Breckenridge and Judah P. Benjamin attained the dignity of national
events, and his heroic death early in the war on field of battle renders
it forever impossible for any just man to belittle the deeds or
influence of Edward D. Baker. What he might have effected had he
remained in California, or had his life been longer spared, we may not
say. The fact remains that after his mission among us was over Southern
and Democratic sentiment was still in the ascendant. It was reserved for
another, - the privilege and the honor of "saving California to the
Union."

One other phase of the situation merits careful attention. Almost from
the very beginning of American Settlement in California a dream of
Pacific Empire, separate and independent of "the States" had fascinated
many of her strongest men. And little wonder, for here by the Pacific
Sea was a vast territory walled away by lofty mountains and wide
deserts, two thousand miles west of the frontier settlements of
Minnesota and Kansas. Not until after the outbreak of the Civil War was
there telegraphic communication with the East, and the nearest railway
ended somewhere in central Missouri. Mail was received regularly once in
twenty-six days, sometimes as often as once in two weeks. But there was
little direct communication and less unity of purpose between the older
sections of the United States and far away California. In fact there was
considerable antagonism felt and expressed toward the government of
Washington. The original Mexican population cordially hated, and with
good reason, the national authority. Foreigners in the mines cared
nothing for the Union or the quarrel between the states, and many of the
settlers from the East, which they still lovlingly called "back home,"
felt that they had a real grievance against the general government. This
feeling, which was of long standing, was naturally intensified by the
troubled outlook in 1860. Men prominent in state and national politics