"I would gladly see some other citizen more worthy chosen
for that high office."
Old Rough and Ready was a soldier, and nothing but a soldier.
He knew nothing at all about politics, and had never even voted.
However when people insisted that he should be President, he began
rather to like the idea, and at length consented to be a candidate,
and was elected.
Because of the discovery of gold, thousands and thousands of people
flocked to California. And although many returned to their homes
again, many also remained in California, and made their homes
in the new-found sunny land. So it came about that California was
peopled faster than any other part of America, and in 1849, less
than two years after the discovery of gold, it asked to be admitted
to the Union as a state.
But before it was admitted a fierce battle had to be fought, for
the Californians wanted the state to be admitted as a free state.
Now part of California lay south of the Missouri Compromise Line,
so the Southerners were angry, and declared that California must
be divided into two, and that the Southern part must come into the
Union as a slave state.
The Southerners felt that they had a right to be angry. For they
had helped to bring on the Mexican War for the purpose of getting
more territory south of the Missouri Compromise Line, so that they
should be sure of slave states to balance the free states of the
north.
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