San Andreas independent., 1858-03-27

CONTINUE " NC 81, uOWu W SdlpdTdlSO-
Thus to sail ship up the western coast
of the continent, from Panama to San
Francisco, would probably require whole
summer, and even that might not suffice
for the passage. No ship can ever ap-
proach her shores by sail, without falling
into contest with currents, which the light
battling winds and doldrums make it diff
ficult to maintain with success. TO Get in
is difficult-to get away is more difficult !;
and hence, perhaps, it is, at least in part,
that one may pass down that whole stretch
of coast, distance of three thousand
miles, in one of the California steamers,
and actually not see on the passage so
much as rag of sail of any description.
On the other hand, at Puget Sound, the
only available harbor ground on the north,
the wind blows off the coast with such
violence that vessels, after pounding there
for weeks together, till the crews were
quite worn out, have returned to San
Francisco to reft for a new trial. Be-
sides, in the winter trades, which are from
the northeast, vessel sailing from China
for the Sound will have the whole dis
tance to make with the wind directly
against her; while she might lay her
course for San Francisco, and run straight
in, without once shifting her sail.
{ Nature, it will thus be seen, has set
her seal on San Francisco, appointing it
to be the great commercial center of that
coast and ocean. Here rests the future
axis of motion. Indeed, it is hardly ex-
travagant to imagine that, in some dis
tant age, when the enterprise and the re-
, sources of that ocean, with its islands and
coasts, are fully developed, the Atlantic
commerce will be thing by the way
| an affair of the outskirts.
All such expectations, it is obvious,
, must depend, in a great degree, on the
political and moral condition of California.
: And here one great danger happily is
past, viz: the introduction of human
slavery. There is no State in the Union
= where slavery could be worked to greater
advantage than in California. Connected
/ with this fact, we have also the concomi-
, tant fact, that the office-holders and polit-
? ical operators of the State have very gen.
orally been men from the South. 10 un-
r derstand, therefore, even after the fact,
how it is that slavery is excluded, is what
' any stranger will accomplish with the
greatest difficulty. No inquiries he can
: make will quite solve the riddle. Some
have spoken of the known weight of the
laboring and money making classes being
always opposed to slavery, and silently
: constraining the politicians, who were
not, to respect their position. Some have
/ ascribed much to the personal influence
: of Mr. Fremont. Others have given the
' credit of the fact mainly to Capt. Hal
leck, sometimes called the Father of the
E Constitution-ag gentleman of great weight
5 and capacity, who is known to have been
the draughtsman of many of its provis
5 ions, but has, since that time, given him
] self wholly to his profession as lawyer
a aud withdrawn himself altogether from
: the game of political life. BE it as il
e may, slavery is forever excluded from
: California, and so from the whole coast
and that without even so much as a WORD
of debate; for this article of the Consti
: tuition was simply read and passed by con
< sent in absolute silence. What fact Of
: history this, to be the child of Silence
$ California unites in its population great
: elements of diversity. The $4,000 OIL
10000 Chinese simply stay as foreigners
] The native California Or Spanish race,
t comprises gentlemen of great respectable
! ty, wealth and character; but the infe
e rior class of herdsmen and retainers that
e were, are more wild and vicious, and re
S ally more hopeless, than before the change
!, of masters. They live on horseback
4 without contracting any friendship with
n their horses, which might raise them {
r little. They are cruel to animals of al
: kinds, cowardly to superiors, ignorant
: superstitious, frivolous, with little pros
, pect of being advanced to anything bet
!, ter hereafter.
A considerable part of the emigration
e to California, since we took possession, il
! made up of persons from the extreme
s West, who crossed over by the Plains
the class who are called Border Rufian.
i with us, and which there are called, NOR,
f or less derisively, Pixies, from Pike coun
t ty, Missouri. They are, by no means
$ any such desperate, or ruffian class o
i people, as they are just now commonl,
!, regarded here. They are, for the mos
! part, uncultivated and rough, crude il
r their notions of religion, and like all sucl
e people, coarse in their prejudices; bu
! they have great honesty and frankness-
J their impulses are strong and generally
: magnanimous. They really contain the
staple qualities or possibilities of hiel
: character. They have true manhood
J which is not to be said of every people.
e Another clement of the emigration j:
: from the Southwestern States, comprising
many gentlemen with their families, who
$ are a great accession to the society and
: manners of the cities, and particularly Of
e San Francisco; and, with these, much
larger, or, at least, noisier class of broken
e down politicians, who have fed, as il
were, to California, to farm the voters and
: officers of new world, where their stock
of capital has not yet been exhausted.
The former class comprise men who ap-
: pear. like Mr.. Stanley. formerly OF North