gressed after the purchase of the Louisiana
territory from France in 1803, it gradually extended up the west side of
the Mississippi, until the State of Missouri was admitted into the
Union, in 1820, which was followed by the States of Iowa and Minnesota,
along the line of the Mississippi, and Kansas and Nebraska, on the
Missouri. The Mexican War occurred in 1846, and as one of its fruits
California was ceded to the United States, and was admitted to the Union
in 1850. The territory which now composes the States of Washington,
Oregon and Idaho was finally determined to belong to our country by the
treaty with Great Britain, which was signed July 17, 1846, fixing the
boundary line between us and the British possessions at the forty-ninth
parallel of north latitude. These extreme western acquisitions gave us
an immense coast line on the Pacific Ocean, leaving a stretch of country
between our Pacific and central possessions, on the Missouri, of
considerably over two thousand miles in extent, which was uninhabited by
whites, and composed the hunting grounds of many savage tribes of
Indians and the pasture ranges of countless herds of buffalo. This vast
area of country was practically unknown and unexplored, although it had
been crossed by the expeditions of Lewis and Clark, in 1805-1806, John
Jacob Astor in 1811, Captain Bonneville in 1832, Marcus Whitman in 1836,
and John C. Fremont in 1843, to which sources of information may be
added the prejudiced reports of the Hudson Bay Company.

When California was ceded to us by Mexico, very little was thought of it
as an acquisition to our possessions. It was looked upon as a country
out of which a small trade in hides and tallow might grow, but nothing
more. I have heard it denounced on the floor of the house of
representatives, in Washington, by some of the wisest statesmen of the
day, as a bear garden, unfit for the use of civilized man; but prophets
usually make bad work of matters about which they know absolutely
nothing, which was the case with California in 1848. However,
adventurous spirits soon found their way there, as they have always done
in Western America, and in 1848 or 1849 gold was found accidentally by
Captain Sutter, in digging a mill-race on his ranch, which discovery at
once settled the status and fortunes of California. The news soon
reached the States, and spread like a prairie fire on a windy day. All
the subsequent gold excitements of Frazier river, down to