San Francisco Daily Alta California, February 25, 1860

A full and complete telegraphic news summary, received last night, by telegraph from Fresno, after the arrival of the Overland Mail at that point, will be found in the Alta of to-day. In addition to the general dispatch, giving the news up to the moment of departure of the Overland Mail from St. Louis, on the 2d inst., there will also be found two days later intelligence, telegraphed specifically to Malloy's station, in Missouri, for the Alta intercepting the stage at that point. The news is intensely interesting. Our special and exclusive dispatch gives four days later intelligence from Europe, in addition to the later domestic intelligence from all parts of the United States.

At last the long and bitter contest is at an end, and a Speaker has been elected. The Thirty-Sixth Congress has virtually perfected its organization by the election of the Republican nominee, Ex-Governor Pennington of New Jersey, and—the Union is not dissolved. Our news columns contain a full and complete telegraph summary, giving a clear, concise and interesting account of the election of Mr. Pennington, and all the events that transpired in Congress immediately subsequent thereto. The election of a Speaker will give the most unbounded satisfaction on all sides, and there will be no more bosh and nonsense about a dissolution of the Union, because of the success of the Republican party in this prolonged contest. As a proof of this latter assertion, we have but to refer to the report of the proceedings in the House, after the result had been announced.

To Mr. Briggs, of New Jersey, is due the praise of having brought about this result, by giving his vote for Pennington, when it was made manifest that but one vote was required to elect him. And, however much his political friends may be inclined to denounce him for a want of party fealty, we are sure that the country at large will accord to him a full measure of public praise and approbation, since by giving his vote, as he did, he has fairly set the machinery of Federal legislation in motion, and brought to an end the most unreasonable and disgraceful scene that ever transpired in Congress, as well as one of the most costly ones to the Government.

The tone and tenor of Mr. Pennington's address on taking the chair, will meet the approbation of all true Union men. It must necessarily have put to shame those ranting demagogues who have been howling about disunion upon the floors of Congress while this dispute has been on the tapis, and taught them a profitable lesson.

There will be a general enthusiastic response to the sentiment which he uttered upon taking his seat, "I feel that I have a national heart, embracing all parts of our blessed Union." What a striking contrast there is between such language as this, and the Cock and Bull bluster and bravado that has formed the staple of debate among a large percentage of those who have participated in this protracted struggle.

It is stated, in our dispatch, that the President would send a special message to the Senate upon the subject of the Pacific Railroad taking strong ground in favor of that project, without favoring any particular route. While we sincerely hope and trust that such may be the fact, we may be permitted to remark that it is somewhat singular that the President should not have obtained this "new light" at a period during his administration not quite so near the eve of the next Presidential campaign, when the question seems likely to form one of the most important elements in the contest.