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1848-9] Effect of the discovery on the slavery question. 401 years to come, I fear it will be impossible for the United States to maintain any naval or military force in California, as at present no fear of punishment is sufficient to make binding any contract between man and man. To send troops out here would be useless, for they would immediately desert. Among the deserters from the squadron are some of the best petty officers and seamen, having but a few months to serve and having large balances due to them amounting to $10,000. The commerce of this coast is wholly cut off. No sooner does a ship arrive at a port of California than captain, mate, cook, and hands all desert her."" A paymaster wrote, "I arrived here (Monterey) and have paid all the men of the First New York Regiment. They have all started for the mines." Individuals made $5000, $10,000, $15,000 in a few days. One man dug $12,000 in five days; three others $8000 in one day. Such cases were abnormal, but it is certain that every miner was earning such sums as he had never seen before, and such as, a few months earlier, he would have thought fabulous. By November, 1848, the news had reached the Eastern States, where it speedily became the one inexhaustible theme of conversation. Before December thousands were hurrying west. The records show that between December 1, 1848, and February 9, 1849, 137 ships, with 8098 "Argonauts," had sailed for California. By the end of March 270 ships with 18,341 emigrants had left New York alone. In February, 1848, there were but 2000 Americans in all California : in December there were 6000. By July, 1849, this number had grown to 15,000, and six months later to 53,000. Never was the need of a strong government in California more imperative. President Polk assured Congress, when it met in December, 1849, that the state of affairs in the Territories was such as "imperiously" demanded that Congress should not allow the session to close without establishing government in California and New Mexico. The House, well aware that the President's statement was true, promptly instructed the Committee on Territories to report a bill or bills for the organisation of governments in New Mexico and California, with distinct prohibitions of slavery. Alarmed at this, Senators and Representatives from slave-holding States under the lead of Calhoun met and adopted an "Address of the Southern Delegates in Congress to their Constituents." It charged the North with gross, systematic, and deliberate violation of the constitutional obligation to return fugitive slaves, denied that Congress had any authority over slavery in the States or in the Territories, complained of the constant agitation of the slavery question by the Abolitionists, and declared that this would result in a complete reversal of the relations of whites and blacks in the South and would force the former to leave the land to their former slaves. The purpose of the address was said to be to unite the South. A little later the legislature of Virginia adopted resolutions declaring that an attempt to enforce the c. M. H. vii. en. xii. 26