Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/75

Rh separate the Northern and the Southern States, and which set them in opposition one to the other.

I will now tell you what the great apple of contention looks like, which has been here fought for during the last seven months. Behold!—

The admission of California as a State into the Union, the arrangement of Territorial Administration for Utah (the Mormon State) and New Mexico, as well the project for determining the western and north-western boundary of Texas. And now a word in explanation: in order that a State can have a right to be admitted as such into the Union it is necessary for it to have a population of, at least, 55,000 souls. Until then every separate portion of the United States' land is called territory and is governed, during the period of its development and minority, more immediately by the Federal Administration which appoints a governor and other officials, and furnishes troops to defend the inhabitants against the Indians or other enemies whatever they may be, of whom the population of the Territory may complain. Every State in the Union has a right to form its own laws, on condition that they do not encroach upon the enactments of the other Federal States, as well as that the form of government be republican. The Territory again has not the privileges of the State, and people are not yet agreed as to how far its privileges of self-government ought to extend. Well now; California, the population of which became suddenly augmented to above 150,000 souls, principally by emigration from the free North-Eastern States, desires to be admitted into the Union as a Free State. New Mexico, which in consequence of the Mexican law, is free from slavery, and Utah which calls its young population,