Very different was the Californian nation in its
makino; from the American nation. In the settle-
ment of New England there was an agreement in
religion, in politics, in morals and manners, in every-
thing appertaining to the new commonwealth. One
was as prim and puritanical as another. All were
death on sin, and although they had so lately fled
from persecution, they were little behind their perse-
cutors in requiring all men to believe what they be-
lieved. This fanaticism was the strongest element of
their union, the most exalted of Plymouth-rock senti-
ments. In California the moral ideal was not nation-
making, or meeting-house-making, but money-making.
The meanest of occupations, however, was saturated
with thought. It was an epoch of expansion, follow-
ing a long period of concentration of ideas, both upon
these shores, among the Hispano-Americans, and at
the east, where intellect was more slowly but none
the less surely marking out the pathway of its final
emancipation.
There were yet new moralities under the sun as well as new lands. Conscience, which was once con- sidered an original faculty, was now regarded as the product of an association of ideas. And under the new survey, right and wrong assumed original prerog- atives. And as the primary elements of the social structure in California, more than in any spot or time the world has ever seen, were abstracts of the beet elements of the foremost nations of the earth, so the body politic in its completion and entirety was second to none. Every element of pioneer character was in- stinct with directness and efficiency.
For the matter of that, there were among them men without a country, men who never had a country, who, born upon the wing, were accustomed to rest on any spot where they happened to light, and to fit their ears to any name given them.
Like animals of an elevated type, while the organ- ism grew rapidly, the organs of the bo
