For it is on the track of Fremont
that thousands are now tramping west. Their wheels are bearing
the household gods. Civilization to be is on the move. Gold draws
these crowds. The gulfs of the Carribean, even the lonely straits
of Magellan and the far Pacific, are furrowed now by keels seeking
the happy land where plentiful gold awaits every daring adventurer.
Martinet military governors cannot control this embryo empire.
Already in Congress bills are introduced to admit California into
the Union. A rising golden star glitters in the West; it is soon
to gild the flag of the Union with a richer radiance.
Great leaders of the sovereign people struggle at Washington in
keen debate, inspired by the hostile sections of the Union. They
quarrel over the slavery interests in the great West. Keen Tom
Corwin, loyal Dix, astute Giddings, Douglass the little giant, and
David Wilmot fight freedom's battle with the great apostle of State
rights, Calhoun. He is supported by President Polk, the facile
Secretary of State Buchanan, and that dark Mississippi man of destiny,
Jefferson Davis. The fiery Foote and all the ardent knights of the
day champion the sunny South. Godlike Daniel Webster pours forth
for freedom some of his greatest utterances.
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