California was unfortunate in having as a representative in the United States Senate at this time, William Gwin, also a man of southern birth who had cast his fortunes in the Golden State at the outset, when the gold boom was on.  Until secession was imminent, Gwin served his adopted state well enough.  His encouragement of the Pony Express enterprise has already been pointed out.  It is doubtful if he were statesman enough to have foreseen the significant part this organization was to play in the early stages of the War.  Otherwise his efforts in its behalf must have been lacking — though the careers of political adventurers like Gwin are full of strange inconsistencies[17].

Speaking in the Senate, on December 12, 1859, Gwin declared, that he believed that “all slave holding states of this confederacy can establish a separate and independent government that will be impregnable to the assaults of all foreign enemies.”  He further went on to show that they had the power to do it, and asserted that if the southern states went out of the Union, “California would be with the South.”  Then, as a convincing proof of his duplicity, he had these pro-rebel statements stricken from the official report of his speech, that his constituents might not take fright, and perhaps spoil some of the designs which he and his scheming colleagues had upon California.  Of course these remarks reached the ears of his constituents anyhow, and though prefaced by a studied evasiveness on his part, they contributed much to the feeling of unrest and insecurity that then prevailed along the Coast.

It is of course a well-known fact that California never did secede, and that soon after the war began, she swung definitely and conclusively into the Union column.  The danger of secession was wholly potential.  Yet potential dangers are none the less real.  Had it not been for the determined energies of a few loyalists in California, led by General E. A. Sumner and cooperating with the Federal Government by means of the swiftest communication then possible — the Pony Express — history today, might read differently.

Now to turn once more to the potential dangers[18] that made the California crisis a reality.  About three-eighths of the population were of southern descent and solidly united in sympathy for the Confederate states.  This vigorous minority included upwards of sixteen thousand Knights of the Golden Circle, a pro-Confederate secret organization that was active and dangerous in all the doubtful states in winning over to the southern cause those who feebly protested loyalty to the Union but who opposed war.  Many of these “knights” were prosperous and substantial citizens who, working under the guise of their local respectability, exerted a profound influence.  Here then, at the outset, was a vigorous and not a small minority, whose influence was greatly out of proportion to their numbers because of their zeal; and who would have seized the balance of power unless held in check by an aroused Union sentiment and military intimidation.