CHAPTER VI. — LIGHTING FREEDOM'S WESTERN LAMP.
Bustling crowds confuse Valois when he rides through San Francisco next day. One year's Yankee dominion shows a progress greater than the two hundred and forty-six years of Spanish and Mexican ownership. The period since Viscaino's sails glittered off Point Reyes has been only stagnation.
Seventy-three years' droning along under mission rule has ended in vain repetition of spiritual adjurations to the dullard Indians. To-day hammer and saw, the shouts of command, the din of trade, the ships of all nations, and the whistle, tell of the new era of work. The steam engine is here. The age of faith is past. "Laborare est orare" is the new motto. Adios, siesta! Enter, speculation.
Dreamy-eyed senoritas in amazement watch the growing town. Hundreds are throwing the drifted sand dunes into the shallow bay to create level frontage. Swarthy riders growl a curse as they see the lines of city lot fences stretching toward the Presidio, mission, and potrero.
Inventive Americans live on hulks and flats, anchored over water lots. The tide ebbs and flows, yet deep enough to drown the proprietors on their own tracts, purchased at auction of the alcalde as "water lots."
Water lots, indeed! Twenty years will see these water lots half a mile inland.
Masonry palaces will find foundations far out beyond where the old CYANE now lies. Her grinning ports hold Uncle Sam's hushed thunder-bolts. It is the downfall of the old REGIME.
Shed, tent, house, barrack, hut, dug-out, ship's cabin—everything which will cover a head from the salt night fog is in service. The Mexican adobe house disappears. Pretentious hotels and storehouses are quickly run up in wood. The mails are taking orders to the East for completed houses to come "around the Horn." Sheet-iron buildings are brought from England. A cut stone granite bank arrives in blocks from far-off China.
Vessels with flour from Chile, goods from Australia, and supplies from New York and Boston bring machinery and tools. Flour, saw, and grist mills are provided. Every luxury is already on the way from Liverpool, Bordeaux, Havre, Hamburg, Genoa, and Glasgow. These vessels bring swarms of natives of every clime. They hasten to a land where all are on an equal footing of open adventure, a land where gold is under every foot.
Without class, aristocracy, history, or social past, California's "golden days" are of the future.
Strange that in thirty years' residence of the sly Muscovites at Fort Ross, in the long, idle leisure of the employees of the Hudson Bay station at Yerba Buena Cove from 1836 to 1846, even with the astute Swiss Captain Sutter at New Helvetia, all capacities of the fruitful land have been so strangely ignored.
The slumber of two hundred and fifty years is over. Frenchman, Russian, Englishman, what opiate's drowsy charms dulled your eager eyes so long here? Thousands of miles of virgin lands, countless millions of treasures, royal forests and hills yet to grow under harvest of olive and vine—all this the mole-like eyes of the olden days have never seen.
Even the Mormons acted with the supine ignorance of the foreigners. They scorned to pick this jewel up. Judicious Brigham Young from the Great Salt Lake finally sends emissaries to spy and report. Like the wind his swift messengers go east to divert strong battalions of the Mormon converts from Europe, under trusted leaders, to San Francisco. Can he extend his self-built empire to the Pacific Slope? Brigham may be a new Mahomet, a newer Napoleon, for he has the genius of both.
Alas! when the Mormon bands arrive, Sam Brannard, their leader, abandons the new creed of "Mormon" for the newer creed of "Mammon." He becomes a mercantile giant. The disciples scatter as gold-seekers. California is lost to the Mormons. Even so! Fate, providence, destiny, or some cold evolution of necessary order, draws up the blue curtains of the West. It pins them to our country's flag with a new, glittering star, "California."
With eager interest Valois joins Philip Hardin. There is a social fever in the air. His friends are all statesmen in this chrysalis of territorial development. They are old hands at political intrigue. They would modestly be senators, governors, and rulers. They would cheerfully serve a grateful State.
A band of sturdy cavaliers, they ride out, down the bay shores. They cross the Santa Clara and Salinas valleys toward Monterey.
Valois' easy means enable him to be a leader of the movement. It is to give a constitution and laws to the embryo State.
Hardy men from the West and South are taking up lands. Cool traders are buying great tracts. Temporary officials have eager eyes fixed on the Mexican grants. At all the landings and along the new roads, once trails, little settlements are springing up, for your unlucky argonaut turns to the nearest avocation; inns, stables, lodging-houses and trading-tents are waited on by men of every calling and profession. Each wanderer turns to the easiest way of amassing wealth. The settlers must devise all their own institutions. The Mexicans idly wrap their serapes around them, and they avoid all contact with the hated foreigner. Beyond watching their flocks and herds, they take no part in the energetic development. Cigarito in mouth, card playing or watching the sports of the mounted cavaliers are their occupations. Dismounted in future years, these queer equestrian natures have never learned to fight the battle of life on foot. The law of absorption has taken their sad, swarthy visages out of the social arena.
The cavalcade of Southerners sweeps over the alamedas. They dash across the Salinas and up to wooded Monterey. There the first constitutional convention assembles.
Their delighted eyes have rested on the lovely Santa Cruz mountains, the glorious meadows of Santa Clara, and the great sapphire bay of Monterey. The rich Pajaro and Salinas valleys lie waiting at hand. Thinking also of the wondrous wealth of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, of the tropical glories of Los Angeles, Philip Hardin cries: "Gentlemen, this splendid land is for us! We must rule this new State! We must be true to the South!"
To be in weal and woe "true to the South" is close to the heart of every cavalier in Philip Hardin's train.
The train arrives at Monterey, swelled by others faithful to that Southern Cross yet to glitter on dark fields of future battle.
The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo closed a bloody Conflict on February 2, 1848. It is the preamble to a long struggle. It is destined in the West to be bloodless until the fatal guns trained on Fort Sumter bellow out their challenge to the great Civil War. It is only then the mighty pine will swing with a crash against the palm.
Hardin knows that recruits, true of blood, are hastening to the new land of El Dorado. As he leads his dauntless followers into Monterey his soul is high. He sees the beloved South sweeping in victory westward as proudly as her legions rolled over the fields of Monterey and Buena Vista.
The convention assembles. All classes are represented on September 1, 1849. The first legal civil body is convoked west of the Rockies. Men of thought are here. Men destined to be world-famous in the unknown future. Settlers, hidalgos, traders, argonauts, government officials of army and navy, and transient adventurers of no mean ability. A little press already works with its magical talking types. A navy chaplain is the Franklin of the West. Some order and decorum appear. The calm voice of prayer is heard. The mingled amens of the conquerors thank God for a most unjustifiable acquisition of the lands of others. They are ours only by the right of the strong against the weak—the world's oldest title.
The South leads in representative men. Ready to second the secret desires of Polk, Buchanan, and Calhoun is the astute and courtly Gwin, yet to be senator, duke of Sonora, and Nestor of his clan. Moore of Florida, Jones of Louisiana, Botts, Burnett, and others are in line. On the Northern side are Shannon, an adopted citizen; wise Halleck; polished McDougall; gifted Edward Gilbert, and other distinguished men—men worthy of the day and hour.
As independent members, Sutter, General Vallejo, Thomas O. Larkin, Dr. Semple, Wright, Hastings, Brown, McCarver, Rodman S. Price, Snyder, and others lend their aid. From the first day the advocates of slavery and freedom battle in oratorical storm. The forensic conflict rages for days; first on the matter of freedom, finally on that of boundary.
Freedom's hosts receive a glorious reinforcement in the arrival of John C. Fremont.
After bitter struggles the convention casts the die for freedom. The Constitution of the State is so adopted. While the publicists, led by Fremont and Gwin, seek to raise the fabric of state, the traders and adventurers, the hosts of miners springing to life under the chance touch of James W. Marshall's finger, on January 24, 1848, are delving or trading for gold.
Poor, ill-starred Marshall! He wanders luckless among the golden fields. He gains no wealth. He toils as yet, unthinking of his days of old age and lonely poverty. He does not look forward to being poor at seventy-three years, and dying in 1885 alone. The bronze monument over his later grave attests no fruition of his hopes. It only can show the warm-hearted gratitude of children yet unborn, the Native Sons of the Golden West. Cool old borderers like Peter Lassen, John Bidwell, P. B. Redding, Jacob P. Leese, Wm. B. Ide, Captain Richardson, and others are grasping broad lands as fair as the banks of Yarrow. They permit the ill-assorted delegates to lay down rules for the present and laws for the future. The State can take care of itself. Property-holders appear and aid. Hensley, Henley, Bartlett, and others are cool and able. While the Dons are solemnly complimented in the convention, their rights are gracefully ignored.
The military governor, General Bennett Riley, stands back. He justly does not throw his sword into the scales. Around him are rising men yet to be heroes on a grander field of action than the mud floors of a Monterey adobe. William T. Sherman, the only Northern American strategist, is a lieutenant of artillery. Halleck, destined to be commander-in-chief of a million men, is only a captain of engineers and acting Secretary of State. Graceful, unfortunate, accomplished Charles P. Stone is a staff officer. Ball's Bluff and Fort Lafayette are far in the misty unknown.
The convention adjourns SINE DIE in October 13, 1849. It has settled the great point of freedom on the Pacific Coast. It throws out the granite Sierras as an eternal bulwark against advancing slavery. The black shame is doomed never to cross the Rockies, and yet the great struggle for the born nobility of manhood has been led by Shannon, an alien Irishman. The proudest American blood followed Dr. Gwin's pro-slavery leading. The two senators named are Gwin and the hitherto unrewarded Fremont. Wright and Gilbert are the two congressmen. Honest Peter H. Burnett, on November 13, is elected the first governor of California. He is chosen by the people, and destined to live to see nearly fifty years of peaceful prosperity on the golden coast.
While this struggle is being waged on the Pacific, at Washington the giant statesmen of those famous ante-bellum days close in bitter strife. The political future of the great West, now known to be so rich, is undecided. It is the desperate desire of the South to keep California out of the Union, unless the part falling under the Wilmot proviso act south of 36 deg 30 min is given to slavery.
The national funds to pay for the "Gadsden purchase" will be withheld unless slavery can be extended. The great struggle brings out all the olden heroes of the political arena. Benton, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Davis, King, Sam Houston, Foote, Seward, John Bell, and Douglas, are given a golden prize to tourney for. In that press of good knights, many a hard blow is struck. The victor and vanquished stand to-day, looming gigantic on the dim horizon of the past. It is the dark before the dawn of the War of the Rebellion.
It was before these days of degenerated citizenship, when the rising tide of gold floats the corrupt millionnaire and syndicate's agent into the Senate. The senator's toga then wrapped the shoulders of our greatest men. No bonanza agents—huge moral deformities of heaped-up gold—were made senatorial hunchbacks by their accidental millions.
No vulgar clowns dallied with the country's interests in those old days when Greek met Greek. It was a gigantic duel of six leaders: Webster, Seward, and Clay, pitted against Calhoun, Davis, and Foote. Pausing to refresh their strength for the final struggle, the noise of battle rolled away until the early days of 1850. California was kept out.
The delegates at Monterey hastened home to their exciting callings. Philip Hardin saw the wished-for victory of the South deferred. Gnashing his teeth in rage, he rode out of Monterey. Maxime Valois now is the ardent "Faust" to whom he plays "Mephisto." His following had fallen away. Hardin, cold, profound, and deep, was misunderstood at the Convention. He wished to gain local control. He knew the overmastering power of the pro-slavery administration would handle the main issue later—if not in peace, then in war.
As the red-tiled roofs of Monterey fade behind them, Hardin unbosoms himself to his young comrade. Maxime Valois has been a notable leader in the Convention. He was eager and loyal to the South. He extended many acquaintances with the proud chivalry element of the new State. His short experience of public life feeds his rising ambition. He determines to follow the law; the glorious profession which he laid aside to become a pathfinder; the pathway to every civic honor.
"Valois," says Hardin, "these people are too short-sighted. Our Convention leaders are failures. We should have ignored the slavery fight as yet. Thousands of Southern voters are coming to us within six months from the border States. Our friends from the Gulf are swarming here. The President will fill all the Federal offices with sound Southern Democrats. The army and navy will be in sympathy with us. With a little management we could have got slavery as far as 36 deg 30 sec. We could work it all over the West with the power of our party at the North. We could have controlled the rest of this coast by the Federal patronage, keeping the free part out of the Union as territories. Then our balance of power would be stable. It is not a lost game. Wait! only wait!"
Maxime agrees. Philip Hardin opens the young politician's eyes with a great confidence.
"Maxime, I have learned to like you and depend on you. I will give you a proof of it. We of the old school are determined to rule this country. If Congress admits California as a free State, there will yet be a Lone Star republic covering this whole coast. The South will take it by force when we go out."
The Louisianian exclaims, "Secession!"
"Yes, war even. Rather war than the rule of the Northern mud-sill!" cries Hardin, spurring his horse, instinctively. "Our leading men at home are in thorough concert day by day. If the issue is forced on us the whole South will surely go out. But we are not ready yet. Maxime, we want our share of this great West. We will fill it with at least even numbers of Southern men. In the next few years the West will be entirely neutral in case of war or unless we get a fair division. If we re-elect a Democrat as President we will save the whole West."
"War," muses Valois, as they canter down the rich slopes toward the Salinas River, "a war between the men who have pressed up Cerro Gordo and Chepultepec together! A war between the descendants of the victorious brothers of the Revolution!" It seems cold and brutal to the young and ardent Louisianian. An American civil war! The very idea seems unnatural. "But will the Yankees fight?" queries Valois. Hardin replies grimly: "I did not think we would even be opposed in this Convention. They seemed to fight us pretty well here. They may fight in the field—when it comes."
For Philip Hardin is a wise man. He never under-estimates his untried enemy.
Valois smiles. He cannot control a sneer. The men who are lumber-hewers, dirt-diggers, cod-fishers and factory operatives will never face the Southern chivalry. He despises the sneaking Yankees. Traders in a small way arouse all the arrogance of the planter. He cannot bring any philosophy of the past to tell him that the straining, leaky Mayflower was the pioneer of the stately American fleets now swarming on every sea. The little wandering Boston bark, Otter, in 1796 found her way to California. She was the harbinger of a mighty future marine control. The lumbering old Sachem (of the same Yankee borough) in 1822 founded the Pacific hide and tallow trade as an earnest of the sea control. Where one Yankee shows the way thousands may follow, yet this Valois ignored in his scorn of the man who works.
Maxime could not dream that the day could ever come when thousands of Yankees would swarm over entrenchments, vainly held by the best blood of the sunny South.
As the two gentlemen ride on, Hardin uses the confidential loneliness of the trip to prove to the Creole that war and separation must finally come.
"We want this rich land for ourselves and the South." The young man's blood was up.
"I know the very place I want!" cries Valois.
He tells Hardin of Lagunitas, of its fertile lands sweeping to the San Joaquin. He speaks of its grassy, rolling hills and virgin woods.
Philip Hardin learns of the dashing waters of the Merced and Mariposa on either side. He hears of the glittering gem-like Lagunitas sparkling in the bosom of the foot-hills. Valois recounts the wild legends, caught up from priest and Indian, of that great, terrific gorge, the Yosemite. Hardin allows much for the young man's wild fancy. The gigantic groves of the big trees are only vaguely described. Yet he is thrilled.
He has already seen an emigrant who wandered past Mono Lake over the great Mono notch in the Sierras. There it rises eleven thousand feet above the blue Pacific—with Castle Dome and Cathedral Peak, grim sentinels towering to the zenith.
"It must really be a paradise," muses Hardin.
"It is," cries the Creole; "I intend to watch that region. If money can make it mine, I will toil to get it."
Philip Hardin, looking through half-closed eyes at Valois, decides to follow closely this dashing adventurer. He will go far.
"Valois," he slowly says, "you have seen these native land-barons at the Convention. A few came in to join us. The rest are hostile and bitter. They can never stand before us. The whole truth is, the Mexican must go! We stopped the war a little too soon here. They are now protected by the treaty, but we will litigate them out of all their grants. Keep your eye on Lagunitas. It may come into the market. Gold will be the fool's beacon here for some time. These great valleys will yet be the real wealth of the new State. Land is the rock of the wealth to come. Get land, my boy!" he cries, with the lordly planter's instinct.
Valois admires the cold self-confidence of the sardonic Hardin. He opens his heart. He leans upon the resolute Mississippian.
It takes little to make Maxime joyfully accept Philip Hardin's invitation to share his office. They will follow the fortunes of the city by the Golden Gates.
On riding down the Visitacion valley their eyes are greeted with the sight of the first ocean steamers. A thousand new-comers throng the streets.
Maxime finds a home in the abode of Hardin. His cottage stands on a commanding lot, bought some time before.
Letters from "Belle Etoile" delight the wanderer. He learns of the well-being of his friends. Judge Valois' advice to Maxime decides him to cast his lot in with the new State. It is soon to be called California by legal admission.
Philip Hardin is a leader of the embryo bar of the city. Courts, books, two newspapers and the elements of a mercantile community are the newest signs of a rapid crystallization toward order. With magic strides the boundaries of San Francisco enlarge. Every day sees white-winged sails fluttering. Higher rises the human tumult. From the interior mines, excited reports carry away half the arrivals. They are eager to scoop up the nuggets, to gather the golden dust. New signs attract the eye: "Bank," "Hotel," "Merchandise," "Real Estate." Every craft and trade is represented. It is the vision of a night.
Already a leader, Hardin daily extends his influence as man, politician, and counsellor.
The great game is being played at the nation's capital for the last sanction to the baptism of the new star in the flag.
California stands knocking at the gates of the Union, with treasure-laden hands. In Congress the final struggle on admission drags wearily on. Victorious Sam Houston of Texas, seconded by Jefferson Davis, fresh laurelled from Buena Vista, urges the claims of slavery. Foote "modestly" demands half of California, with a new slave State cut out from the heart of blood-bought Texas. But the silver voice of Henry Clay peals out against any extension of slave territory. Proud King of Alabama appeals in vain to his brethren of the Senate to discipline the two ambitious freemen of the West, by keeping them out of the Union.
Great men rally to the bugle notes of their mighty leaders.
The gallant son of the South, General Taylor, finds presidential honors following his victories. In formal message he announces on February 13, 1850, to Congress that the new State waits, with every detail of first organization, for admission.
Stern Calhoun, chief of the aspiring Southerners, proudly claims a readjustment of the sectional equality thus menaced. Who shall dare to lift the gauntlet thrown down by South Carolina's mighty chieftain?
In the hush of a listening Senate, Daniel Webster, the lion of the North, sounds a noble defiance. "Slavery is excluded from California by the law of nature itself," is his warning admonition.
With solemn brow, and deep-set eyes, flashing with the light of genius, he appeals to the noblest impulses of the human heart. Breathless senators thrill with his inspired words. "We would not take pains to reaffirm an ordinance of nature," he cries, and, as his grave argument touches the listeners, he reverently adds, "nor to re-enact the will of God."
Mighty Seward rises also to throw great New York's gauntlet in the teeth of slavery.
Taunted with its legal constitutional sanction, he exclaims grandly, "There is a higher law than the Constitution."
Long years have passed since both the colossus of the North and the great Governor entered into the unbroken silence of the grave. Their immortal words ring still down the columned years of our country's history. They appeal to noble sons to emulate the heroes of this great conflict. Shall the slave's chains clank westward? No! Above the din of commoner men, the logic of John Bell, calm and patriotic, brings conviction. The soaring eloquence of Stephen A. Douglas claims the Western shores for freedom.
Haughty Foote and steadfast Benton break lances in the arena.
Kentucky's greatest chieftain, whose gallant son's life-blood reddened Buena Vista's field, marshals the immortal defenders of human liberty. Henry Clay's paternal hand is stretched forth in blessing over the young Pacific commonwealth. All vainly do the knights of the Southern Cross rally around mighty Calhoun, as he sits high on slavery's awful throne.
Cold Davis, fiery Foote, ingenious Slidell, polished and versatile Soule, ardent King, fail to withstand that mighty trio, "Webster, Seward, and Clay," the immortal three. The death of the soldier-President Taylor calms the clamor for a time. The struggle shifts to the House. Patriotic Vinton, of Ohio, locks the door on slavery. On the 9th day of September, 1850, President Millard Fillmore signs the bill which limits the negro hunter to his cotton fields and cane brakes at home. The representatives of the new State are admitted. A new golden star shines unpolluted in the national constellation.
Westward the good news flies by steamer. All the shadows on California's future are lifted.
While wearied statesmen rest from the bitter warfare of two long years, from North and South thousands eagerly rush to the golden land.
The Southern and Border States send hosts of their restless youths.
From the Northwest sturdy freemen, farmers with families, toil toward new homes under freedom's newest star. The East and Middle States are represented by all their useful classes.
The news of California's admission finds Hardin and Valois already men of mark in the Occidental city.
Disappointed at the issue, Hardin presses on to personal eminence; he turns his energies to seeking honors in the legal forum.
Maxime Valois, quietly resuming his studies for the bar, guards his funds, awaiting opportunity for investment. He burns the midnight oil in deep studies. The two men wander over the growing avenues of the Babel of the West. Every allurement of luxury, every scheme of vice, all the arts of painted siren, glib knave, and lurking sharper are here; where the game is, there the hunter follows. Rapidly arriving steamers pour in hundreds. The camp followers of the Mexican war have streamed over to San Francisco. The notable arrival of the steamer California brings crowds of men, heirs to future fame, and good women, the moral salt of the new city. It also has its New York "Bowery Boys," Philadelphia "Plug Uglies," Baltimore "Roughs," and Albany "Strikers."
By day, new occupations, strange callings, and the labor of organizing a business community, engage all men. The ebb and flow of going and returning miners excite the daylight hours. From long wharves, river steamers, laden to the gunwales, steam past the city shores to Sacramento. At night, deprived of regular homes, the whole city wanders in the streets, or crowds flashy places of amusement. Cramped on the hilly peninsula, there are no social lines drawn between good and bad. Each human being is at sea in a maelstrom of wild license.
The delegated representatives of the Federal Government soon arrive. Power is given largely to the Southern element. While many of the national officials are distinguished and able, they soon feel the inspiring madness of unrebuked personal enjoyment.
Money in rough-made octagonal fifty-dollar slugs flows freely. Every counter has its gold-dust scales. Dust is current by the ounce, half ounce, and quarter ounce. The varied coins of the whole world pass here freely. The months roll away to see, at the end of 1850, a wider activity; there is even a greater excitement, a more pronounced madness of dissipation. Speculation, enterprise, and abandonment of old creeds, scruples, and codes, mark the hour.
The flying year has brought the ablest and most daring moral refugees of the world to these shores, as well as steady reinforcements of worthy settlers. Pouring over the Sierras, and dragging across the deserts, the home builders are spreading in the interior. The now regulated business circles, extending with wonderful elasticity, attract home and foreign pilgrims of character. Though the Aspasias of Paris, New Orleans, and Australia throng in; though New York sends its worthless womanhood in floods, there are even now worthy home circles by the Golden Gate. Church, school, and family begin to build upon solid foundations. All the government bureaus are in working order. The Custom House is already known as the "Virginia Poor House." The Post-Office and all Federal places teem with the ardent, haughty, and able ultra Democrats of the sunny South. The victory of the Convention bids fair to be effaced in the high-handed control of the State by Southern men. As the rain falleth on the just and unjust, so does the tide of prosperity enrich both good and bad. Vice, quickly nourished, flaunts its early flowers. The slower growth of virtue is yet to give golden harvest of gathered sheaves in thousands of homes yet to be in the Golden State. Long after the maddened wantons and noisy adventurers have gone the way of all "light flesh and corrupt blood," the homes will stand. Sailing vessels stream in from the ports of the world. On the narrow water-front, Greek and Lascar, Chinaman and Maltese, Italian and Swede, Russian and Spaniard, Chileno and Portuguese jostle the men of the East, South, and the old country. Fiery French, steady German, and hot-headed Irish are all here, members of the new empire by the golden baptism of the time.
Knife and revolver, billy and slung-shot, dirk and poniard, decide the ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM.
In the enjoyment of fraternal relations with the leaders of the dominant party East, Philip Hardin becomes a trusted counsellor of the leading officials. He sees the forum of justice opened in the name of Union and State. He ministers at the altars of the Law. He gains, daily, renown and riches in his able conduct of affairs.
Hardin's revenue rises. He despises one of the State judgeships easily at his hand. As his star mounts, his young neophyte, Maxime Valois, shares his toils and enjoys his training. Under his guidance he launches out on the sea of that professional legal activity, which is one continued storm of contention.
Valois has trusted none of the mushroom banks. He keeps his gold with the Padres. He makes a number of judicious purchases of blocks and lots in the city, now growing into stable brick, stone, and even iron.