The California Gold Rush

When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in 1848, thousands of Americans began flocking to California's gold fields in 1849, creating demand for a territorial government. There were few slaves in California, though more than in New Mexico and Utah combined. Although California passed "sojourner" laws that allowed slaveholders to bring slaves and keep them for a time, slavery was not an admission issue. With slavery recognized and protected in the Constitution, the issue of slavery in states where it already existed was, for all but staunch abolitionists, not a serious issue. The issue of slavery in territories not yet states was a very big issue, however. When Californians submitted an antislavery constitution with their request for admission, Southerners were outraged because the admission of California would give the free states majority control of the Senate.

President Zachary Taylor proposed to settle the controversy by admitting California and New Mexico as states without the prior organization of a territorial government, even though New Mexico had too few people to be a state. The South reacted angrily and called for a convention of the slave holding states to meet at Nashville. Their purpose was to discuss the issue of slavery, with some more radical elements prepared to consider secession. Because only the radical "fire eaters" were prepared to go that far, only nine states sent representatives to the meetings, which took place in 1850. Since what became known as the 1850 Compromise was already being debated in Congress, nothing was formally decided; yet the

Nashville Convention was a harbinger of greater problems ahead.62

On the eve of the new decade, the slavery issue, which had caused relatively few serious problems since the Compromise of 1820, was about to take center stage. The debate over the issue of slavery in the newly acquired territories would be the dominant issue during the 1850s. The decade would also see the demise of the greatest leaders of the second generation of American statesmen—Clay, Calhoun and Webster. A New generation headed by Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, both of Illinois, would take their place.