California, its population having swollen from fourteen…

California, its population having swollen from fourteen thousand to one hundred thousand in two years, is admitted to the Union on September 9 as the thirty-first  state, with John C. Frémont as one of its two senators, under the Compromise of 1850.

The state’s constitution prohibits slavery.

Political parties remain divided, however, according to whether they believe that California should be a free or a slave state, and one movement, led by the backers of California senator William M. Gwin, seeks to divide California into two states, one slave and one free.