Larkin,
Dr. Semple, Wright, Hastings, Brown, McCarver, Rodman S. Price,
Snyder, and others lend their aid. From the first day the advocates
of slavery and freedom battle in oratorical storm. The forensic
conflict rages for days; first on the matter of freedom, finally
on that of boundary.
Freedom's hosts receive a glorious reinforcement in the arrival of
John C. Fremont.
After bitter struggles the convention casts the die for freedom.
The Constitution of the State is so adopted. While the publicists,
led by Fremont and Gwin, seek to raise the fabric of state, the
traders and adventurers, the hosts of miners springing to life
under the chance touch of James W. Marshall's finger, on January
24, 1848, are delving or trading for gold.
Poor, ill-starred Marshall! He wanders luckless among the golden
fields. He gains no wealth. He toils as yet, unthinking of his days
of old age and lonely poverty. He does not look forward to being
poor at seventy-three years, and dying in 1885 alone. The bronze
monument over his later grave attests no fruition of his hopes. It
only can show the warm-hearted gratitude of children yet unborn,
the Native Sons of the Golden West. Cool old borderers like Peter
Lassen, John Bidwell, P.
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