lifornia, which had already been excited; and adventurers crowded into
the country by hundreds, and flocked towards the Bay of San Francisco.
This, as I have said, took place in the winter and spring of 1848. The
digging commenced in the spring of that year, and from that time to this
the work of searching for gold has been prosecuted with a success not
heretofore known in the history of this globe. You recollect, Sir, how
incredulous at first the American public was at the accounts which
reached us of these discoveries but we all know, now, that these
accounts received, and continue to receive, daily confirmation, and down
to the present moment I suppose the assurance is as strong, after the
experience of these several months, of the existence of deposits of gold
apparently inexhaustible in the regions near San Francisco, in
California, as it was at any period of the earlier dates of the
accounts.

It so happened, Sir, that although, after the return of peace, it became
a very important subject for legislative consideration and legislative
decision to provide a proper territorial government for California, yet
differences of opinion between the two houses of Congress prevented the
establishment of any such territorial government at the last session.
Under this state of things, the inhabitants of California, already
amounting to a considerable number, thought it to be their duty, in the
summer of last year, to establish a local government. Under the
proclamation of General Riley, the people chose delegates to a
convention, and that convention met at Monterey. It formed a
constitution for the State of California, which, being referred to the
people, was adopted by them in their primary assemblages. Desirous of
immediate connection with the United States, its Senators were appointed
and Representatives chosen, who have come hither, bringing with them the
authentic constitution of the State of California; and they now present
themselves, asking, in behalf of their constituents, that it may be
admitted into this Union as one of the United States. This constitution,
Sir, contains an express prohibition of slavery, or involuntary
servitude, in the State of California. It is said, and I suppose truly,
that, of the members who composed that convention, some sixteen were
natives of, and had been residents in, the slave-holding States, about
twenty-two were from the non-slaveholding States, and the remaining ten
members were eith