CHAPTER XXIV.

RESULTS OF THE MEXICAN WAR (1848-1853)

315. Gold

in Cali

fornia

POLK's astute plans for making California a slaveholding region were brought to naught by a few grains of yellow metal. On January 24, 1848, about a week before the treaty of peace was signed, James W. Marshall of New Jersey picked up some flakes of gold in the race (1848-1853) of a new sawmill about sixty miles from Sutter's Fort, now called Sacramento. The news spread like the cry of fire; within six months the coast settlements of California were

almost deserted; the inhabitants hurried to the gold diggings, which were "placers" (gravel reaches or terraces) yielding gold in dust, coarser particles, and nuggets. Soon all sorts of merchandise rose in price three times over; and some miners by their individual labor were taking from $3000 to $5000 a month at the diggings.

The next year thousands of "Forty-niners" made their way to California, some around Cape Horn, some across the Isthmus of Panama or Nicaragua, some in wagon trains straight west across the plains (p. 324). Between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand people poured into California, and in two seasons more than $30,000,000 of gold was taken out. If somebody "struck it rich,” “in half an hour a motley multiColton, tude, covered with crowbars, pickaxes, spades, rifles, and wash bowls, went streaming over the hills in the direction of the new deposits." The old Spanish mining laws were inadequate, and the criminal laws did not apply to the circumstances; and there was no government to pass new statutes. The miners therefore organized, made their own mining rules, and set up so-called "vigilance committees" for offhand punishment of crime.

Three Years in California, 293

Gold mining was not all success. Probably every dollar of placer gold ever found in California cost on the average at least a dollar and a quarter in human toil, besides the waste of human life. After 1853 the yield of exposed placer gold declined, and mining in California gradually became a regular industry backed up by capital. Large streams were turned out of their beds in order to find the placer gold at the bottom of their courses; then the gold was traced back to the quartz ledges, and stamp mills were set up.

One object of the annexation of California was to secure 316. Trade ports for direct trade with the Pacific islands, China, in the Pa- and Japan. The halfway station of the Sandwich or (1844-1854) Hawaiian Islands had for twenty years been under

cific

the influence of American missionaries, and the native dynasty recognized that the interests of the United States were greater than those of any other power. Chinese trade, however, was very much hampered by restrictions in Chinese ports. In 1844 Caleb Cushing, sent out by the United States, was able to secure a very desirable commercial treaty by which five Chinese "treaty ports" were designated for American trade; American consuls were allowed to hold courts for cases involving their countrymen; and American merchants and other people got the right to buy pieces of ground for their own occupancy, "and also for hospitals, churches, and cemeteries."

PERRY IN JAPAN, 1854. (From Perry's Narrative.)

Japan refused to admit any traders or foreign merchantmen on any terms, till the United States sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to open up relations. He entered ports where no European vessel had ever been seen; he succeeded in breaking in the shell of the old empire; and he secured a favorable commercial treaty in 1854.

The principal issue in the presidential election of 1848 was the future of New Mexico and California. The Whigs nominated General Zachary Taylor. Van Buren's friends soon

after 1844 formed what was called the "Barnburner" faction of Democrats in New York; and when the Democratic con317. Crisis vention of May, 1848, refused their delegates full recogon territonition, and then nominated for President a "dough-face," rial slavery (1846-1849) or northern proslavery man, Lewis Cass of Michigan, on a noncommittal platform, the Barnburners bolted. They combined with the Free-soilers (who included the former Liberty men) in nominating Van Buren for President, on the platform of "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men." This combination polled nearly 300,000 votes and threw New York over from the Democratic to the Whig side, thus allowing Zachary Taylor, a slaveholder, to be elected by 163 electoral votes to 127 for Cass.

From 1846 to 1849 several different propositions were made for settling the question whether slavery was to be legal in California and New Mexico: (1) the Wilmot Proviso, excluding slavery by act of Congress; (2) establishment of slavery by act of Congress; (3) continuation of the 36° 30' compromise line from Texas to the Pacific; (4) "popular quattuo sovereignty," which was a suggestion by Cass that the question be left to the people of the respective territories; (5) “executive regulations," through the Walker Bill, which would have given to the President authority to form a government. None of the five propositions could get a majority in both houses of Congress, and the only action bearing on the question was an act organizing the Territory of Oregon (August 14, 1848) with a prohibition of slavery.

318. Slav-
ery ques-
tions

As soon as Taylor became President (March 4, 1849), he used his influence and authority to bring about a state constitutional convention in California. That convention drew up a state constitution (September, 1849) which definitely (1849-1850) prevented either a compromise line or local slavery on the Pacific coast; for it declared that California extended all the way along the coast from Mexico to Oregon, and it abso

lutely forbade slavery. Free miners, working with their own hands, would not permit slaveholders to come out with their slaves and compete in the placers. A state government was immediately organized without waiting for any act of Congress.

66

The air was full of slavery questions. Antislavery men felt that the time had come for some action which would put a stop to the domestic slave trade almost under the shadow of the Capitol; and Abraham Lincoln introduced a bill (January, 1849) for gradual emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia. The fugitive slave act of 1793 had never worked well, and a decision of the Supreme Court (Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, 1842) took away much of its force. Besides, there was a regular system for aiding fugitives to escape, popularly known as the "Underground Railroad," in which more than 3000 people are known to have taken part; and through which, from 1830 to 1860, upward of 60,000 slaves escaped. Fugitives were kept in the houses of abolitionists, forwarded from place to place at night, or hidden in out-of-the-way places; and if the pursuers came, were finally shipped across the Lakes to free Canada. The South demanded that a more effective fugitive slave law be provided, and bills for that purpose were introduced.

Behind all these questions was the larger issue of the relative power of free and slave states. Up to 1849 the principle