the South. The Northwest was rapidly expanding toward the
Pacific and building up free States which might at any time repudiate
their allegiance to the South. Now the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
opened a great hinterland for the South, extending by the easiest passes
over the mountains to California. But the abolitionists declared that
the South should not expand in that direction save at the expense of
slavery. The President's attitude might determine the matter.

The discovery of gold in amazingly rich deposits in California hastened
the conflict of the rival sections. During the second half of 1848 and
all through 1849 thousands of Southerners, Easterners, and Westerners
rushed pell-mell into the new Eldorado, bent on making hasty fortunes
and oblivious of the anxious thoughts of statesmen. The motley
gold-diggers needed government. They asked Polk to provide it. He
failed to grant it. Congress could not do so because of the deadlock
over slavery. Benton wrote a public letter to the Californians advising
them to form a government for themselves, and his son-in-law, John C.
Fremont, went to the new community to help the cause and perhaps to come
back to Washington as one of their Senators. In 1849, the Californians
formed a State Government, and the new legislature sent their
constitution and two Senators, one of whom was Fremont, on to Washington
early the next year. Admission as a full-fledged State was asked. They
had failed to mention slavery in their constitution.

President Taylor had at last decided to admit to his counsels the
anti-slavery leaders of the Whig party, and he filled his Cabinet with
men who would support him as against Clay and Webster. William H. Seward
became the confidential adviser to the President and a sort of
Administration leader of the Senate. Southern Whigs like Stephens, who
had done much to secure for Taylor the Presidency, were without
influence, and they feared that all the anti-slavery elements of the
North were combining to control the Government.

While California was shaping her own course and the President was making
his decision as between the factions of his party, South Carolina and
Mississippi took the lead in a movement to prevent that or any other
State or Territory from being brought into the Union if slavery were not
duly recognized. Whigs and Democrats joined in great mass meetings,
which showed conclusively that the lower South was in earnest. All
classes of the pe