then it might with reason be feared that the diversified wants of the various portions of the country could not be adequately provided for, and that secession or revolution might be the result. But with the Federal government and the respective State governments revolving each in its appropriate sphere, we see no reason why our system is not as well adapted to the government of the whole continent as it was to the government of the original thirteen States. It is the mutual adaptation, each to the other, of all the different parts of our system which, as is the case with the harmonious adjustment of the planets, attracts and restrains each in its appointed orbit, and impels the whole, without confusion or discord, around the common centre. We see but little danger of a disruption of the Union merely on account of its extent. Other causes may operate to produce that result, but of them it is not our province now to speak.

Californians, natives of the soil! such is the nation, its progress in the past and its prospects for the future, which you have chosen to adopt for your country. You and ourselves stand on common ground. Born and reared under different governments, and speaking different tongues, we nevertheless meet here to-day as brothers. The same fraternal roof shelters us all. The ægis of the Constitution guards and protects us alike. Though you have been severed from the parent tree, your strength is not sapped nor your leaves withered; but, grafted into a strange branch, you nevertheless spring forth with more than former vigor, and flourish with fresh and unwonted luxuriance. Subject to no other restraints than ourselves, cherished by the same beneficent laws, enjoying the same rights, political, civil, and religious, you stand amongst us in all respects our equals: than this we can say no more, for we acknowledge no superiors. Henceforth, notwithstanding difference of origin and perchance diversity of sentiments, you and ourselves and our posterity, through all coming time, are inseparably united, whether in happiness or in misery. Henceforth, our fortunes are embarked on the same voyage and destined for the same port. Henceforth, we kneel at the same political shrine, are charged with the same protection of our common institutions, and are bound by the same holy ties to fan the flame of liberty and keep its sacred fires for ever burning upon the altar of our common country. Henceforth, we have one country, one hope, one destiny. Your hearty participation in the joyful event which we celebrate in common to-day gives abundant evidence that if the day of trial shall ever come, when the fountains of the political deep shall be broken up, and discord rule the hour, you will be found standing shoulder to shoulder with ourselves, putting forth all your exertions in maintenance of the laws which we cherish and in support of the constitution which we revere.

Fellow-citizens: we are at length fairly launched upon our course. With a State constitution approved by the convention unanimously, and adopted by the people with scarcely a dissenting voice-a constitution guaranteeing freedom to all, favoring none, and bringing all the officers of the State under immediate responsibility to the people,

there is no reason to doubt our eminent success. Judging from the past, what have we not a right to expect in the future. The world has never witnessed any thing equal or similar to our career hitherto. Scarcely two years ago, California was almost an unoccupied wild. With the exception of a presidio, a mission, a pueblo, or a lonely ranch, scattered here and there at tiresome distances, there was nothing to show that the uniform stillness had ever been broken by the footsteps of civilized man. The agricultural richness of her valleys remained unimproved, and the wealth of a world lay entombed in the bosom of her solitary mountains, and on the banks of her unexplored streams. Behold the contrast! The hand of agriculture is now busy in every fertile valley, and its toils are remunerated with rewards which in no other portion of the world can be credited. Enterprise has pierced every hill for hidden treasure, and has heaped up enormous gains. Cities and villages dot the surface of the whole State. Steamers dart along our rivers, and innumerable vessels spread their white wings over our bays. Not Constantinople, upon which the wealth of imperial Rome was lavished, not St. Petersburg, to found which the arbitrary power of the Czar sacrificed thousands of his subjects, could rival, in rapidity of growth, the fair city which lies before us. Our State is a marvel to ourselves, and a miracle to the rest of the world. Nor is the influence of California confined within her own borders. Mexico, and the islands nestled in the embrace of the Pacific, have felt the quickening breath of her enterprise. With her golden wand she has touched the prostrate corpse of South American industry, and it has sprung up in the freshness of life. She has caused the hum of busy life to be heard in the wilderness "where rolls the Oregon," and where until recently was heard "no sound save his own dashings." Even the wall of Chinese exclusiveness has been broken down, and the children of the sun have come forth to view the splendor of her achievements. But flattering as has been the past, satisfactory as is the present, it is but a foretaste of the future. It is a trite saying that we live in an age of great events. Nothing can be more true. But the greatest of all events of the present age is at hand. It needs not the gift of prophecy to predict that the world's trade is destined soon to be changed. But a few years can elapse before the commerce of Asia and the islands of the Pacific, instead of pursuing the ocean track by way of Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, or even taking the shorter route of the Isthmus of Darien or the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, will enter the Golden Gate of California, and deposit its riches in the lap of our own city. Hence, on bars of iron and propelled by steam, it will ascend the mountains and traverse the desert, and having again reached the confines of civilization, will be distributed through a thousand channels to every portion of the Union and of Europe. New York will then become what London now is, the great central point of exchange-the heart of trade-the force of whose contraction and expansion will be felt throughout every artery of the commercial world; and San Francisco will then stand the second city of America. Is this visionary? Twenty years will determine.

With all these elements of wealth in our midst, with this experience of the past and these prospects for the future, it would be madness should we prove false to ourselves in the career upon which we have but just entered. Let us hope that the foundations of our State government are wisely and skillfully laid, and let us endeavor to rear a superstructure thereon which shall prove worthy of the high destiny to which we are called. The responsibility rests upon us whether this first American State on the Pacific shall, in youth and ripe manhood, realize the promise of infancy. We may, by unwise legislation, by unhappy dissensions, by maladministration, cramp her energies and distort her form, or we may make her a rival even of the Empire State of the Atlantic. The best wishes of Americans are with us they expect that the fortunate past will prove but the harbinger of a still more glorious future; that the Herculean youth will grow to a Titan in his manhood. The world is interested in our success, for a fresh field is open to its commerce, and a new avenue to the civilization and progress of the human race. Let us then endeavor to realize the hopes of America and the expectations of the world. Let us not only be united amongst ourselves for our own local welfare, but let us strive to cement the common bonds of brotherhood of the whole Union. In our relations to the federal government let us know no South, no North, no East, no West: wherever American liberty flourishes, let that be our common country-wherever the American banner waves, let that be our home.

36

JAMES KING OF WM.*

AMES KING OF WM. will and

Jahonored name in the history of California, and espec

ially in the annals of its chief city. His was the head that planned the regeneration of California society, the heart that periled life to achieve it. From his assassination, as from the blood of a martyr, sprang a great political and social movement, or revolution, as it may be better termed, in San Francisco. That solemn and irresistible rising of the masses for virtual liberty, will be recorded by the historian, and pointed out by statesmen and by philosophers as one of the most signal and instructive triumphs of an outraged people over men who had long violated the right of suffrage, usurped the powers of government, made the Constitution and law a farce, and polluted public morals. His life how short, yet how eventful! He beheld San Francisco rise like Venice, "a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean." In 1851, he beheld it the abode of crime, and was among the earliest and most effective of those who formed the celebrated Vigilance Committee in that year. But he never violated the laws of his country, and was always ready to uphold them even at the risk of his life. Many members of the old Committee remember how manfully he interceded for a suspected prisoner, before that body, and actually armed himself to defend him-believing that none but the vicious should be accused, and none but the guilty punished.

Who can forget his holy wars? No crusader ever engaged Mussulman beneath the walls of Jerusalem with

For explanatory note, see Preface.