WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20. The causes which exclude slavery from California lie within a nut-shell. All here are diggers, and free white diggers wont dig with slaves. They know they must dig themselves: they have come out here for that purpose, and they wont degrade their calling by associating it with slave-labor: self-preservation is the first law of nature. They have nothing to do with slavery in the abstract, or as it exists in other communities; not one in ten cares a button for its abolition, nor the Wilmot proviso either: all they look at is their own position; they must themselves swing the pick, and they wont swing it by the side of negro slaves. That is their feeling, their determination, and the upshot of the whole business. An army of half a million, backed by the resources of the United States, could not shake their purpose. Of all men with whom I have ever met, the most firm, resolute, and indomitable, are the emigrants into California. They feel that they have got into a new world, where they have a right to shape and settle things in their own way. No mandate, unless it comes like a thunder-bolt straight out of heaven, is regarded. They may offer to come into the Union, but they consider it an act of condescension, like that of Queen Victoria in her nuptials with Prince Albert. They walk over hills treasured with the precious ores; they dwell by streams paved with gold; while every mountain around soars into the heaven, circled with a diadem richer than that which threw its halo on the seven hills of Rome. All these belong to them; they walk in their midst; they feel their presence and power, and partake of their grandeur. Think you that such men will consent to swing the pick by the side of slaves? Never! while the stream owns its source, or the mountain its base. You may call it pride, or what you will, but _there_ it is—deep as the foundations of our nature, and unchangeable as the laws of its divine Author.