[Illustration:  ZACHARY TAYLOR.]

[Sidenote:  Candidates for the presidency, 1848.]

[Sidenote:  “Squatter sovereignty.”]

[Sidenote:  Free Soil party. McMaster, 334-335.]

[Sidenote:  Taylor and Fillmore elected.]

341.  Taylor elected President, 1848.—­Three candidates contested the election of 1848.  First there was Lewis Cass of Michigan, the Democratic candidate.  He was in favor of “squatter sovereignty,” that is, allowing the people of each territory to have slavery or not as they chose.  The Whig candidate was General Taylor, the victor of Buena Vista.  The Whigs put forth no statement of principles.  The third candidate was Martin Van Buren, already once President.  Although a Democrat, he did not favor the extension of slavery.  He was nominated by Democrats who did not believe in “squatter sovereignty,” and by a new party which called itself the Free Soil party.  The abolitionists or Liberty party also nominated a candidate, but he withdrew in favor of Van Buren.  The Whigs had nominated Millard Fillmore of New York for Vice-President.  He attracted to the Whig ticket a good many votes in New York.  Van Buren also drew a good many votes from the Democrats.  In this way New York was carried for Taylor and Fillmore.  This decided the election, and the Whig candidates were chosen.

[Illustration:  THE SITE OF SAN FRANCISCO IN 1847.  From an original drawing.]

[Sidenote:  Discovery of gold in California, 1848.]

[Sidenote:  The “rush” to California, 1849. McMaster, 337-338; Source-Book, 276-279.]

342.  California.—­Before the treaty of peace with Mexico was ratified, even before it was signed, gold was discovered in California.  Reports of the discovery soon reached the towns on the western seacoast.  At once men left whatever they were doing and hastened to the hills to dig for gold.  Months later rumors of this discovery began to reach the eastern part of the United States.  At first people paid little attention to them.  But when President Polk said that gold had been found, people began to think that it must be true.  Soon hundreds of gold-seekers started for California.  Then thousands became eager to go.  These first comers were called the Forty-Niners, because most of them came in the year 1849.  By the end of that year there were eighty thousand immigrants in California.

[Sidenote:  California constitutional convention, 1849.]

[Sidenote:  Slavery forbidden.]

343.  California seeks Admission to the Union.—­There were eighty thousand white people in California, and they had almost no government of any kind.  So in November, 1849, they held a convention, drew up a constitution, and demanded admission the Union as a state.  The peculiar thing about this constitution was that it forbade slavery in California.  Many of the Forty-Niners were Southerners.  But even they did not want slavery.  The reason was that they wished to dig in the earth and win gold.  They would not allow slave holders to work their mining claims with slave labor, for free white laborers had never been able to work alongside of negro slaves.  So they did not want slavery in California.