagacity and prudence of the Californians themselves saved them from anarchy and ruin, and proved how true is the assertion that the American citizen is gifted with the innate power of self-government. The wisest senate that ever sat could not have reduced a social and political chaos into a state of more perfect harmony and order, than did these legislators of the far west by their simple and constitutional laws.

Again we turn to Bayard Taylor, whose work on California possesses all the merits and intrinsic value of the early annalists of the Puritan states. We will briefly follow him in his account of the state organisation of California.

“In the neglect of congress,” says he, “to provide for the establishment of a territorial, it was suggested that a convention should be called for the framing of a state constitution, and that California should be admitted at once into the Union, without passing through the territorial stage, leaping with one bound, as it were, from a state of semi-civilisation to be the thirty-first sovereign state of the American Confederacy.

“On the 4th of September, the convention met at Monterey, when Dr. Robert Semple, of the Sonoma district, was chosen president, and conducted to his seat by Captain Sutter and General Vallijo. Captain William G. Marey, of the New York volunteer regiment, was elected secretary, after which the various posts of clerks, assistant secretaries, translators, doorkeepers, sergeant-at-arms, etc., were filled. The day after their complete organisation they were sworn to support the Constitution of the United States.

“The building in which the convention met was probably the only one in California suited for the purpose. It is a handsome two-story edifice of yellow sandstone, situated on a gentle slope above the town. It is called Colton Hall, on account of its having been built by Don Walter Colton, former Alcade of Monterey, from the proceeds of a sale of city lots. The stone of which it is built is found near Monterey; it is of a fine mellow colour, easily cut, and will last for centuries in that mild climate. The upper story, in which the convention sat, formed a single hall about sixty feet in length by twenty-five in breadth. A railing running across the middle divided the members from the spectators. The former were seated at four long tables, the president occupying a rostrum at the further end, over which were suspended two American flags and an extraordinary picture of Washington, evidently the work of a native artist. The appearance of the whole body was exceedingly dignified and intellectual, and parliamentary decorum was strictly observed.

“The Declaration of Rights, which was the first subject before the convention, occasioned little discussion. Its sections being general in their character, and of a liberal republican cast, were nearly all adopted by a nearly unanimous vote. The clause prohibiting slavery was met by no word of dissent; it was the universal sentiment of the convention. Without capitulating the various provisions of the constitution, it is enough to say that they combined with few exceptions the most enlightened features of the constitutions of the older states. The election of judges by the people; the rights of married women to property; the establishment of a liberal system of education, and other reforms of late introduced into the States Governments east of the Rocky Mountains, were all transplanted to the new soil of the Pacific coast.

“The adoption of a system of pay for the officers and members of the convention occasioned some discussion. The Californian members, and a few of the Americans, demanded that the convention should work for nothing, the glory being sufficient. The majority overruled this, and it was finally decided that all should be paid, the members receiving sixteen dollars per day, and the different officers on a higher scale, in proportion to their duties. The expenses of the convention were paid out of the civil fund, an accumulation of the duties received at the ports. The funds were principally silver, and at the close of their labours, it was amusing to see the various members carrying away their pay tied up in handkerchiefs or slung in bags over their shoulders. The little Irish boy who acted as page was nearly pressed down by the weight of his wages.

“One of the most exciting questions was a clause which had been crammed through the convention on its first reading, prohibiting the entrance of free people of colour into the state. On the second reading it was rejected by a large majority; several attempts to introduce it in a modified form also signally failed.

“The boundary too, which came up towards the close of the convention, assumed a character of real interest and importance. The great point in dispute was the eastern boundary, the Pacific being the natural boundary on the west, the meridian of 42° on the north, and the Mexican line on the south. After many attempts to extend this eastern boundary, variously from the Sierra Nevada Chain, to the banks of the Colorado River, it was settled by following the old Mexican boundary, which after all appeared to satisfy every body. The state had thus 800 miles of sea coast, and an average of 250 miles in breadth, including both sides of the Sierra Nevada, and some of the best rivers of the Great Basin. As to the question of slavery, the character of the country will settle that. The whole central region, extending to the Sierra Madre of New Mexico, can never sustain a slave population. The greater part of it resembles in climate and general features the mountain Steppes of Tartary, and is better adapted for grazing than agriculture.”

Among other creditable facts of this convention, it is worthy of mention that various native Californians, with their chivalric Spanish names, sat among the members, and were even elected to offices under the new government.

On October the 12th, the convention brought its labours to an end, and a ball was given by the members of the convention to the citizens of Monterey, in the hall where they had sat, on the following evening.

Of the ball we need say nothing, but merely close our account with the signing of the convention, which might not unworthily take its place, as an historical picture, near that of the scene in the cabin of the Mayflower, when the Puritan Fathers solemnly put their names to the compact of good government before landing in the New World. Again we turn to our agreeable eye-witness.

“The morning after the ball, the members met at the usual hour to perform the last duty that remained to them, that of signing the constitution. They were all in the happiest humour, and the morning was so bright and balmy that no one seemed disposed to call an organisation. At length, Mr. Semple being sick, Captain Sutter, the old California pioneer, was appointed to his place. The chair was taken, and the members seated themselves round the sides of the hall, which still retained the pine-trees and banners left from last night’s decorations. The doors and windows were open, and a delightful breeze came in from the bay whose blue waters sparkled in the distance. The view of the balcony in front was bright and inspiring. The town below, the shipping in the harbour, the pine-covered hills behind, were mellowed by the blue October haze, but there was no cloud in the sky, and the mountains of Santa Cruz and the Sierra de Gavilan might be clearly seen on the northern horizon.

“An address to the people of California, which had been drawn up by committee, was first read and adopted without a dissenting voice. A resolution was then passed to pay Lieutenant Hamilton the sum of 500 dollars for engrossing the constitution on parchment, a higher amount than was ever paid before for similar services, but on a par with payment in California. Before the convention for the signature of their names, an adjournment of half an hour took place, during which I amused myself by walking through the town. Everybody knew that the convention was about closing, and it was generally understood that Captain Benton had loaded the guns at the fort, and would fire at the proper moment a salute of thirty-one guns, such, including California, being the number of the United States. The citizens therefore, as well as the members, were in an excited mood. Monterey never before looked so bright, so happy, so full of pleasant expectation.

“About one o’clock the convention met again. Mr. Semple was now present. First, salaries were voted; 10,000 dollars annually, and General Riley as governor of California, and 5,000 to Mr. Halleck as secretary of state, after which they affixed their names to the completed constitution. At this moment a signal was given; the American colours run up the flag-staff in front of the government buildings and streamed out on the air. The next moment the first gun boomed from the fort, and its stirring echoes came back from one hill after another till they were lost in the distance.

“All the native enthusiasm of Captain Sutter’s Swiss blood was aroused; he was the old soldier again. He sprang from his seat, and waving his hand round his head, as if swinging his sword, exclaimed, ‘Gentlemen, this the happiest day of my life. It makes me glad to hear those cannon; they remind me of the time when I was a soldier. Yes, I am glad to hear them! This is a great day for California!’ Then recollecting himself, he sat down, the tears streaming from his eyes. The members, with one accord, gave three tumultuous cheers, which were heard from one end of the town to the other. As the signing went on, gun followed gun from the fort, the echoes reverberating grandly around the bay, till finally, as the loud peal of the thirty-first was heard, there was a shout, ‘That’s for California!’ And everyone joined in giving three times three for the new star added to our Constitution.”

Thus was California, as was represented on her great seal of state, born full-grown, like Minerva, into the national confederacy.

The first Californian senators to congress were John C. Fremont and William M. Gwin. On February 13th, 1850, the constitution of California, together with her petition to be admitted into the Union, were sent to congress by the president.

The clause excluding slavery from the new state awoke all the old animosity of the slavery question, especially as the southern boundary of California lay south of the line of the Missouri compromise. Nor was this the only subject which agitated congress at this time. Texas claimed the whole country as far as the Rio Grande, thus embracing a portion of New Mexico, which the New Mexicans, of Santa Fe violently resisted, being determined not to come under the rule of Texas. Colonel Monroe was at this time American commandant of Santa Fe, and having received private instructions from Washington, a convention was called and a state constitution was framed, and while Texas was preparing to seize the disputed territory by force, New Mexico petitioned to be admitted into the Union. Again, on this very subject of disputed territory, the north and south came to issue, the southern states advocating the claim of Texas, which if established would extend the area of slavery, and the north opposing it for the very same cause.

At length, after the two hostile parties had waged war for some time without either gaining ground, Henry Clay brought in his Compromise Bill, the object of which he stated to be, “to settle and adjust amicably all existing questions of controversy between them, arising out of the institution of slavery, upon a fair, equitable and just basis.” The Compromise Bill was, in May, referred to a committee of thirteen, and in September its measures passed as mutual concessions and compromises for the sake of union, viz.: 1. California was admitted into the Union as a state, with her constitution excluding slavery, and her boundaries extending from Oregon to the Mexican possessions. 2. The Great Basin, east of California, containing the Mormon settlement near the Great Salt Lake, was erected, without mention of slavery, into a territory, by the Indian name of Utah. 3. New Mexico, with a boundary which satisfied her inhabitants, was also erected into a state without mention of slavery; congress giving to Texas, in relinquishment of her claims, ten millions of dollars, with which Texas was to pay former debts for which the United States had been in honour bound. 4. A law was passed abolishing the slave-trade, but not slavery, in the district of Columbia; and 5. The Fugitive Slave Law was passed, a law so cruel in its operations as to call forth, as it were, a universal groan from the non-slavery states, and to fan up afresh the otherwise cooling embers of hostility.

The census of 1850 reported the population of the United States to be 23,267,498, of which 3,197,589 were slaves. In the same year the amount of emigration from Europe to America exceeded 300,000.

We have thus brought down the history of the United States to the middle of the present century, and the reader cannot fail of having been impressed with a sense of the vitality which has ever marked the progress and development of the Anglo-American States, and which, from the smallest beginnings on the Atlantic shore, have now extended with an irresistible force to the far Pacific.

Politically and morally the Republic of the United States has been a grand, successful experiment. While the nation has grown with an unexampled rapidity, it has not overlooked the essential foundations of national greatness—the religious and social advancement of the people. The school-house and the place of worship have sprung up simultaneously with human dwellings in the wilderness. And though anomalies exist in the characters of her institutions, though the blot of slavery darkens the page of her history, and her abundant harvest fields have been watered by the blood of the Indian, still, even for the slave is there hope of the amelioration of his condition, and it may be of his redemption, through the growing enlightenment of the South. And as regards the Indian, missionary-labour is increasing among his people, and where they are capable of receiving the instruction and civilisation of the whites, it is given. In 1850, there were 570 missionaries, more than half of whom were women, labouring earnestly in the wilderness, together with 2,000 preachers and helpers among the natives themselves. A thousand churches, of various Christian denominations, have been erected, and the number of professing Christian Indians amounts at this time to 40,537. A great number of schools have been established, and are increasing daily, where the Indian children, to the number of 30,000, receive instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, as well as in handicraft trades. The women easily acquire these latter. Printing presses have been introduced among them, and works in thirty different languages produced.^[86]

While these facilities are given for education among the Indians, those which are afforded for society at large are on the most ample and liberal scale. Education is indispensable to the man and woman of the New World, and a system of school education is being universally established there, which shall make the enlightenment of the moral and intellectual being common to all, irrespective of creeds and parties, open alike to man and woman.

We will conclude with a few facts drawn from the report of Messrs. Whitworth and Wallis on the Industry of the United States in 1850. “The energetic character of the American people,” say these gentlemen, “is nowhere more strikingly displayed than in the young manufacturing settlements that are so rapidly springing up in the northern states. A retired valley and its stream of water become in a few months the seat of manufactures; and the dam and water-wheel are the means of giving employment to busy thousands, where before nothing more than a solitary farm-house was found.

“Great facilities are afforded in many of these states for the formation of manufacturing companies. The liabilities of partners not actively engaged in the management are limited to the proportion of the capital subscribed by each, and its amount is published in the official statement of the company. In the case of the introduction of a new invention, or a new manufacture, the principle of limited liability produces most beneficial results.

“The cost of obtaining an act of incorporation is very trifling. In one case, where the capital of the company amounted to 600,000 dollars (£120,000), the total cost of obtaining an incorporation was fifty cents—two shillings and one penny!

“In America, where labour is more expensive than with us, great ingenuity has been used in the making of labour-saving machines. Timber is sawn up for all kinds of purposes in building, laths are cut, boards for flooring prepared and planed, doors, window-frames, or staircases made, planed, tenoned, mortised and joined by machinery, at a much cheaper rate than by hand-labour. Wood is sawn up at railroad stations, and other places where a great consumption of fuel is required, by sawing-machines, driven by horse-power. Boxes are made by the same means, being tongued and grooved properly and put together by machinery. These labour-saving machines are applied also to the making of furniture and agricultural implements, mowing and reaping machines, and self-acting churns, in the making of all of which labour-saving tools are again used. Among machines of this class must not be omitted the sewing-machine, the use of which is carried to great extent in the New England states. One large manufactory at Waterbury is occupied exclusively in the manufacture of under-vests and drawers, the cloth waistbands of the latter being stitched by the sewing-machine at the rate of 430 stitches per minute. In a shirt manufactory of New Haven, entire shirts, excepting only the gussets, are made by sewing-machines. By the aid of these machines one woman can do as much work as from twelve to twenty hand-sewers. The workwomen work by the piece, and are frequently able to finish their estimated day’s work by two o’clock, and when busy work overtime. When will the older countries be able to give sufficient remunerative employment to their women, so as, like these happier New England states, to dispense with the starvation-drudgery of the poor needlewoman, and make the “Song of the Shirt” applicable no longer?

“The railroads of America are constructed on a much less expensive scale than with us. Economy and speedy completion are the points which are especially considered in that country. A single line of rails nailed down to transverse logs, and a train at rare intervals, are deemed to be sufficient as a commencement, and as traffic increases additional improvements are made.

“As regards either a railroad or a telegraphic line, if a company or a private individual should propose or construct them, or could show that they would be beneficial to the public, an act may be obtained authorising him to proceed, as a matter of course; no private interests can oppose the passage of the line through any property; there are no committees, no counsel, no long array of witnesses and expensive hearings; compensation is made simply for damage done, the amount being assessed by a jury, and generally on a most moderate estimate. With a celerity that is surprising a company is incorporated, the line is built, and operations are commenced.

“As may be well conceived, the advantages derivable from the Electric Telegraph were at once appreciated by the United States, and that wonderful discovery, which opened a system of communication annihilating distance, received immediate encouragement both from the federal government in Washington and the governments of the different states. In 1844 congress made a liberal grant to put in operation the first telegraphic line that was erected in the states—that between Washington and Baltimore; and before seven years had elapsed, the committee on Post-offices and Post-roads presented to the senate their report on the route which they had selected for a gigantic telegraph line, nearly 2,500 miles in length, connecting San Francisco with Natchez on the Mississippi, and thence with the vast network of lines that by that time had covered the Atlantic states. Such was the rapid development of this system of communication, supported by the federal government and fostered by that of the states, which passed general laws authorising the immediate construction of telegraph lines whenever they could be conducive to the public interest, and affording every facility for companies for that purpose.

“The aggregate length of the telegraphic lines in the United States exceeded, in 1852, 15,000 miles, and this number is continually increasing. The average cost of constructing a line is estimated at £37 per mile. So moderate is the scale of charges by the telegraphic wires, that the electric telegraph is used by all classes of society as an ordinary means of transmitting intelligence; government dispatches and communications taking the precedence. Newspapers make great use of it, as well as commercial houses.

“The most distant points connected by electric telegraph are Quebec and New Orleans, which are 3,000 miles apart; while a network of lines extends to the west as far as Missouri, about 500 towns and villages in those remote wildernesses being provided with stations.

“The cotton manufactures of the United States are principally centralized in New England and Pennsylvania, but out of the thirty-one states of the Union there are seven only in which the spinning or manufacture of cotton is not carried on, viz., Louisiana, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and California. The census of 1850 returns 1,054 establishments for the manufacture of cotton goods, consuming 641,240 bales of cotton, and manufacturing goods to the value of £1,000,000 sterling. The number of persons employed in these mills are 33,150 males and 59,136 females. In Alabama slave labour is said to be largely employed, with whites as overseers and instructors. The mills at Lowell, in Massachusetts, on the falls of Powtucket on the Merrimack river, are the most celebrated in the United States, as having been the first where advantage was taken of great natural advantages, with a large and well directed capital, resulting in extensive and systematic operations for the realisation of a legitimate profit; whilst the social position of the operative classes was sedulously cared for, and their moral and intellectual elevation promoted and secured. These works at Lowell were commenced about thirty years ago, and the town now contains 35,000 inhabitants. The example of the Lowell manufacturers has been followed throughout the Union, and in every case with the same favourable results. The number of operatives in the Lowell mills is 6,920 females and 2,378 males.

“By the census returns of 1850, twenty-four of the thirty-one states of the Union, and the district of Columbia, had establishments engaged in some department of the woollen manufacture. The seven states in which this branch of industry had not been commenced, were South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and California. The New England States had not so many establishments in operation as the two states of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and only five more than those of New York and Ohio. Thus it will be seen that, whilst the cotton manufacture is located more exclusively in the Eastern States, the woollen manufacture is extended in almost equal proportions over the whole of the Middle States, and extends itself into the western regions and towards the south. The extent of the woollen manufactures of Massachusetts, however, is seen in the fact, that whilst in the 380 mills of Pennsylvania the consumption of wool is 7,560,379 lbs., employing 3,490 males and 2,236 females, producing 10,099,234 yards of cloth and 1,941,621 lbs. of yarn, of the annual value of 5,321,866 dollars, about £1,300,000 sterling; 119 establishments in the first-named state consume 22,229,952 lbs. of wool, employ 6,167 males and 4,963 females, and produce 25,865,658 yards of cloth and 749,550 lbs. of yarn, of the annual value of 12,770,565 dollars, about £3,000,000 sterling. The difference of the modes of manufacture in the two states above-named, as illustrated by the cotton trade, is here shown again in the fact, that a very large proportion of the woollen mills of Pennsylvania is yarn only, a large amount of this being consumed in home manufacture for domestic use, or in the weaving of mixed goods and carpets by hand, and this, too, in addition to the home-spun woollen yarns mentioned as being worked up with the cotton yarns produced for that purpose. The 130 establishments in Ohio, as well as 121 in Virginia, 25 in Kentucky, and 33 in Indiana, would appear to manufacture the greater portion of the yarns spun therein; it is probable, therefore, that the yarns of Pennsylvania are largely used for the supply of the west in the materials for home weaving. After all, however, this department of industry is becoming daily more and more exceptional; but it is interesting as illustrating the early condition of a new country in its efforts to supply its own wants, in the absence of that larger development of manufacturing means and appliances which capital, skill, and a large and ever-increasing demand can alone establish on a firm and enduring basis.

“The total number of persons employed in the various establishments for the manufacture of woollen goods in the United States in 1850 was 22,678 males and 16,574 females.

“The state of Massachusetts is largely engaged in the manufacture of paper. At Lee, Berkshire County, there are 19 paper mills employing a capital of about 200,000 dollars (about £50,000 sterling). In Norfolk County, Massachusetts, there are 17 mills, and in Worcester County 15 mills, employing a capital of £100,000 sterling in this manufacture. In 1845, up to which date the last general statistical information on the state of Massachusetts is published, there were 89 paper mills consuming 12,886 tons of materials, and making 4,763 tons, giving 607,175 reams of paper per annum, the value of which was 1,750,373 dollars (about £430,000 sterling), and employing 1,369 operatives; and this certainly gives no exaggerated view of the general position of the paper trade in nearly all the New England states,—New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania,—at the present date.

“The materials used are chiefly raw cotton and mill waste. Linen rags are imported from Europe, but the principal consumption appears to be cotton, either as above-named or in rags. The general character of the printing paper is of a low quality, with a very small amount of dressing or size. In writing papers the make is quite equal to the general run of European papers, but the finish is not always so perfect. It is stated, however, that whilst the Americans try to imitate the English finish, the latter are trying to imitate that of makers of the United States.

“The printing operations are extensive and well conducted, particularly in book-work. The printing of newspapers alone forms a large item in the industry of the country. In the New England states, according to the Abstract of the Census of 1850, there were 424 newspapers; in the Middle states, 876; in the Southern states, 716, and in the Western states, 784; and the following table shows the daily, weekly, and monthly issues, and aggregate circulation, as given by the above authority:—

“With an educated people, taking a vital interest in all public questions, the newspaper press is likely to increase even in a greater ratio than it has done during the past decade. The number of German emigrants has caused the establishment of newspapers for their use; and at Cincinnati alone there are four daily newspapers published in the German language.

“Typefounding is carried on to a great extent at Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and there are single establishments in several other of the large cities. The whole of the type used in the United States, besides a large quantity exported to the British provinces and the various states of South America, is produced in these foundries.

“The boot and shoe trade of the United States is of a very extensive character, and the systematic manner in which it is carried on worthy of being understood and adopted elsewhere. A scale or series of sizes is adopted, say in women’s and children’s shoes from one to six, and even higher numbers, the half constituting a size between each. The various portions of the boots and shoes are cut out to these sizes and half-sizes. These are put up with all the requisite trimmings necessary to complete the articles, in sets of 60 pairs for the common kinds, and 24 pairs for the finer qualities.

“Being cut out and made up into sets, they are sent to be ‘fitted’ for the maker—that is, the various parts of the upper leathers are stitched together. Much of this is now done by one of the various kinds of sewing machines. The neatness, accuracy and strength of stitch is superior to hand work. The upper leathers thus ‘fitted’ are then sent to the ‘binder,’ who finally prepares them for the ‘maker,’ by whom they are soled and heeled. Being complete in make they then go to the ‘trimmer,’ whose work consists in punching the string-holes, stringing and putting on buttons, and in ladies’ shoes, bows and rosettes.

“Soles are cut out by machinery. A knife with a curvilinear edge is set in a frame and worked with a treadle, after the manner of a lathe. By a lateral motion in the machine, it can be adapted to the cutting of any requisite width of sole, and being once fixed to a given width, the process of cutting is very rapid, and material is saved by the leather being cut at right angles to the surface, instead of diagonally, as by the ordinary knife.

“When finished, the goods are made up in boxes containing one dozen of assorted sizes. They are then sent in cases to the wholesale dealer, who supplies the retailer. A case contains five boxes making up the 60 pairs of assorted sizes of which a set of the commoner kind consists as manufactured. These manufactures are found in all parts of the New England states, but chiefly in the states of Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. The finer quality of hoots for gentlemen are chiefly made at Randolph and Abington, Massachusetts; the heavier kind of shoes, and the coarsest kind, usually called ‘brogans,’ at Danvers in the same state. These ‘brogans’ are chiefly manufactured for the Southern markets, for the use of slaves, and are similar to the shoes worn by the miners of South Staffordshire.

“The following table, compiled from the ‘Statistics of the Condition and Products of certain branches of industry in Massachusetts for the year ending April 1st, 1845,’ will show the extent of the boot and shoe trade in the six above-named towns at that date:—

“Pennsylvania is the largest iron-producing state in the Union, although by the census of 1850, twenty-one states are returned as producing pig iron, and only two, Florida and Arkansas, as not having establishments for the manufacture of iron castings; whilst in nineteen states wrought iron is made.

“In the production of pig iron 377 establishments were in operation in 1850; and of these 180 were in Pennsylvania, 35 in Ohio, and 29 in Virginia.

“The capital invested amounted to 17,346,425 dollars (about £4,500,000 sterling), the produce being 564,755 tons per annum, employing 20,291 males and 150 females.

“In the manufacture of iron castings, 1,391 establishments were engaged. Of these 643 were in the states of New York and Pennsylvania,—323 in the former and 330 in the latter; 183 others being in the state of Ohio. The capital invested amounted to 17,416,361 dollars, being about the same as in pig iron. 322,745 tons of castings are produced per annum, giving employment to 23,541 males and 48 females; the value of the castings, and other products, being estimated at about £6,250,000 sterling.

“Wrought iron is manufactured at 422 establishments in 19 states. Pennsylvania has 131, New York 60, New Jersey 53, Tennessee 42, and Virginia 39; the remaining 97 being situated in 14 other states. The capital invested was 14,495,220 dollars, or about £3,500,000 sterling; 13,178 males and 79 females being employed. The quantity manufactured amounted to 278,044 tons, the value of which, with other products, was 16,747,074 dollars, or about £4,100,000 sterling.

“In nearly all the large cities, iron foundries are to be found, cast-iron being largely employed in the construction of buildings both of wood and brick; and in Philadelphia, as also to some extent in other cities, whole elevations of houses, used as retail shops in the principal streets, are of cast-iron. In these cases, the construction of the building is usually modified to suit the material of the front, and, in some instances, an approximation is made towards adapting the decorative part of the elevation to the material and the construction. In general, however, the ordinary forms, as used in stone and wood, are followed, and the whole painted and sanded in imitation of Connecticut red sandstone. The construction of some of these elevations is at once simple and effective, alike for strength as architectural effect, and there appears to be very little difficulty in taking out an old front and substituting a new one, as the whole is well braced together by ties and screws—the side walls sustaining the structure in all essential points. This use of cast-iron may eventually produce a style of street architecture of a different character to that which now prevails, and which is in imitation of European modes of construction and decoration.”

We have merely given above the slightest idea of the vast industrial operations of the United States, which embrace every branch of arts and manufactures; but that little is enough to show how great are their resources, and what an immense field is opened to their enterprise, to their skill and inventive genius.

As we have already said, education is one feature of the American national character, and art-education, as applied to manufactures, is now beginning necessarily to attract serious attention in the United States. Hence schools of design have been established in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore and other cities; most of these being, however, intended for the art-education of women.

From art-education, which can only be available for a portion of the public, we pass to that which is made indispensable by the wise legislation of the United States.

“The compulsory educational clauses adopted in the laws of most of the states, and especially those of New England, by which some three months of every year must be spent at school by the young factory operative under fourteen or fifteen years of age, secure every child from the cupidity of the parent, or the neglect of the manufacturer; since to profit by the child’s labour during three-fourths of the year, he or she must be regularly in attendance in some public or private school conducted by some authorised teacher during the other fourth.

“This lays the foundation for that wide-spread intelligence which prevails amongst the factory operatives of the United States; and though at first sight the manufacturer may appear to be restricted in the free use of the labour offered to him, the system re-acts to the permanent advantage of both employer and employed.

“The skill of hand which comes of experience is, notwithstanding present defects, rapidly following the perceptive power so keenly awakened by early intellectual training. Quickly learning from the skilful European artizans thrown amongst them by emigration, or imported as instructors, with minds, as already stated, prepared by sound practical education, the Americans have laid the foundation of a wide-spread system of manufacturing operations, the influence of which cannot be calculated upon, and are daily improving upon the lessons obtained from their older and more experienced compeers of Europe.

“Commercially, advantages of no ordinary kind are presented to the manufacturing states of the American Union. The immense development of its resources in the west, the demands of a population increasing daily by emigration from Europe, as also by the results of a healthy natural process of inter-emigration, which tends to spread over an enlarged surface the population of the Atlantic States; the facilities of communication by lakes, rivers, and railways; and the cultivation of European tastes and consequently of European wants; all tend to the encouragement of those arts and manufactures which it is the interest of the citizens of the older states to cultivate, and in which they have so far succeeded that their markets may be said to be secured to them as much as manufacturers, as they have hitherto been, and will doubtless continue to be, as merchants. For whether the supply is derived from the home or foreign manufacturer, the demand cannot fail to be greater than the industry of both can supply. This once fairly recognised, those jealousies which have ever tended to retard the progress of nations in the peaceful arts, will be no longer suffered to interfere, by taking the form of restrictions on commerce and the free intercourse of peoples.”