Excerpt from Speech of William H. Seward, on the Admission of California: Delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 11, 1850
The resolution, submitted by Mr. Benton, proposing to instruct the Committee on Territories to introduce a bill for the admission of California, disconnected from all other subjects, being under consideration -
Mr. Seward rose and said:
Mr. President: Four years ago, California, a Mexican Province, scarcely inhabited and quite unexplored, was unknown even to our usually immoderate desires, except by a harbor, capacious and tranquil, which only statesmen then foresaw would be useful in the oriental commerce of a far distant, if not merely chimerical, future.
A year ago, California was a mere military dependency of our own, and we were celebrating with unanimity and enthusiasm its acquisition, with its newly-discovered but yet untold and untouched mineral wealth, as the most auspicious of many and unparalleled achievements.
To-day, California is a State, more populous than the least and richer than several of the greatest of our thirty States. This same California, thus rich and populous, is here asking admission into the Union, and finds us debating the dissolution of the Union itself.
No wonder if we are perplexed with ever-changing embarrassments! No wonder if we are appalled by ever-increasing responsibilities! No wonder if we are bewildered by the ever augmenting magnitude and rapidity of national vicissitudes!
Shall California Be Received? For myself, upon my individual judgment and conscience, I answer, Yes.
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