B. Redding, Jacob P. Leese, Wm. B. Ide,
Captain Richardson, and others are grasping broad lands as fair
as the banks of Yarrow. They permit the ill-assorted delegates to
lay down rules for the present and laws for the future. The State
can take care of itself. Property-holders appear and aid. Hensley,
Henley, Bartlett, and others are cool and able. While the Dons are
solemnly complimented in the convention, their rights are gracefully
ignored.
The military governor, General Bennett Riley, stands back. He justly
does not throw his sword into the scales. Around him are rising men
yet to be heroes on a grander field of action than the mud floors
of a Monterey adobe. William T. Sherman, the only Northern American
strategist, is a lieutenant of artillery. Halleck, destined to be
commander-in-chief of a million men, is only a captain of engineers
and acting Secretary of State. Graceful, unfortunate, accomplished
Charles P. Stone is a staff officer. Ball's Bluff and Fort Lafayette
are far in the misty unknown.
The convention adjourns SINE DIE n October 13, 1849. It has settled
the great point of freedom on the Pacific Coast. It throws out the
granite Sierras as an eternal bulwark against advancing slavery.
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