5 The Sacramento region used great power in the decade of the 1850s, in spite of its small resident population, when compared to San Francisco. The largest portion of the state's population lived in the "Sacramento District." Sacramento representatives strongly influenced the State's Constitutional Convention, landed the permanent State Capitol, and elected the State's first governor. Sacramento’s influence was in large part due to its growth in commerce, particularly that portion related to transportation such as railroads and steamboats, as well as wholesale merchants who supplied retailers throughout California and Nevada. Those large-scale merchants of Sacramento saw their success tied to better wagon roads and railroads. In this sentence from paragraph five,
which phrase is the LEAST effective replacement for the phrase "used great power"?
A) applied great power
B) exerted great power
C) employed great power
D) squandered great power