CALIFORNIA PUBLIC LANDS AND BOUNDARIES.*

MR. PRESIDENT, the amendment of the honorable member from Louisiana† respects that part of the present bill which proposes the immediate admission of California into the Union as a State; and the amendment is opposed to that immediate admission. It proposes, on the contrary, that the subject shall be referred back to the people of California; that certain conditions and modifications in the constitution of California shall be proposed to them, and that, if the people of California in convention shall accede to such conditions and modifications, then the President of the United States shall issue his proclamation announcing that fact, and thereupon California shall be admitted into the Union as a State.

The question, therefore, is, whether, upon the whole, it would be more advisable, under all the circumstances of the case, to admit California now, or to send her constitution back again, and postpone to some future and indefinite period her admission into the Union? In my opinion, Sir, it is highly expedient to admit California now. In my opinion, it is highly expedient to give her now a proper position in the Union, and to give her such powers as shall enable her to revolve among the other orbs of our system; and I really believe that that is the settled judgment of a great majority of the people of this country. If there be any question growing out of these territorial acquisitions on which there seems to be a general, I will not say a unanimous, public opinion, it is that, under the circumstances, it

*Remarks in the Senate on the 27th of June, 1850, the Amendment moved by Mr. Soulé being under consideration.

† Mr. Soulé.

is expedient and proper to admit California into the Union without further delay. She presents herself here with a sufficient population. She presents a constitution to which, in a general aspect, as a republican constitution, we can make no objection. The case is urgent and pressing. No new State has ever appeared asking for admission into the Union under circumstances so extraordinary and so striking; nor have the oldest of us seen a case presented of so peculiar a character. There is in the history of mankind, within my knowledge, no instance of such an extraordinary rush of people for private enterprise to one point on the earth's surface. It has been represented heretofore, that there are one hundred and fifty thousand people in California.* It would seem that on this very day there are fifty or sixty thousand persons traversing the great plains between Missouri and the Rocky Mountains, all bound to California. Other thousands are passing round Cape Horn; other thousands again crowd, press, fill up, and more than fill up, every conveyance that will take them to and from the Isthmus. So that it may be said, and truly said, that this very year will add a hundred thousand persons to the population of California. It is the most striking occurrence within our generation, or any generation, as far as respects any private enterprise, and the extraordinary rush of people to a given point upon the earth's surface. The capital of the Territory is supposed to contain thirty or forty thousand people; twelve hundred vessels have already been sent thither; three hundred and fifty or four hundred ships have been found riding in the harbor of San Francisco at the same time. In addition to the gold and all its other internal resources, California looks out upon India, and China, and Polynesia to the west, as we look out upon Europe to the east.

Now the question is, What is to be done with California? Sir, five years ago it happened to me to say, in a public discussion, that perhaps the time was not far distant when there would be established beyond the Rocky Mountains, and on the shore of the Western sea, a great Pacific republic, of which San Francisco would be the capital. I am overwhelmed by the appearance of the possible fulfilment of that prophecy so sud

* This estimate proved, when the census was taken, to be considerably in

excess.

denly. And, Sir, that is the alternative, in my judgment. I do not think it safe longer to delay the bringing of California into this Union, unless gentlemen are willing to contemplate the other part of that alternative. Other gentlemen have as good means of information of the state of opinion in California as I have; perhaps better. My information is such, at any rate, that I do not think it safe, if we intend to bring her into the Union at all, to defer that measure to another session of Congress, or to any time beyond that which is absolutely necessary for the despatch of the business of her admission. Then, I suppose, such being the general sentiment of the country, that it would also be the general sentiment of this and the other house of Congress; that is, that it is expedient, if there are no insurmountable obstacles, to bring California into the Union at once; and I do not understand the intention of the author of this amendment otherwise than that, if it were not for objections which he has propounded to the Senate, he should be willing to admit California at once. Now the question is, whether those objections are insurmountable or not? If they are, California must be kept out of the Union, let the consequences be what they may. But if they are not insurmountable, then I think, though things may exist which we might wish had been otherwise, it is a case of so much exigency and emergency, that we ought to admit California.

Let us come, then, at once to that point, and see what these objections are which have been suggested by the honorable member from Louisiana. They divide themselves into two classes. He says, in the first place, that, under the constitution of California, and by the bill unamended, there is no sufficient security that the United States will possess, enjoy, control, or have the right to dispose of the public domain or unappropri ated lands in California. That is the first objection. The second relates to the boundaries of California, which he says are extravagantly large, in the first place; in the second place, unnatural; and in the third, impolitic and unfit to be made. Now, Sir, he proposes to remedy what he considers the first great deficiency of the bill, by sending back this constitution to California, and obtaining from a convention of that State an agreement, or compact, to the effect that the State of California shall never interfere with the public lands within the State, or with the pri

mary disposal of them; nor shall ever tax them while held by the United States; nor shall tax non-resident proprietors higher than resident proprietors of the lands in that State shall be taxed. These are provisions which are, all of them, in this bill; but then the honorable member's argument is, that, as they are conditions which, from the nature of the case, can never receive the assent of the people of the State of California, because they can never be presented to them unless the constitution is sent back, they are void, and that the assent or consent of California to those conditions is necessary to make them valid and binding. His argument proceeds upon this idea that, without some such stipulation or compact on the part of the State, the erection of a territory into a State, a political, and, in some respects, sovereign community, does necessarily establish in that sovereign community a control over the public domain; that when California becomes a State, ipso facto she will hold, possess, enjoy, and control the public lands; and this result he derives from an argument founded upon the nature of the sovereignty; because, he says, it is the essence of sovereign power to control the public domain.

Sir, we mislead ourselves often by using terms without sufficient accuracy, or terms not customarily found in the Constitution and laws. That the States are sovereign in many respects nobody doubts; that they are sovereign in all respects nobody contends. The term "sovereign" or "sovereignty" does not occur in the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution does not speak of the States as "sovereign States." It does not speak of this government as a "sovereign government.” It avoids studiously the application of terms that might admit of different views, and the true idea of the Constitution of the United States, and also of the constitution of every State in the Union, is, that powers are conferred on the legislature, not by general, vague description, but by enumeration. The govern

ment of the United States holds no powers which it does not hold as powers enumerated in the Constitution, or as powers necessarily implied; and the same may be said of every State in the Union. The constitution of each State prescribes definitely the powers that shall belong to the government of the State. But if this were a true source of argument in this case, the honorable member would find that this implication arising

from sovereignty would just as naturally adhere to the government of the United States as to that of the States. Certainly, many higher branches of sovereignty are in the government of the United States. The United States government makes war, raises armies, maintains navies, enters into alliances, makes treaties, and coins money; none of which acts of sovereignty are performed by a State government. Nevertheless, there are sovereign powers which the State governments do perform. They punish crimes, impose penalties, regulate the tenure of land, and exercise a municipal sovereignty over it.

Let me remark that this question is not new here. I found it in the Senate the first session that I took my seat here. There is a class of notions which run in a sort of periodical orbit. They come back upon us once in fifteen or twenty years. The idea that the sovereignty of a State necessarily carries with it the ownership of the public lands within its limits was rife here twenty years ago. It was discussed, considered, debated, exploded. It went off, and here it is back again, with exactly the same aspect that attended it then.

Sir, in the year 1828 or 1829, in 1828 I think it was, the legislature of Indiana took up this subject, passed these resolutions, and instructed her members of Congress to support them:

“Resolved, That this State, being a sovereign, free, and independent State, has the exclusive right to the soil and eminent domain of all the unappropriated lands within her acknowledged boundaries; which right was reserved for her by the State of Virginia, in the deed of cession of the Northwestern Territory to the United States, being confirmed and established by the Articles of Confederacy and the Constitution of the United States.

"That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our Representatives requested, to use every exertion in their power, by reason and argument, to induce the United States to acknowledge this vested right of the State, and to place her upon an equal footing with the original States in every respect whatsoever, as well in fact as in name."

One of the gentlemen (Mr. Hendricks) who represented Indiana at that time in the Senate, and who has recently deceased, performed the duty imposed on him by the instructions of the legislature, and brought forward a section, as an amendment to one of the graduation bills introduced by the honorable mem