1849

The Wilmot Proviso.

245

Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, acting for himself and other members of Congress from the free States, had offered The an addition to the Mexican treaty, which after- 16th national ward became known as the "Wilmot Proviso,'

ZACHARY TAYLOR.

"" election.

and which may be considered as the foundation stone of the Free Soil Party. The object of the proviso was to preserve for ever as "free soil" the territory to be acquired from Mexico. It, however, did not pass both Houses of Congress; but it greatly helped to bring into existence the new political party, and consequently three parties contended for the presidency in the fall of 1848.

2. The candidate of the Democrats was General Lewis Cass, of Michigan; of the Whigs, General Zachary Taylor, of Louisiana; and of the Free Soilers, whose party cry was "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men," was ex-president Van Buren, of New York. General Taylor started in the canvass with a decided advantage over his competitors. In the Mexican war he had won great laurels as a soldier; and by his simplicity, directness, and indomitable daring in that contest had acquired the popular favor. His soldiers used to call him "Old Rough and Ready." His laconic expressions at Buena Vista-" General Taylor never surrenders," and "A little more grape, Captain Bragg"were often quoted during the presidential campaign, which resulted in his election. He was inaugurated on the 5th of March, 1849, the 4th being Sunday.

3. It was during the early excitement of the "gold fever" that President Polk's term of office expired and Taylor's began. "The fever' was raging like an epidemic in every direction. High and low, rich and poor took it. From the fall of 1849 to the fall of 1850 was the tent era of California,

Mining life in California.

the strange flush times of the young State. Property was changing hands, fortunes changing favorites, with astonishing rapidity. The poor man of yesterday was the rich man of to-day. The servant, running away from his master, tarried a month or two in the mines, and returned with gold enough to buy his master out. The average wages made by miners in 1849 were, perhaps, twenty or thirty dollars a day; yet in rich diggings an average of from three hundred to five hundred dollars a week was not uncommon for weeks together.

4. The abundance of gold in the hands of people not used to it made them lavish. There was very little sitting down and calculating how to economize; and there was no Poor Richard' pleading frugality and pointing out the penury that must follow thriftlessness. If there was any shrewd Yankee still following the precepts of his early education, and in an open-handed generation trying to remember that it is not what a man makes, but what he saves, that determines him rich or poor, his daily memorandum of expenses must have seemed very shocking. If he took breakfast at a restaurant in San Francisco, he had a dollar to pay for a beef steak and a cup of coffee. For fresh eggs he must pay from seventy-five cents to a dollar each. His dinner would cost him from a dollar and a half to five dollars, according to his appetite. Washing was eight dollars for a dozen pieces it even happened, they say, that some sent their dirty clothes to China

to be washed.

5. On landing at San Francisco, which early became the principal port of debarkation, or on arriving over the mountains, almost all dashed first into the mines. Placer mining could be learned in a day: any one who could shovel dirt, stand up to his knees in running water, and shake a pan, knew the art. The currency was gold-dust, that is, small scales, globules, or nuggets of gold. At first they rudely measured it; then as rudely weighed it a silver dollar's weight, the weight of a jackknife, or the weight of an ounce avoirdupois. Then they began to smelt the dust inte

The Compromise of 1850.

247

bars, ingots, or slugs, stamping the initials of the assayer to give credit to its designated weight where scales were not ac cessible. Not till 1854, when the United States gave them a Branch Mint at San Francisco, was the currency regulated with any satisfaction."

revived.

6. In September, 1849, there was a sufficient number of settlers in California to form a State; and "the youthful queen of the Pacific, in her robes of freedom inlaid with gold," made application to Congress for admission Slavery to the Union. As the constitution which Cali- agitation fornia had adopted excluded slavery from her territory, another violent agitation of the "slave question" followed, "Calhoun, the great leader and champion of the cause of slavery," and the other friends of the slave power, opposing the admission of California as a free State. Before the question was decided, Taylor died (July 9th, 1850), and was quietly succeeded without show or parade" by the vicepresident, Millard Fillmore, of New York.

66

Fillmore's Administration.

1. Other subjects, besides the admission of California, but all growing out of the slavery question, had been introduced into Congress at this time; and so violent was the controversy be- The tween the opposing Compromise parties that the safe

of 1850.

ty of the Union was menaced. The great orator and statesman, Henry Clay, by his fervid eloquence, did much to allay this strife, and finally a compromise was effected by which California was admitted as a free State (1850). At the same time, New Mexico and Utah were organized as territories; the slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia; and the "Fugi

MILLARD FILLMORE.

tive Slave Law," which provided for the return to their owners of slaves escaping to a free State, was passed. Daniel Webster, a member of the United States Senate, contributed his aid in effecting this compromise, which, though it allayed the excitement between the two sections of the country, gave great offence to a large party in the North who were opposed to all concessions to the slave power.

2.

"The vast region known as Utah was then in the possession of the Indians and the Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints, a religious sect founded by Joseph Smith, a native of Ver

The mont. In 1832, Smith had twelve hundred folMormons. lowers, when the whole sect removed to Missouri. As they professed to be the true saints, by virtue of which they were to become the inheritors of the western country, they became objects of distrust to the Missourians. The militia were called out, but the Mormons avoided a conflict by crossing the Mississippi to Illinois. They prepared to make that State their home. On a bluff, overlooking the Mississippi, they founded a city, Nauvoo (naw'-voo), and erected an imposing temple (1840). Thefts and robberies were numerous in the vicinity, and these crimes were attributed to the Mormons, some of whom were arrested.

3. At length the Prophet, Smith, and his brother Hyrum, were arrested and thrown into prison in the town of Carthage. A mob collected a few days after, and in the mêlée the brothers were slain. The spirit aroused against the Mormons was so violent that they could find safety alone in flight, and the following year they sold their possessions, left their beautiful city, which contained ten thousand inhabitants, and under chosen elders emigrated away across the plains and over the Rocky Mountains, and finally found a resting-place in the Great Basin (1844). As they were now upon the soil of Mexico, they hoped their troubles were at an end. They significantly called their new home, Deseret-the land of the Honey Bee; and, to recruit their numbers, they sent missionaries to every quarter of the globe.

1854

Repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

249

4. Meantime they labored with great zeal in founding a city on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. It is on ground four thousand three hundred feet above the level of the ocean, and planned on a large scale; its streets are eight rods wide, and every house is surrounded by a garden. Presently came the war with Mexico, and the ceding of all that region to the United States. The Mormons were the first to organize themselves as a territory, under the name of Deseret, but Congress saw proper to change the name to Utah. President Fillmore appointed Brigham Young, their leading elder, the first governor."

Pierce's Administration.

Repeal of the

Missouri

1. Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, succeeded to the presidency on the 4th of March, 1853. The next year the agitation of the "slavery question" was again revived by the passage of a law by Congress organizing the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. This law repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had ex- Compromise. cluded slavery from the entire region, and substituted what was called by some persons, "Squatter Sovereignty" or "Popular Sovereignty," that is, the right of the people in each territory to decide whether they would have slaves or not. The "Compromise of 1820" had been regarded as a sacred compact between the South and the North, and as such, for the third of a century had received the sanction of all parties. An intense excitement

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

was again produced, especially in the Northern States.

2. Now came the struggle again on the "slavery issue" between the North and the South, both making great exer