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MEMORIAL.

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled:

The undersigned, Senators and Representatives elect from the State of California, have the honor, in pursuance of a requirement in the Constitution recently adopted by her people for her government as a State, to lay before your honorable bodies certified copies of said Constitution, together with their credentials, and to request in the name of the people of California, the admission of the State of California into the American Union."

In performing this duty, the undersigned deem it but just tɔ state that they have learned with astonishment and sincere regret, since their arrival in the City of Washington, of the existence of an organized, respectable, and talented opposition to the admission of the new State which they have the distinguished honor to represent. This opposition is so unexpected, so important in numbers and ability, and so decided in its sectional character, that they feel they should do injustice to their constituents, to the cause of good government, and to the progressive advance of freedom and civilization, did they not at least attempt an answer to the many arguments urged against the admission of California.

The undersigned, therefore, fully aware that much ignorance, misapprehension, and misconcep tion exists in the public mind of the Atlantic States relative to their country, its citizens, and the proceedings by which a State Government has been recently formed there, and deeply sorrowful that false charges should have been made against the character, intelligence, and virtue of their constituents, have deemed it obligatory upon them, in presenting in a formal manner the request of the State of California for admission into the American Union, that they should, by a narration of facts, at once and forever silence those who have disregarded the obligations of courtesy and all the rules of justice, by ungenerous insinuations, unfair deductions, false premises, and unwarranted conclusions. They believe that in so doing they will carry out the wishes of those who have commissioned them, and contribute to the true history of this important political era; while they ardently desire and hope that they may thereby be enabled to exert a happy influence in allaying that intense excitement which now menaces the perpetuity of the Republic, and all the dearest hopes of freedom.

In pursuance of this determination, the undersigned have thought it proper to present, as briefly as possible, an outline of the history of the country, from its conquest by the American forces to the adoption of her present Constitution and the erection of a State Government. In order to do this satisfactorily, it is not believed to be necessary to dwell at length upon the details of the early history, but simply to state that the first emigration of Americans into California in any considerable numbers, occurred during the summer and fall of the year 1845. This emigration, which is believed not to have exceeded 500 persons, constituted the basis from which sprung the train of causes which led to the ultimate subjugation of the country. The particulars of those events are presumed to be familiar to the members of each of your honorable bodies, and generally understood by the public at large, and the undersigned therefore pass over the history of the revolutionary and military operations which resulted in the establishment of Col. Richard B. Mason as the military, and ex officio civil, Governor of the Department of Upper California, on the 31st day of May, 1847. At that time the American forces held possession of the whole of what was then denominated Upper California, and were posted at different points, in small detachments, from Sutter's Fort in the north to the town of San Diego in the south. The Pacific squadron of the Navy of the United States, under the command of Commodore Shubrick, was then upon the coast, and its vessels were at anchor in the different harbors of the country. The country was quiet, and the population orderly, industrious, intelligent, and enterprising. From the time that the united forces of American emigrant volunteers under Col. Fremont, and the United States naval forces under Commodore Sloat had raised the American standard throughout the country, the supreme authorities had collected in all the ports of California a revenue from imports. This, with other slight cases of individual severity and infringement by the military and naval commandants during the war, upon what was regarded by the American emigrants as the inherent rights of the citizen, together with a natural jealousy of military rule, which is believed to be a national characteristic, could not fail to make the military authority, which had now devolved upon Col. Mason, a source of suspicion, disagreement, and discontent. This was more particularly the case in regard to the American inhabitants, who had now become quite numerous by continued arrivals of emigrants, both by sea and land; but the feeling was also participated in, to a great extent, by the native citizens of the country, who were further influenced by the chagrin, hatred, and uncertainty which is sure to fill the breasts of a subjugated but courageous people.

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Even at this early day the subject of the establishment of a Civil Territorial Government had found advocates; but as the war was not yet ended, and as the country could not be regarded in any other light than that of a military conquest, and as such, subject to the government of the military power, and as the majority of the people felt that self-reliance which convinced them there was little danger of any serious attempt at usurpation on the part of the military authority, the matter was not seriously pressed, though generally approved. Nevertheless, it was becoming daily more and more a pervading sentiment, that the civil government, as then organized under the almost obsolete laws of Mexico, was totally inadequate to the changed circumstances of the country and, as the undersigned believe, none were more fully convinced of that fact, than the executive officers of that Government. This sentiment finally became general; and the errors and difficulties that every day occurred, from the ignorance of Mexican law, or its inapplicability, induced the Governor to make a compilation and translation of all such Mexican regulations as could be found in the archives of the State Department at Monterey, with such additions as were thought advisable and necessary. These were printed in both the English and Spanish languages; but, unfortunately for the country, they were not quite ready for publication at the time news of peace reached California, and the Governor, therefore, never proclaimed nor issued them.

In the month of October, 1847, the Military Contribution Tariff, promulgated by the then President of the United States, was established in the ports of California. The custom-houses, which theretofore had remained in the hands of citizens who accounted to the Military Governor, or the Commodore of the Pacific Squadron, were now filled by army or navy officers. This tariff was justly but rigorously enforced; and, though its provisions bore so oppressively upon the country as to add slightly to the causes and feeling of discontent, no opposition was manifested. Indeed, during this whole time, although the evils and difficulties under which the country suffered were manifold, we believe no single instance can be found of unlawful or riotous resistance to the constituted authorities.

But the desire for a more congenial government went on steadily increasing in that portion of the country lying around and north of the district of San Francisco. To this feeling the arrival of the overland emigration in the fall of 1847 greatly contributed. In the meantime, the original citizens of California had become in a measure satisfied with their position, and as the conduct of the American officers and citizens was of a courteous and upright character, they gradually became assured that there rights, property, and happiness were not likely to be destroyed by the conquerors. Still, a degree of solicitude and suspicion preyed upon the public mind. An uncertainty seemed to pervade the whole country, exercising a chilling and depressing effect upon its agricultural, commerce, mechanic arts, and general business relations. The military government had continued the collection of duties under the military contribution tariff, and as a parsimonious policy of expenditure was maintained, the whole circulating medium of the country was gradually locked up in the military chest. This exerted a paralyzing effect on the industrial and business pursuits of the whole community, and gave rise to complaints that the military power was taxing the people without allowing them a voice in the matter, and that at the same time they failed to give to the country a government in consonance with its wishes or commensurate to its wants; in other words, that after taxing the inhabitants of the country in contravention of all right, they committed the greater injustice of refusing or neglecting to expend the money so obtained in such a manner as would provide a government that would give protection to the citizen and security to his property. California, however, went on steadily increasing in population, wealth, industry and commercial and political importance.

Such was the condition of California in April, 1848. In that month was made the extraordinary discovery of the gold mines, and instantly the whole territory was in a blaze. The towns were deserted by their male population, and a complete cessation of the whole industrial pursuits of the country was the consequence. Commerce, agriculture, mechanical pursuits, professions-all were abandoned for the purpose of gathering the glittering treasures which lay buried in the ravines, the gorges, and the rivers of the Sierra Nevada. The productive industry of the country was annihilated in a day. In some instances the moral perceptions were blunted, and men left their families unprovided, and soldiers deserted their colors. The desire for gold was not regulated by any of the ordinary processes of reasoning, and such was the disastrous effect of the discovery of the precious ore upon the social, business, and political interests of the country, that the high hopes which the far-seeing and patriotic had entertained of the future progress and greatness of California, were dashed at once to the ground. A pall seemed to settle upon the country; and even the bewildered miners wondered as the result.

But the peculiar energy and the utilitarian predisposition of the American character could not long be diverted from its natural and accustomed channels, even by the glitter of gold. Commerce slowly revived, and mechanical and professional pursuits began to assume their wonted importance,, as the novelty of gold digging was dispelled by a correct understanding of the difficult and laborious nature of the pursuit. The large emigration which was now pouring into the country from Oregon, Mexico, and the Sandwich Islands, though it added to the number of miners, contributed to the necessities which had made a diversion in favor of the sober pursuits of every day life, and a more healthy and staid condition of public opinion and business ensued.

At about this time (on the 7th of August, 1848) the news of peace between the republics of the United States and Mexico reached the country, and was communicated to the people in a proclamation by Governor Mason. This proclamation, after reciting so much of the treaty as applied to California, stated that the existing laws would remain in force, and the existing officers would administer them as heretofore; and it did not fail to express the confident hope that the Congress of the United States, which was in session at the time of the ratification of the treaty, had already organised a Territorial Government, which might be expected to arrive at any moment. Governor Mason then abolished, in pursuance with treaty stipulations, the military contribution tariff; but not deeming it advisable to abandon the collection of revenue entirely, and yet having no authority either in executive orders, law, or precedent, he declared the revenue laws of the United States in force throughout the Territory, appointed civilians to the post of collector, and received the duties into the military treasury of the department, under the distinctive appellation of the "civil fund of California."

There were those in the country at this time, and they were not few in numbers, who believed that it was the duty of Governor Mason, immediately after the reception of the news of peace, to have called upon the people to elect delegates to a Territorial Convention for the purpose of forming a Civil Provisional Territorial Government for California; and that it was his duty, so soon as such form of government was ratified by the people of the Territory, to have delivered up to the appointed agent the powers he possessed as Civil Governor, and left to such appointee of the people the entire discharge of the duties appertaining to a civil Executive. It may be imagined then, that when, instead of doing this, the existing order of things was preserved and the United States revenue laws enforced, that great dissatisfaction ensued. To add to the general discontent, the daily arrival of large importations created so great a demand for coin with which to meet the custom house charges, that gold dust was depreciated so much in value as to be sold as low as seven dollars per ounce, at one time; and finally such became the utter barrenness of the San Francisco money market, that the collector at that port was authorised to receive gold dust on deposit as collateral security for duties, at the rate of ten dollars per ounce. Other difficulties of a perplexing and serious character grew out of this sudden substitution of a new revenue system, by which foreign vessels were denied the privileges which they would have had under the military contribution tariff. But, suffice it to say, that again the public mind was disturbed and excited by taxation without representation, and by that falsely economical policy which continued to take money from the people without law, and yet would not appropriate the funds so obtained to the purpose of securing them a good government.

But the unsettled and unstable order of things which had ensued upon the discovery of the gold mines still existed; and the dissatisfaction and discontent of the people, though quite general, failed, for this reason, to assume an organized or imposing form. The fact that four-fifths of the male population of the country were eagerly engaged in the mines, greatly contributed to this result, and the almost universal belief that the United States Congress had before its adjournment passed a law establishing a Territorial Government, satisfied the public mind that no action on its part was then necessary. So passed the summer and fall of 1848.

Upon the coming on of winter, the great majority of the miners returned to their homes in the towns. They came rich in gold dust; but a single glance at the desolate and unthrifty appearance of the Territory convinced them that other pursuits than that of gold-digging must receive a proportion of their care and labor, if they wished to be really happy, and promote the true interests of the country. They felt, as all Americans feel, that the most important step they could take, and that most imperatively called for by the wants of the inhabitants, was the establishment of a stable system of government, which would command the respect and obedience of the people whose property it protected, and whose rights it preserved. Congress had adjourned without providing a Territorial Government, and the public had settled into the firm conviction that the de facto Government was radically defective and incapable of answering the public wants. The large increase in the emigration during the past year, the still greater prospective increase in the year to come, the increased wants which were daily growing from a rapidly rising and extending commerce, and the growing demands of an enterprising and progressive people, all required a new and compatible system of government. Recent murders, highway robberies, and other outrages in various portions of the country, had convinced the honest and the orderly that anarchy, misrule, and wrong were abroad in the land. For a moment doubt, fear, uncertainty and indecision seemed to paralyze the public energies; but that love of order and justice which ever springs from the "still small voice," soon triumphed, and terrible indeed, was the retribution meted out to the offenders.

The opinions of the people, accelerated by the combined causes just enumerated, now, for the first time in the history of the country, assumed an organised form. On the 11th day of December 1848, a large meeting of the inhabitants of the district of San Jose was held at the town of that name, at which speeches were made, committees appointed, and resolutions unanimously adopted in favor of holding a convention for the purpose of forming a Provisional Territorial Government, to be put into immediate operation, and to remain in force until Congress should discharge its duty, and supersede it by a regular Territorial organization. The proceedings of this meeting were published and disseminated as rapidly as the means of communication would allow; and its

action met with the unanimous approval of the people of the northern and middle portions of California. On the 21st and 23d of December, 1848, two of the largest public meetings ever held in California convened at San Francisco, and unanimously declared their concurrence in the course, of action recommended by the citizens of San Jose. On the 6th and 8th of January, 1849, meetings at Sacramento City were held concurring in the same purpose. In the district of Monterey a similar meeting was held on the 31st of January, 1849, and in the district of Sonoma a meeting of approval and concurrence was held on the 5th of February, 1849. These five districts elected delegates to the proposed convention, viz: The district of Sacramento 5, Sonoma 10, San Francisco 5, San Jose 3, Monterey 5. These districts comprised at that time more than three-fifths of the entire population of the country. But the five other districts, viz: San Joaquin in the north, and San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angelos, and San Diego in the south, failed to concur in this movement for the establishment of a Provisional Territorial Government. The reasons of this nonconcurrence were substantially the following:

The meeting held at San Jose recommended that the Convention for forming a Provisional Government should assemble at San Jose, on the second Monday of January, 1849. The San Francisco meeting believing that day much too early to allow communication with the remote Districtsand deeming it of paramount importance that the whole Territory should be represented in the proposed Convention, recommended that it should meet on Monday, March 5. In this recommendation of the District of San Francisco the Districts of Sonoma and Sacramento concurred, as did tacitly the District of San Jose. The District of Monterey, also concurred therein, but constituted its elected Delegates a Committee to confer with the other Districts to obtain, if possible and advisable, a still further extension of the time of holding the Convention.

The Corresponding Committee appointed by the San Francisco meeting had taken great pains to spread the intelligence of the action of the people there and in San Jose, and to request that measures be adopted to promote the cause of Provisional Government in the surrounding Districts; but the inclemency of the weather and the impassable condition of the roads and streams in consequence of the severe winter rains, had, up to January 24, 1849, prevented all communication with the five Districts above named. The Committee received many letters and much verbal information from different sections, which finally decided them in issuing to the public on January 24, 1849, a recommendation “that the time for the proposed assembling of the Provisional Govern ment Convention be changed from Monday, the 5th day of March, to Tuesday the 1st day of May, 1849."

As was to have been expected, this recommendation, though generally concurred in, and though the reasons by which it was supported were never attempted to be controverted, had a tendency, by creating an impression of uncertainty, to cool the ardor of those interested in the cause. In addition to this, the recent intelligence from the Atlantic coast had given some assurance that Congress would not again adjourn without the adoption of a Territorial Government for California, and the arrival of Gen. P. F. Smith, on the 28th day of February, at San Francisco, to assume the command of the Pacific Division of the U. S. Army, was considered a favorable omen of what might be expected from the action of the cabinet and the law-givers at Washington.

Notwithstanding all these obstacles, the cause of Provisional Government still progressed; and though it was now feared and foreseen that the attempt to assemble a Convention on the first of May would probably fail, yet twelve of the Delegates elected to that body met at San Francisco early in the month of March, 1849, and issued an address to the people of California. That address, after recounting the reasons which prevented the assembling of the Convention, as originally preposed, on the 5th of March, and after reasserting the truth, that the action of a Convention which did not consist of representatives from each and every district would not be likely to meet with approval or respect from the public at large, concluded with the suggestion that "new elections should be held in the several districts for delegates to meet in convention at Monterey, on the first Monday in August next," and that those delegates "should be vested with full power to frame a State Constitution to be submitted to the people of California; and further staing their belief that the circumstances and wants of the country were "such as to requre the immediate formation of a State Constitution, and entitle us to a right to be admitted into that Union of sovereign States, which we trust will ever be 'distinct as the billows, but one as the ocean."" There is no doubt that this was then the prevailing sentiment of the people of the Territory.

In order to provide for the immediate wants of their respective districts, the citizens of Sonoma and Sacramento had elected, early in the year 1849, District Legislative Assemblies, The district of San Francisco, in consequence of difficulties between their Alcalde and two Town Councils claiming jurisdiction, resorted to the same method, and elected a Legislative Assembly. These acts on the part of the people of the respective districts brought about various collisions between the people and the de facto government of which Gen. Riley, who arrived on the 13th of April, 1849, was now the head. It is not necessary for us to enter into details of these matters, further than to say that a very excited and bitter feeling of hostility to this de facto government was quite universal, and that this feeling was strengthened by the failure of Congress to pass a bill establishing a Territorial government in California, and the passage of a law for the collection of revenue. The intelligence of this failure to act in the one case, and action in the othb

er, on the part of Congress, reached San Francisco on the 28th May, 1849, by the U. S. propeller Edith, which vessel had been despatched to Mazatlan by order of Gen. Smith, on the preceding 10th of April. No sooner was this intelligence disseminated throughout the country, than it became evident to all men that the political complexion which a great question had assumed in the Atlantic States had prevented Congress from establishing a Territorial government, or even authorizing the people of California to form a State government; and there grew up at once a unanimous desire in the hearts of the citizens of the Territory, to adopt the only feasible scheme which promised them a government-that of a State organization. This sentiment daily gained ground until the beginning of June, 1849, when the Legislative Assembly of the District of San Francisco published an address to the people of California, asserting that they "believed it to be their duty to earnestly recommend to their fellow citizens the propriety of electing at least twelve delegates from each district to attend a general convention to be held at the Puebla de San Jose on the third Monday in August next, for the purpose of organizing a government for the whole Territory of California;" such "conditional or temporary State government to be put into operation at the earliest practicable moment" after "its ratification by the people," and "to become a permanent State government when admitted into the Union." This recomendation met with universal approval. Simultaneous with this action on the part of the Legislative Assembly of the district of San Francisco, though without any knowledge thereof, Gov. Riley issued at Monterey, (130 miles distant,) on the 3d day of June, 1849, a proclamation recommending the election of delegates to a convention for forming a State Constitution, said body to convene at Monterey on the 1st day of September following. He also evinced a disposition, which had not been manifested before, to put in immediate, complete, and fair operation, the whole machinery of the de facto government, of which he claimed to be the head; he assured the people of his patriotic desire to accomplish his duty and their welfare by recommending them to elect all such officers as the existing laws authorized, whether it were provided that such officers should be elected by the people or appointed by the executive; and he convinced them of his good faith by at once coming forward and appropriating the "civil fund of California," which had been collected upon the imports of the country without law or authority, to the payment of the current expenses of the de facto government, which he had determined to put fully into operation. Notwithstanding all this, however, the majority of the people of the Territory denied his right to issue a proclamation calling a convention, contending that in the default of the action of Congress, the right to pursue such a course was inherent in the people. But the opposition of the people to the de facto government had sprung from patriotic motives and from experimental conviction that it was insufficient for the exigencies of the country. This opposition was confined in its public manifestations entirely to the American born population. The Californians proper, as a whole, had never participated in any of the popular exhibitions of discontent; and the emigration that was now daily arriving in large numbers did not, of necessity, enter into the spirit of the grievances which were complained of by the older residents, nor espouse either side of a quarrel of which they could not distinctly comprehend the nature. All men, though, ardently desired a settled, Constitutional form of government; and it became the duty of the patriotic to yield their prejudices and abstract opinions, and to unite in one common effort to promote the public good. Congress had abandoned the Territory to its own resources - had oppressed it by the passage of an unjust law-a large portion of its population were in determined and open hostility to the de facto government-petty governments had been established in several districts-and anarchy and civil discord impending over the land. It was a moment of uncertainty and fear for California; but American patriotism and American love of law and order were superior to all other considerations, and the present and future prosperity of California was secured by a unanimous combination to form a State government

On the 7th of June, 1849, the citizens of San Jose, in a public meeting, concurred in the recommendations of Gen. Riley; and on the 11th of the same month the citizens of Monterey agreed thereto in a similar manner. On the 12th day of that month the largest mass meeting of the citi zens of San Francisco ever held convened in Portsmouth square in that city. That meeting was addressed by Hon. T. Butler King, Wm. M. Gwin, Edward Gilbert, and other gentlemen; but such was the excited state of feeling in that district that the meeting, by a direct vote, refused to concur in the recommendation of Gen. Riley's proclamation. A corresponding Committee was, however, appointed, which, on the 18th of June, in an address to the public, used the following language, viz:

The Committee, not recognizing the least power, as matter of right in Brev. Brig. Gen. Riley to 'appoint a time and place for the election of delegates and the assembling of the convention, yet as these matters are subordinate, and as the people of San Jose have, in public meeting, expressed their satisfaction with the times mentioned by Gen Riley, and as we are informed the districts below will accede to the same; and as it is of the first importance that there be unanimity of action among the people of California in reference to the great leading object-the attempt to form a government for ourselves-we recommend to our fellow citizens of California the propriety, under existing circumstances, of acceding to the time and place mentioned by Gen. Riley in his proclamation, and acceded to by the people of other districts."

This is believed to have been the general sentiment.

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