When the territory became a State, on September 9, 1850, its population was at least 150,000, and a year later had probably reached a quarter of a million. Many of the Argonauts stayed but a few months, and, failing to become rich at a stroke, went elsewhere, so that the composition of the population changed markedly from week to week. It was almost exclusively a population of males. Few brought their families; and while prostitutes went to San Francisco from all accessible seaports, they contributed little or nothing to the permanent population.
The first Chinese immigrant found his way into California in 1847, but by the summer of 1852, 20,000 others had followed him. Probably 5000 Mexicans also had come into the territory which they had so recently lost.
By the census of 1860 it appears that most of the riff-raff had drifted out of the State again, and the basis of the permanent population had been laid. The total population was 380,000 of which nearly 40 per cent was foreign-born; the percentage reaching this high mark partly because of the number of Chinese. California had a population more nearly representative of the entire Union than did any other State—about equal numbers were contributed by New England, by the Middle States, by the Northwest, and by the lower Mississippi Valley. This population, it will be remembered, was almost entirely in the northern half of the State. The more homogeneous settlement of the southern half did not get under way until about the middle of the next period.
California differs profoundly from the other frontier regions of the United States in that it was settled from all sections of the country and not mostly from the adjoining States. The vast mineral wealth of the new State supplied it from the very beginning with abundant capital for local enterprises so that it was free from the debtor complex, so characteristic of the other frontier communities.
California faces westward on the Pacific and has developed into a unique and more or less self-sufficient section with a definite self-reliant character of its own.
While the West was thus filling up and the United States was reaching the Pacific Ocean, the States on the Atlantic continued to grow in power and population, largely through their own natural increase, but partly through the immigration of the period. French Canadians began to drift down into New England, as they have continued to do to this day. The single State of New York had by the end of the period a million foreign-born in its population, of whom half were Irish and one-fourth German. New Jersey had become one-fifth foreign-born, Connecticut one-sixth, Pennsylvania one-seventh. The racial character of this immigration was not particularly harmful, as it was mostly Nordic, but the large Roman Catholic element excited widespread alarm.
The arrival of large numbers of ignorant and destitute South Irish Catholics, who occupied the lowest social status here, led directly to the formation of a native American secret political party, nicknamed the "Know Nothings," because of their refusal to discuss or divulge their aims or actions. For the purpose of membership they defined the name Native American to mean a person all four of whose grandparents were born in this country. This party's policy, in the early stage of its career, was to act secretly, supporting the candidate who most nearly represented their views, regardless of his party affiliations. The party at once developed great strength, and in 1854 and 1855 carried State elections in Massachusetts, New York, Kentucky, California, and several other States. It played a large part in national politics in 1856, but its organization was disrupted by the increasing virulence of the slavery issue.
