Even Benton, cheering the departing thousands Westward, grumbles in the Senate of the United States, on January 26, 1840. As the official news of the gold discoveries is imparted, the wise senators are blind in the sunlight of this prosperity. "I regret that we have these mines in California," Benton says; "but they are there, and I am in favor of getting rid of them as soon as possible." Wise senator! Neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet is he. He cannot see that these slighted mines in the future will be the means of sustaining our country's credit in a great war. This gold and silver will insure the construction of the overland railroads. The West and Northwest, sealed to the Union by bands of steel, will be the mainstay of the land. They will equalize a broader, grander Union than he ever dreamed of. Benton little thinks he has found the real solution of the wearying strife of North and South. Turning the surplus population of these bitterly opposed sections to the unpeopled West solves the problem. His son-in-law, Governor Fremont, has been a future peacemaker as well as a bold pathfinder. For it is on the track of Fremont that thousands are now tramping west. Their wheels are bearing the household gods. Civilization to be is on the move. Gold draws these crowds. The gulfs of the Carribean, even the lonely straits of Magellan and the far Pacific, are furrowed now by keels seeking the happy land where plentiful gold awaits every daring adventurer. Martinet military governors cannot control this embryo empire. Already in Congress bills are introduced to admit California into the Union. A rising golden star glitters in the West; it is soon to gild the flag of the Union with a richer radiance. Great leaders of the sovereign people struggle at Washington in keen debate, inspired by the hostile sections of the Union. They quarrel over the slavery interests in the great West. Keen Tom Corwin, loyal Dix, astute Giddings, Douglass the little giant, and David Wilmot fight freedom's battle with the great apostle of State rights, Calhoun. He is supported by President Polk, the facile Secretary of State Buchanan, and that dark Mississippi man of destiny, Jefferson Davis. The fiery Foote and all the ardent knights of the day champion the sunny South. Godlike Daniel Webster pours forth for freedom some of his greatest utterances. William H. Seward, prophet, seer, statesman, and patriot, with noble inspirations cheers on freedom's army. Who shall own bright California, the bond or the free? While these great knights of our country's round table fight in the tourney of the Senate over this golden prize, Benton sends back the "pathfinder" Fremont. He is now freed from the army by an indignant resignation. He bears a letter to Benton's friends in the West to organize the civil community and prepare a constitution.