Oregon boundary was settled by the peaceful method of arbitration. The dispute over the northwestern boundary had been of long standing between England and the United States. Both countries claimed the whole territory between the parallels of 54° 40′ and 49°.

Since the year 1818 the two countries, by mutual agreement, had jointly occupied the disputed territory. Either government wishing to terminate this agreement pledged itself to give the other twelve months' notice. The United States having served such notice on England, the question was finally disposed of in 1846 by a treaty, which arranged a fair compromise of the conflicting claims by establishing the northern boundary at its present limit of the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude.

440. The Tariff of 1846: The Walker Tariff.-In this administration the majority party in congress passed a bill known as the Walker tariff-named after Robert J. Walker, secretary of the treasury. It reduced the duties on imports so that they corresponded nearly to the schedule provided by Clay's compromise tariff of 1833. Its chief purpose was to raise a revenue, although on some articles it was slightly protective.

441. The Wilmot Proviso-1846.-During the Mexican war President Polk sent a message to congress, asking for an appropriation of money which might be offered to the Mexican government in the settlement of the dispute. A bill appropriating two million dollars for that purpose was at once introduced into the house of representatives, and then the slavery question was brought prominently before the country by David Wilmot, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania. Wilmot offered an amendment to the bill providing for the exclusion of slavery from any territory thus acquired. The northern Democrats and Whigs supported his amendment, which passed the house, but not the senate. The amendment provided that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of such territory,

except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted."

This amendment became known as the "Wilmot Proviso" and since it involved the whole question of slavery in relation to new territory, it became a national question. As the war with Mexico progressed, this proviso was time after time pressed upon congress, by the antislavery advocates, but as often defeated. The discussions in congress and throughout

the country were heated and bitter in the extreme and led to the formation of the Free-soil party, which now absorbed the Liberty party and placed itself squarely against the further extension of slavery.

442. Discovery of Gold in California: The "Forty-niners.

In the year 1849 the world was thrown into a fever of excitement by the announcement of the discovery of gold on the Sutter settlement in California in the year 1848. The man to whom belonged the honor of this discovery was John W. Marshall, a laborer on the large estate of John A. Sutter, near the present city of Sacramento. While over

seeing the digging of a mill race, Marshall was astonished to see the precious metal in the sand which was being shoveled from the ditch. An attempt was made to keep the discovery a secret, but the news rapidly spread, and swept throughout the California settlements like wildfire. Gold seekers by the hundreds came flocking to Sutter's Mill, and the whole region was soon a tented camp of fortune hunters. The news was passed on to the outside world, and in a few weeks was exciting the people in every state of the American union. It leaped the Atlantic ocean and spread throughout the countries of Europe. It seemed that the news was borne upon the wings of the wind to the very ends of the earth. By the year 1849 news of the discovery was known in every civilized country on the globe.

The greatest excitement prevailed everywhere, when the rush of the "Forty-niners" to the gold fields of California began. Ships loaded with men went flying around Cape

Horn. Other adventurers took the "short cut" by the way of the Isthmus of Panama. Ox trains by the hundreds, often with from forty to fifty "prairie schooners" in a single train, started from the states east of the Mississippi by the overland route to California. They wearily wended their way across the plains along the line of the Oregon trail, westward to Fort Hall; thence down through the Humboldt valley and across the Sierra Nevadas to Sutter's Mill; or along either the upper or lower Santa Fe trails to Santa

Fe, thence along Kearney's route to Monterey, or by the California "cut-off" across the Wasatch Mountains or the Great Basin, through the Humboldt valley, to their destination in California. It is said that a traveler on the Oregon trail in the valley of the Platte River counted as many as four hundred and fifty-nine of these "prairie schooners" in a distance of ten miles. These ox trains mapped out the routes along which at least two great continental railways have since been built.

People arrived in California by the thousands. In six

months the port of San Francisco had grown from a village of a few huts to a city of fifteen thousand people, and the population of California from less than ten thousand to more than one hundred thousand-two years later it had reached a quarter of a million. All articles of food were sold at fabulous prices, the sanitary condition of the mining camps was poor, and as a result the greatest suffering followed. Lawlessness and disorder prevailed everywhere. In order to assist the officers of the law the best citizens organized themselves into "vigilance committees," which with firm, though often high-handed justice, brought order out of chaos and established the reign of law.

As

The discovery of gold in California led to the rapid development of that state and later of all the western states. a factor in the western expansion of the United States, gold has performed an important part. To it is due the construction of several continental railroads, which have bound the American union all the more firmly and compactly together, to-day making San Francisco, in point of time, but five days distant from New York city.

The wealth from the mines of the west has, since the discovery of gold in 1849, been steadily on the increase. The mines of California alone have added a billion dollars to the wealth of the world.

443. New States Admitted: Iowa-1846; Wisconsin-1848: Oregon Territory Organized-1848. In this administration two states were admitted-Iowa in 1846, as the twentyninth state, and Wisconsin in 1848, as the thirtieth. Both adopted constitutions forbidding slavery.

In the last named year the contest over slavery in the Oregon country was fought out, terminating in the organization of Oregon territory, with a provision forever excluding slavery from within its limits.

444. The Presidential Election of 1848.-The excitement over the war had hardly subsided when the presidential campaign began. Polk having signified his intention of

retiring to private life, the Democrats nominated Lewis Cass of Michigan. The Whigs nominated the popular hero of the Mexican war, General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana. The Free-soil party nominated ex-president Martin Van Buren. This party cast a large vote but failed to secure a single vote in the electoral college.

As in the election of 1844, so in this election, New York decided the contest. The Liberty party in New York in that year defeated Clay; in a similar manner the Free-soil party in 1848 defeated Cass, the vote in the electoral college standing one hundred sixty-three for Taylor to one hundred twenty-seven for Cass. Millard Fillmore was elected vicepresident.

In this election the Free-soil party declared itself squarely in opposition to all further extension of slavery, or its introduction into any of the newly acquired territory. It practically laid down the lines along which the final struggle on the sectional issue of slavery was to be fought out.

However, the contest was a personal rather than a political contest, in which the questions discussed in party platforms cut but little figure. The popularity of "Old Rough and Ready" and the motto "General Taylor never surrenders " had most to do with the result.

TAYLOR AND FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATION

WHIG: 1849-1853

445. Zachary Taylor, the twelfth president of the United States, was a Virginian by birth, a Kentuckian by adoption; his father having removed to that frontier country shortly after the close of the Revolution. As the son of a farmer in a frontier settlement, he had few scholastic advantages, but thrift, industry, and self-reliance soon won him a place among men and gave him that training which so well fitted him for a military life.

Taylor served in the war of 1812, and took a conspicuous part in the Seminole war. His brilliant victories in the