situation merits careful attention. Almost from
the very beginning of American Settlement in California a dream of
Pacific Empire, separate and independent of "the States" had fascinated
many of her strongest men. And little wonder, for here by the Pacific
Sea was a vast territory walled away by lofty mountains and wide
deserts, two thousand miles west of the frontier settlements of
Minnesota and Kansas. Not until after the outbreak of the Civil War was
there telegraphic communication with the East, and the nearest railway
ended somewhere in central Missouri. Mail was received regularly once in
twenty-six days, sometimes as often as once in two weeks. But there was
little direct communication and less unity of purpose between the older
sections of the United States and far away California. In fact there
was considerable antagonism felt and expressed toward the government of
Washington. The original Mexican population cordially hated, and with
good reason, the national authority. Foreigners in the mines cared
nothing for the Union or the quarrel between the states, and many of the
settlers from the East, which they still lovingly called "back home,"
felt that they had a real grievance against the general government. This
feeling, which was of long standing, was naturally intensified by the
troubled outlook in 1860. Men prominent in state and national politics
openly advocated independence as the proper policy for the Pacific
Coast.

"Why depend on the South or the North to regulate our affairs," wrote
our junior Senator from Washington. "And this, too, after they have
proved themselves incapable of living in harmony with one another."
Starr King had been a resident of the state nearly a year when the
San Francisco Herald published the following letter received from
Congressman John C. Burch:

"The people of California should all be of one mind on this subject of a
Pacific Republic. Raise aloft the flag of the hydraheaded cactus of
the western wilds and call upon the enlightened nations of the earth
to acknowledge our independence and protect us from the wreck of a once
glorious Union."

Governor John B. Weller, a man not only holding the highest office
within the gift of the people of the state, but also one who had
represented California in the United States Senate made deliberately
this declaration:

"If the wild spirit of fanaticism which now pervades the land should
destroy the magnificent confederacy--which God