Unknown to Simon Cameron, August 28, 1861

Hon. SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War:

DEAR SIR: Since the arrival of the pony express, with Washington dates of August 16, a rumor has been in circulation that an enlistment of 5,000 additional men from this State has been ordered for service in Texas, to which State they were to proceed with all convenient dispatch, under command of General Sumner. This report has caused the most lively apprehensions of danger in our midst, and so deeply are we impressed that your Department is not sensible of the true condition of affairs upon this coast that we most respectfully ask the rescinding of so much of the order as calls for the withdrawal of the troops to be raised, and that transfers General Sumner to another field of duty, and thereto we present the following reasons: A majority of our present State officers are undisguised and avowed secessionists, and the balance, being bitterly hostile to the Administration, are advocates of a peace policy at any sacrifice, upon terms that would not be rejected even by South Carolina. Every appointment made by our Governor within the past three months unmistakably indicates his entire sympathy and co-operation with those plotting to sever California from her allegiance to the Union, and that, too, at the hazard of civil war. About threeeighths of our citizens are natives of slaveholding States, and almost a unit in this crisis. The hatred and bitterness toward the Union and Union men, manifested so pointedly in the South and so strongly evinced on the field of battle, is no more intense there than here. These men are never without arms, have wholly laid aside their business, and are devoting their time to plotting, scheming, and organizing. Our advices, obtained with great prudence and care, show us that there are upward of 16,000 “Knights of the Golden Circle” in this State, and that they are still organizing even in our most loyal districts. The fruits of so much devotion to the cause of secession and intriguing for its promotion are manifested in the securing of certain timid and ease-loving classes, hailing from free States, styling themselves Union men, but opposed to the war. Thus is secession consummated. Another class, by no means small, powerful through its wealth, has affiliated with the disunionists to avoid and oppose paying a pittance toward maintaining the integrity of the Government in its hour of trial. The native Spanish race have been persuaded that all real-estate complications will meet with prompt adjustment at the hands of another organization, and the unwarranted doubts, difficulties, and delays that have characterized the action of the administrative branch of the Government in the final adjustment of titles under Mexican grants furnish an argument to ignorant men that human ingenuity cannot answer. The squatter and lawless trespasser, having litigated with the landed proprietor for years in his own name and that of his Government, is made to believe that no change can result to his disadvantage; that principles established by the Federal courts will be overturned, and Mexican grants only known in history. Upon these several subjects, which comprise the prominent points of our present position, electioneering pamphlets, resolutions, platforms, speeches, and circulars are distributed with an unflagging industry, and are placed in the hands of every voter in the State. The special object of this extraordinary effort is to carry the State election, which takes place one week from to-day, September the 4th. In this campaign the Union voters are unfortunately divided, and the best-devised plans have failed to unite them. The secessionists, the Douglas party, and the Republicans have each a full ticket in the field, and we are overwhelmed with apprehensions lest the enemies of the country may triumph. Should such be the case, civil strife would be forced upon our loyal population, and the most prosperous State in the Union would be desolated and destroyed. The frightful scenes now transpiring in Missouri would be rivaled by the atrocities enacted upon the Pacific Coast. Loyalty and patriotism embrace within their firm grasp the body of the wealth and intelligence of California, and an attempt at a severance will be contested with inflexible determination. We need not remind you of the vast importance of preserving California to the Union. Its great geographical extent, its mineral and agricultural wealth, the fact that it is our chief seat of empire upon the

Pacific, and that its political action will exercise a powerful, if not controlling, influence upon its neighbors at the North, imperatively demand that no precaution should be neglected to insure its fidelity. We need only appeal to the examples furnished by Missouri, and even Virginia, to show that the efforts of a comparatively small number of audacious and unscrupulous men are sufficient to precipitate an unwilling population into disunion, or at least to inaugurate civil war. If, unfortunately, from the causes we have mentioned, the secession minority in this State should obtain control, you will at once perceive with what power for mischief it would be armed, and how imminent is our danger. To retain a State in its allegiance is a thousandfold more easy than to overcome disloyalty affecting to act under State authority.

Nothing will more certainly check treasonable attempts than a conviction of their hopelessness. To deprive us of the military support of the Government at this time is to hold cut a direct encouragement to traitors. We beg most earnestly to remind you that in our case an “ounce of preventive is worth a pound of cure.”

Very respectfully yours,