California Romantic and Resourceful | Page 7

precious metal mining of the Far West have, for the most part, swarmed
out of the California hive, California ideas have not only been
everywhere dominant over the field of the industry, but have stemmed
the tide of Federal land policy, and given us a statute-book with
English common law in force over half the land and California
common law ruling in the other."
I have spoken of these two incidents, the one of the peaceable
civilization of the missions, and the other of the strenuous life issuing
in the adoption of the mining law, as illustrative incidents of the variety
of California history. Let me briefly speak of a third one, California's
method of getting into the Union. But two other states at the present
time celebrate the anniversary of their admission into the Union; the
reason for California's celebration of that anniversary is well founded.
The delay incident to the admission of California into the Union as a
State was precipitated by the tense struggle then raging in Congress
between the North and the South. The admission of Wisconsin had
made a tie, fifteen free states and fifteen slave states. The destiny of the
nation hung upon the result of that issue, and when California finally
entered the Union, it came in as the sixteenth free State, forever
destroyed the equilibrium between the North and the South, and made
the Civil War practically inevitable. The debate was a battle of giants.
Webster, Clay and Calhoun all took part in it. Calhoun had arisen from
his death-bed to fight the admission of California, and, upon reaching
his seat in the Senate, found himself so overcome with weakness and
pain that he had Mason of Virginia read the speech he had prepared in
writing. Webster atoned for his hostility to the Pacific Coast before the
Mexican War by answering Calhoun. "I do not hesitate to avow in the
presence of the living God that if you seek to drive us from
California . . . I am for disunion," declared Robert Toombs, of Georgia,
to an applauding House. "The unity of our empire hangs upon the
decision of this day," answered Seward in the Senate. National history
was being made with a vengeance, and California was the theme. The
contest was an inspiring one, and a reading of the Congressional

Record covering the period makes a Californian's blood tingle with the
intensity of it all[6].
The struggle had been so prolonged, however, that the people upon this
coast, far removed from the scene of it, and feeling more than all else
that they were entitled to be protected by a system of laws, had grown
impatient. They had finally proceeded in a characteristically
Californian way. They had met in legislative assembly and proclaimed:
"It is the duty of the Government of the United States to give us laws;
and when that duty is not performed, one of the clearest rights we have
left is to govern ourselves."
The first provisional government meeting was held in the pueblo of San
Jose, December 11, 1848, and unanimously recommended that a
general convention be held at the pueblo of San Jose on the second
Monday of January following. At San Francisco a similar provisional
meeting was held, though the date of the proposed convention was
fixed for the first Monday in March, 1849, and afterward changed to
the first Monday in August.
The various assemblies which had placed other conditions and fixed
other dates and places for holding the same gave way, and a general
election was finally held under the provisions of a proclamation issued
by General Bennet Riley, the United States General commanding, a
proclamation for the issuance of which there was no legislative warrant
whatever. While the Legislative Assembly of San Francisco recognized
his military authority, in which capacity he was not formidable, it did
not recognize his civil power. General Riley, however, with that rare
diplomacy which seems to have attached to all Federal military people
when acting on the Pacific Coast, realizing that any organized
government that proceeded from an orderly concourse of the people
was preferable to the exasperating condition in which the community
was left to face its increasing problem under Congressional inaction,
himself issued the proclamation for a general convention, which is
itself a gem. The delegates met in Monterey, at Colton Hall, on the 1st
of September, and organized on the 3d of September, 1849.
The convention was one of the keenest and most intelligent that ever
assembled for the fulfillment of a legislative responsibility. Six of the
delegates had resided in California less than six months, while only
twenty-one, exclusive of the seven native Californians, had resided here

for more than three years. The average age of all the delegates was 36
years. The debates