forbid--California will
not go with the south or north, but here on the shores of the Pacific,
found a mighty republic, which may in the end prove the greatest of
all."

These quotations which might be greatly extended are sufficient to prove
that a strong feeling existed in favor of a Pacific Republic standing
wholly aloof from the coming struggle. It is unthinkable that a Senator
and a Congressman, and especially the Governor of the State, should have
voiced such sentiments had there not been at least a probability that
this might be the course adopted in case the Union was broken up.

James G. Blaine, whose history of the time must be regarded as impartial
so far as California is concerned, makes this statement:

"Jefferson Davis expected, with confidence amounting to certainty, and
based, it is believed, on personal pledges, that the Pacific Coast, if
it did not actually join the South, would be disloyal to the Union."

This beyond reasonable doubt was the situation in the Spring of 1860:
Our immense State with its coast line of more than seven hundred
miles, sharply divided as between Southern and Northern California; the
majority of our people in Los Angeles and neighboring counties frankly
favoring the proposed confederacy of slave-holding states; many of the
larger towns in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys of a similar
mind; the political leaders of the State almost solidly Democratic and
the majority with strong Southern leanings; many of our foremost men
believing that the time had come to launch the long dreamed of Pacific
Republic, and our ranches and mines containing a large population either
hostile or indifferent to the cause of Union and Liberty. Over against
these varied forces a probable patriotic majority scattered from one end
of California to the other, some belonging to the new Republican Party
and some to the Douglas Democracy, and many without party affiliation,
unorganized, badly scattered, and now that Broderick was dead and
Colonel Baker away, without competent leadership. If ever a situation
called for a man who might at once command the confidence of the people
and arouse the latent patriotism of our wide-spread population, a man
who might do the work of years in a few months' time, who might in his
own persuasive personality become a center of patriotism around which
Union-loving men of all parties, and of no party, could unite in defense
of the imperilled country; one unfettered