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Volume 4 (1859-1860) (600 pages)
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Page: of 600
228 HUTCHINGS’ CALIFORNIA MAGAZINE.
with remarkable and most gratifying unanimity.
As the result of the deliberations of that
body, touching the subjects relating to
Congressional action in behalf of the States
and Territory bordering upon the Pacific,
we are authorized respectfully to present
to you ie following statements and suggestions :
California has been a sovereign State of
the Union more than nine years. She has
a population exceeding five hundred thousand—active, intelligent and loyal.
For ten years, and without intermission,
has her people contributed unprecedented
sums to the gain and prosperity of the nation. She possesses unrivalled mineral,
agricultural and manufacturing resources,
excellence of climate,and commercial position
These, with her harbors, navigable bays
and rivers, geographical position, commercial relations, and intermediate station on
the direct line of Asiatic and European
trade, justly entitle the State and her people to a consideration from the General
Government far greater than has been
granted.
Notwithstanding the abundance of her
local resources, and the great advantage of
her commercial position, the State has
failed to make that progress in improvements, population, and general development
legitimately anticipated. The causes operating so unhappily to embarrass the due
development of California, and tending so
decisively to prevent the enterprise of the
citizens of this coast from resulting in
forms of progress equal to the superior local advantages enumerated, exist mainly
in the relation California sustains to the
Atlantic States.
The States of California and Oregon,
and the Territory of Washington, are the
most distant and difficult of access of any
over which the Government is pledged to
exercise its protection and fostering care.
They are without the ordinary means of a
healthy and natural growth. While the
avenues of emigration are comparatively
open, easy and safe to every other part of
the Union, the route to its Pacific possessions, whether by land.or sea, is constantly
beset with every species of difficulty and
danger. Our remote position and the difficulties encountered in travel, transit and
general commerce with the eastern and
more populous States of the Union, are
sufficient to explain the slow degrees which
have marked the progress and development
of the Pacific Coast. /
There are other great diffieulties with
which these States have to contend, operating to prevent State aid of railroad enterprise within their limits.
In the State of California the revenue is
unjustly and most unequally divided. Her
taxable area of land does not exceed oneninth of the area of the State; the remainder contributes nothing to the reyenues of the State, because it is a part of
the public domain, and therefore not subject to taxation.
Three-fourths of the population of the
State occupy what is denominated as the
“mining lands.” These Jands are, and
have been to this time, acknowledged to
be the property of the General Goverument. The State is called upon to exercise
all its governmental functions over the
people occupying said territory, without
deriving, revenue from the land so occupied. Although this question of federal
exercise of power against the true interests
of a sovereign State is important, and
claims early and serious consideration, we
do not now propose te discuss it further.
Oregon and the Territory of Washington
stand in a similar relation upon this important question.
It is referred to here for the purpose of
explaining to the General Government a
hardship which has seriously affected the
progress and development of this State.
It cannot be charged as the fault of the
Pacific States, that their revenue is so unequally derived; nor will the General Government be at a loss to account for the
present inability of these States to aid in
the construction of expensive railroad en-