The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-07-02

.lvou. Ireceiyed 96 votes; my colleague received
4 some 20 or 80 more; and as for the remainder OF
Imy colleagues, believe they are even worse
off than am. And yet we called upon
TO form laws for 10000 ffeemen upon the Salt
Lake! For my part l have not the face to do
ii And thus district representing fully one-enth
portion of the nominal population of all Califor-
mia, and more than onefourth OF ITS resident pop
ulation, only cast in the election OF delegates
something less than 300 votes What the votes
were in the other districts, we are uninformed
Strange opinions seem to have been entertained
in the California Convention. Its members had
certainly conceived that they were vested with
most extraordinary powers, that they should have
!, assumed the high tone which characterlzes their
lans uage when they speak of their relations with
the United States. They were to receire PROPOSE
tons from Congress. Negotiations were to be
opened between the high contracting parties -
1'hey took il for granted that they were under no
constraint 10 limit their boundaries to their own
wants, but might rejoice and assist the Free-soiers
in their efforts TO crush and degrade the South,
by excluding her from settling in the coded terri
tories and thus despoil her of her equal share IN
the common o. Inc d Tnso% Of the State Of
California and the United States, as the two high
contracting parties, TO fix the boundary, &c
a. ~ II is our duty to refuse to come into
the Union, as Iowa did, unless Congress accedes
to the boundary which we deem proper to adopt
i debates, page 10y.
The secret Of all this bodness on the part of the
California Convention is to be found at page l79
of the debates, where Mr.. Bolts is made TO say :
" We have got the Congress of the United States
in a tighi place" . . Congress is bound to
take us--to admit as, boundary and ALL
" am therefore now inclined toiay doom the pIcrum
TO Congress-to PRESCRIBE to them eren hts question
ofboundart-to make it the sine qua non of our adj
mission.
Such were the views that operated on many, If
not on most of the delegates composing that con-
: vention The slavery issue was TO be taken from
Congress, and devolved upon them California
would settle it, and settle readily by taking all
) from the South, and giving it TO the North. why
the North could have done that long ago, had she
ventured, and had she dared. She had the power;
but in her praise let me add she was void OF the
> rashness. and void of the injustice to exert 1t.
But the convention with plenary powers, ana
was willing so to exert them that no territory
should be left for Congress to legislate upon Cali
fornia might take it easily; for she had Congress
in tight place, and ready to surrender at discre-
ton And when all this is taken into consideration,
. will any one wonder that California should have
appropriated to herself those limits which give
her, in the language of Mr.. Shannon, Up. 1921
, " a shape most aloklcmd and ungainty -
f But they had resolved upon taking the substance
and leaving the shado,r. Are you, Senators, pre-
e pared to receive her into the Union, unshorn of
= an atom of her monster dimensions with 1885,
-
miles ofcoast,--with the command of every outlet
through which the territory that stretches east
ward to the western slope of the Rocky Mountains
might disgorge its products and enlarge Its trade by
. free access to the Pacific? Will you thus disturb
the natural demarcatons which peculiarly
characterize and divide the different portions of
that country-not because it is right In itself, or
lust to the South, or best for California, but to
remove the frantic cravings Of rapacious and in
, tolerant Free-soilism! .t
. Sir Nature has drawn with her own hands the
limits which California should have as State, by
! uniting in a common centre the valleys Of the
Sacramento and the San Joaquin They dis
charge their main waters into the same BASIN and
- that basin is the only outlet that connects them
with the Pacific; and although they may differ
somewhat in climate and fertility, yet they were
i clearly intended to form single, nseparable
f whole.
u u The imposing and almost impossible Sierra
'. Nevada encircles them as within belt of rude
. granite-divdes the maritime region from the
Great Basin, (Utah, which it closes on the west;
:, while the two valleys, by the innumerabe streams
. . and rivers which run from the south and the
i north and converge to the bay of San Francisco,
. are bound and knit togetheri
q "The Sierra Nevada (says Mr.. McDougal
ID page 1907 presents to my mind most proper
ct and feasible line for our State. Following the
n coast OF the crest of that line from the north tc
v the south, taking the waters as they flow, all thai
y portion of country where the waters commence tc
e flow to the west is what my proposition includes
= and that gives us an area of country double as
I. large as any other State in the Union. If you
j. cast your eyes the map, you will see three dis
tinct divisions marked by Nature IN the lerrltor!
n Of California, NC. 19#,
g Here is that map, and Senators may see, strik
r, nglv delineated upon it, the three divisions al
lie luded to by Mr.. McDougal-Utah, the maratimt
region embraced by the Sierra and the territory tc
l, the south, between the lines described in my sub
& stitute. And this opinion OF the delegate from
il Sacramento is fully sustained by the hi hes
y authority which can summon before the Senate
At that of the learned, enterprisng, and indetat
Fable officer to whose abors the United States and
he the world are so much indebtedi
r "The valleys (says Col, Fremont, speaking of
II the valleys of the Sacramento and the San Joa-
}, ouin are one, Disseminated only by the names
d of rivers that traverse it, 1t is single valley-a
|. single geographical formation, near five hundred
VI miles lone-lying at the western base OF the Sierra
e Nevada, and between it and the coast-range of
mountains and stretching across the head of the
bay of San Francisco, with which delta OF 70
miles connects it. The two rivers-San Joaquin
and Sacramento-rise at opposite ends OF this long
valley: receive numerous streams, many or them
hold rivers, from the Sierra Nevada; become
themselves navigabe rivers flow towards each
other; meet halfway, and enter the bay OF San
Francisco together, in the region OF Underwater,
making a continuous water-line from one end TO
the other ~ Fremont's Memoir, p. l5.)
The Sierra Nevada is an unmisakeable bound
ary to these two valleys, leaving no natural outlet
7 from them to the Pacific but through the Golden
> Gate which unes the bay with the ocean. 1t
, closes the valleys on the northern side by pro.
1t montory, several thousand feet above the level of
l. the sea, and to the south, by gentle slope and
l. neck that connects it with the Santa Barbara
;: mountains, which carry the limit to the water $
e edge of the sea; and thus the boundaries of
e the new State drawn by the hand of God in bold
o and ndestructbe characters.
= But, independent of this great feature, which
Il marks so peculiarly the geographical structure of
e the two valleys thus held embraced by the great
Sierra Nature has another seal on its necessary
separation from the country lying south of them.
i The climate is no longer the same The soil is
different and the products altogether dissimilar
s Here begins quite a new country,
: South Of Point Conception (says Fremont,
" page 3s) the climate and the general appearance
c of the country exhibit marked change The
coast from that cape tends almost directly east the