A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 27

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184

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CHAPTER XXIV. MAKING A STATE.

C OL. R. B. MASON, who had been the military governor of California since the departure of General Kearny in May, 1847, had grown weary of his task. He had been in the military service of his country thirty years and wished to be relieved. His request was granted, and on the 12th of April, 1849. Brevet Brigadier General Bennett Riley,

his successor, arrived at Monterey and the next clay entered upon his duties as civil governor. Gen. Persifer F. Smith, who had been appointed commander of the Pacific division of the United States army, arrived at San Francisco Febru- ary 26, 1849, and relieved Colonel Mason of his military command. A brigade of troops six hundred and fifty strong had been sent to

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California for military service on the border and to maintain order. Most of these promptly deserted as soon as an opportunity offered and found their way to the mines.

Colonel Mason, who under the most trying circumstances had faithfully served his govern- ment and administered justice to the people of California, took his departure May 1, 1849. The same year he died at St. Louis of cholera.

A year had passed since the treaty of peace with Mexico had been signed, which made Cali- fornia United States territory, but Congress had done nothing toward giving it a govern- ment. The anomalous condition existed of citi- zens of the United States, living in the United States, being governed by Mexican laws admin- istered by a mixed constituency of Mexican- born and American-born officials. The pro- slavery element in Congress was determined to foist the curse of human slavery on a portion of the territory acquired from Mexico, but the discovery of gold and the consequent rush of freemen to the territory had disarranged the plans of the slave-holding faction in Congress, and as a consequence all legislation was at a standstill.

The people were becoming restive at the long delay. The Americanized Mexican laws and forms of government were unpopular and it was humiliating to the conqueror to be gov- erned by the laws of the people conquered. The question of calling a convention to form a provisional government was agitated by the newspapers and met a hearty response from the people. Meetings were held at San José, De- cember II, 1848; at San Francisco, December 21, and at Sacramento, January 6, 1849, to consider the question of establishing a pro- visional government. It was recommended by the San José meeting that a convention be held at that place on the second Monday of January. The San Francisco convention recommended the 5th of March; this the Monterey committee considered too early as it would take the dele- gates from below fifteen days to reach the pu- eblo of San José. There was no regular mail and the roads in February (when the delegates would have to start) were impassable. The committee recommended May I as the earliest

date for the meeting to consider the question of calling of a convention. Sonoma, without wait- ing, took the initiative and elected ten delegates to a provisional government convention. There was no unanimity in regard to the time of meet- ting or as to what could be done if the conven- tion met. It was finally agreed to postpone the time of meeting to the first Monday of August, when, if Congress had done nothing towards giving California some form of government bet- ter than that existing, the convention should meet and organize a provisional government.

The local government of San Francisco had become so entangled and mixed up by various councils that it was doubtful whether it had any legal legislative body. When the term of the first council, which had been authorized by Colonel Mason in 1848, was about to ex- pire an election was held December 27, to choose their successors. Seven new council- men were chosen. The old council declared the election fraudulent and ordered a new one. An election was held, notwithstanding the pro- test of a number of the best citizens, and an- other council chosen. So the city was blessed or cursed with three separate and distinct coun- cils. The old council voted itself out of ex- istence and then there were but two, but that was one too many. Then the people, disgusted with the condition of affairs, called a public meeting, at which it was decided to elect a legislative assembly of fifteen members, who should be empowered to make the necessary laws for the government of the city. An election was held on the 21st of February, 1849, and a legislative assembly and justices elected. Then Alcalde Levenworth refused to turn over the city records to the Chief Magistrate-elect Nor- ton. On the 22d of March the legislative as- sembly abolished the office of alcalde, but Levenworth still held on to the records. He was finally compelled by public opinion and a writ of replevin to surrender the official records to Judge Norton. The confusion constantly arising from the attempt to carry on a govern- ment that was semi-military and semi-Mexican induced Governor Riley to order an election to be held August Ist, to elect delegates to a convention to mect in Monterey September Ist,

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1849, to form a state constitution or territorial organization to be ratified by the people and submitted to Congress for its approval. Judges, prefects and alcaldes were to be elected at the same time in the principal municipal districts. The constitutional convention was to consist of thirty-seven delegates, apportioned as follows: San Diego two, Los Angeles four, Santa Bar -. bara two, San Luis Obispo two, Monterey five, San José five, San Francisco five, Sonoma four, Sacramento four, and San Joaquin four. In- stead of thirty-seven delegates as provided for in the call, forty-eight were elected and seated.

The convention met September 1, 1849, at Monterey in Colton Hall. This was a stone building erected by Alcalde Walter Colton for a town hall and school house. The money to build it was derived partly from fines and partly from subscriptions, the prisoners doing the greater part of the work. It was the most commodious public building at that time in the territory.

Of the forty-eight delegates elected twenty- two were natives of the northern states; fifteen of the slave states; four were of foreign birth, and seven were native Californians. Several of the latter neither spoke nor understood the English language and William E. P. Hartnell was appointed interpreter. Dr. Robert Semple of Bear Flag fame was elected president, Will- iam G. Marcy and J. Ross Browne reporters.

Early in the session the slavery question was disposed of by the adoption of a section declar- ing that neither slavery or involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in this state. The question of fix- ing the boundaries of the future state excited the most discussion. The pro-slavery faction was led by William M. Gwin, who had a few months before migrated from Mississippi to California with the avowed purpose of repre- senting the new state in the United States sen- ate. The scheme of Gwin and his southern as- sociates was to make the Rocky mountains the eastern boundary. This would create a state with an era of about four hundred thousand square miles. They reasoned that when the admission of the state came before congress the southern members would oppose the admission

of so large an area under a free state constitu- tion and that ultimately a compromise might be effected. California would be split in two from east to west, the old dividing line, the parallel of 36° 30', would be established and Southern California come into the Union as a slave state. There were at that time fifteen free and fifteen slave states. If two states, one free and one slave, could be made out of Califor- nia, the equilibrium between the opposing fac- tions would be maintained. The Rocky moun- tain boundary was at one time during the ses- sion adopted, but in the closing days of the session the free state men discovered Gwin's scheine and it was defeated. The present boun- daries were established by a majority of two.

A committee had been appointed to receive propositions and designs for a state seal. Only one design was offered. It was presented by Caleb Lyon of Lyondale, as he usually signed his name, but was drawn by Major Robert S. Garnett, an army officer. It contained a figure of Minerva in the foreground, a grizzly bear feeding on a bunch of grapes; a miner with an uplifted pick; a gold rocker and pan; a view of the Golden Gate with ships riding at anchor in the Bay of San Francisco; the peaks of the Sierra Nevadas in the distance; a sheaf of wheat ; thirty-one stars and above all the word "Eureka" (I have found it), which might apply either to the miner or the bear. The design seems to have been an attempt to advertise the resources of the state. General Vallejo wanted the bear taken out of the design, or if allowed to remain, that he be made fast by a lasso in the hands of a vaquero. This amendment was re- jected, as was also one submitted by O. M. Wozencraft to strike out the figures of the gold digger and the bear and introduce instead bales of merchandise and bags of gold. The original design was adopted with the addition of the words, "The Great Seal of the State of Califor- nia." The convention voted to give Lyon $1,000 as full compensation for engraving the seal and furnishing the press and all appendages.

Garnett, the designer of the seal, was a Vir- ginian by birth. He graduated from West Point in 1841, served through the Mexican war and through several of the Indian wars on the

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Pacific coast. At the breaking out of the re- bellion in 1861 he joined the Confederates and was made a brigadier general. He was killed at the battle of Carrick's Ford July 15, 1861.

The constitution was completed on the IIth of October and an election was called by Gov- ernor Riley to be held on the 13th of November to vote upon the adoption of the constitution and to elect state officers, a legislature and mem- bers of congress.

At the election Peter H. Burnett, recently from Oregon territory, who had been quite active in urging the organization of a state gov- ernment, was chosen governor; John McDou- gall, lieutenant governor, and George W. Wright and Edward Gilbert members of con- gress. San José had been designated by the constitutional convention the capital of the state pro tem.

The people of San José had pledged them- selves to provide a suitable building for the meeting of the legislature in hopes that their town might be made the permanent capital. They were unable to complete the building de- signed for a state capital in time for the meet- ing. The uncomfortable quarters furnished created a great deal of dissatisfaction. The leg- islature consisted of sixteen senators and thirty- six assemblymen. There being no county or- ganization, the members were elected by districts. The representation was not equally distributed; San Joaquin district had more sen- ators than San Francisco. The senate and as- sembly were organized on the 17th of Decem- ber. E. K. Chamberlain of San Diego was elected president pro tem. of the senate and Thomas J. White of Sacramento speaker of the assembly. The governor and lieutenant-gov- ernor were sworn in on the 20th. The state government being organized the legislature proceeded to the election of United States sen- ators. The candidates were T. Butler King, John C. Fremont, William M. Gwin, Thomas J. Henly, Jolın W. Geary, Robert Semple and H. W. Halleck. Fremont received twenty-nine out of forty-six votes on the first ballot and was declared elected. Of the aspirants, T. Butler King and William M. Gwin represented the ultra pro-slavery element. King was a cross-

roads politician from down in Georgia, who had been sent to the coast as a confidential agent of the government. The officers of the army and navy were enjoined to "in all matters aid and assist him in carrying out the views of the government and be guided by his advice and council in the conduct of all proper measures within the scope of those instructions." He made a tour of the mines, accompanied by Gen- eral Smith and his staff; Commodore Ap Catesby Jones and staff and a cavalry escort under Lieu- tenant Stoneman. He wore a black stovepipe hat and a dress coat. He made himself the laughing stock of the miners and by traveling in the heat of the day contracted a fever that very nearly terminated his existence. He had been active so far as his influence went in trying to bring California into the Union with the hope of representing it in the senate. Gwin had come a few months before from Mississippi with the same object in view. Although the free state men were in the majority in the legislature they recognized the fact that to elect two sena- tors opposed to the extension of slavery would result in arraying the pro-slavery faction in con- gress against the admission of the state into the Union. Of the two representatives of the south, Gwin was the least objectionable and on the second ballot he was elected. On the 2Ist Governor Burnett delivered his message. It was a wordy document, but not marked by any very brilliant ideas or valuable suggestions. Burnett was a southerner from Missouri. He was hobbied on the subject of the exclusion of free negroes. The African, free to earn his own living unrestrained by a master, was, in his opinion, a menace to the perpetuity of the com- monwealth1.

On the 22d the legislature elected the remain- ing state officers, viz .: Richard Roman, treas- urer; John I. Houston, controller; E. J. C. Kewen, attorney general; Charles J. Whiting, surveyor-general; S. C. Hastings, chief jus- tice; Henry Lyons and Nathaniel Bennett, as- sociate justices. The legislature continued in session until April 22, 1850. Although it was nicknamed the "Legislature of a thousand drinks," it did a vast amount of work and did most of it well. It was not made up of hard

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drinkers. The majority of its members were above the average legislator in intelligence, temperance and patriotism. The members were not there for payorfor political preferment. They were there for the good oftheir adopted state and labored conscientiously for its benefit. The op- probrious nickname is said to have originated thus: A roystering individual by the name of Green had been elected to the senate from Sac- ramento as a joke. He regarded the whole pro- ceedings as a huge joke. He kept a supply of liquors on hand at his quarters and when the legislature adjourned he was in the habit of call- ing: "Come, boys, let us take a thousand drinks."

The state had set up housekeeping without a cent on hand to defray expenses. There was not a quire of paper, a pen, nor an inkstand belong- ing to the state and no money to buy supplies. After wrestling with the financial problem some time an act authorizing a loan of $200,000 for current expenses was passed. Later on in the session another act was passed authorizing the bonding of the state for $300,000 with interest at the rate of three per cent a month. The legislature divided the state into twenty-seven counties, created nine judicial districts, passed laws for the collection of revenue, taxing all real and personal property and imposing a poll tax of $5 on all male inhabitants over twen- ty-one and under fifty years of age.

California was a self-constituted state. It had organized a state government and put it into successful operation without the sanction of congress. Officials, state, county and town, had been elected and had sworn to support the con- stitution of the state of California and yet there was really no state of California. It had not been admitted into the Union. It was only a state de facto and it continued in that condition nine months before it became a state de jure.

When the question of admitting California into the Union came before congress it evoked a bitter controversy. The senate was equally divided, thirty senators from the slave states and the same number from the free. There were among the southern senators some broad minded and patriotic men, willing to do what was right, but they were handicapped by an

ultra pro-slavery faction, extremists, who would willingly sacrifice the Union if by that they could extend and perpetuate that sum of all villainies, human slavery. This faction in the long controversy resorted to every known parliamentary device to prevent the admission of California under a free state constitution. To admit two senators from a free state would de- stroy the balance of power. That gone, it could never be regained by the south. The north was increasing in power and population, while the south, under the blighting influence of slavery, was retrograding.

Henry Clay, the man of compromises, under- took to bridge over the difficulty by a set of resolutions known as the Omnibus bill. These were largely concessions to the slave holding faction for the loss of the territory acquired by the Mexican war. Among others was this, that provision should be made by law for the restitu- tion of fugitive slaves in any state or territory of the Union. This afterward was embodied into what was known as the fugitive slave law and did more perhaps than any other cause to destroy the south's beloved institution.

These resolutions were debated through many months and were so amended and changed that their anthor could scarcely recognize them. Most of them were adopted in some form and effected a temporary compromise.

On August 13th the bill for the admission of California finally came to a vote. It passed the senate, thirty-four ayes to eighteen noes. Even then the opposition did not cease. Ten of the southern pro-slavery extremists, led by Jefferson Davis, joined in a protest against the action of the majority, the language of which was an insult to the senate and treason to the government. In the house the bill passed by a vote of one hundred and fifty ayes to fifty-six ultra southern noes. It was approved and signed by President Fillmore September 9, 1850. On the IIth of September the California senators and congressmen presented themselves to be sworn in. The slave holding faction in the sen- ate, headed by Jefferson Davis, who had been one of the most bitter opponents to the admis- sion, objected. But their protest availed them nothing. Their ascendency was gone. We

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might sympathize with them had their fight been made for a noble principle, but it was not. From that day on until the attempt was made in 1861 these men schemed to destroy the Union. The admission of California as a free state was the beginning of the movement to destroy the Union of States.

The news of the admission of California reached San Francisco on the morning of Oc- tober 18, by the mail steamer Oregon, nearly six weeks after congress had admitted it. Business was at once suspended, the courts were ad- journed and the people went wild with excite- ment. Messengers, mounted on fleet steeds, spread the news throughout the state. News- papers from the states containing an account of the proceedings of congress at the time of admission sold for $5 each. It was decided to hold a formal celebration of the event on the 29th and preparations were begun for a grand demonstration. Neither labor nor money was spared to make the procession a success. The parade was cosmopolitan in the fullest meaning of that word. There were people in it from almost every nation under the sun. The Chi- nese made quite an imposing spectacle in the parade. Dressed in rich native costumes, eachlı carrying a gaudily painted fan, they marclied under command of their own marshals, Ah He and Ah Sing. At their head proudly marched a color bearer carrying a large blue silk ban- ner, inscribed the "China boys." Following them came a triumphal car, in which was seated thirty boys in black trousers and white shirts, representing the thirty states. In the center of this group, seated on a raised platform, was a young girl robed in white with gold and silver gauze floating about her and supporting a breast plate, upon which was inscribed "Cali- fornia, the Union, it must and shall be pre- served." The California pioneers carried a ban- ner on which was represented a New Englander in the act of stepping ashore and facing a na- tive Californian with lasso and serape. In the center the state seal and the inscription, "Far west, Eureka 1846, California pioneers, or- ganized August, 1850." Army and navy offi- cers, soldiers, sailors and marines, veterans of the Mexican war, municipal officers, the fire de-

partment, secret and benevolent societies and as- sociations, with a company of mounted native Californians bearing a banner with thirty-one stars on a blue satin ground with the inscription in gold letters, California, E Pluribus Unum, all these various organizations and orders with their marshals and aids mounted on gaily caparisoned steeds and decked out with their gold and silver trimmed scarfs, made an impos- ing display that has seldom if ever been equaled since in the metropolis of California.

At the plaza a flag of thirty-one stars was raised to the mast head. An oration was de- livered by Judge Nathaniel Bennett and Mrs. Wills recited an original ode of her own compo- sition. The rejoicing over, the people settled down to business. Their unprecedented action in organizing a state government and putting it into operation without the sanction of congress had been approved and legalized by that body.

Like the Goddess Minerva, represented on its great seal, who sprung full grown from the brain of Jupiter, California was born a fully ma- tured state. She passed through no territorial probation. No state had such a phenomenal growth in its infancy. No state before or since has met with such bitter opposition when it sought admission into the family of states. Never before was there such a medley of nation- alities-Yankees, Mexicans, English, Germans. French, Spaniards, Peruvians, Polynesians. Mongolians-organized into a state and made a part of the body politic nolens volens. .

The constitutional convention of 1849 did not definitely fix the state capital. San José was designated as the place of meeting for the legis- lature and the organization of the state govern- inent. San José had offered to donate a square of thirty-two acres, valued at $60,000, for cap- itol grounds and provide a suitable building for the legislature and state officers. The offer was accepted, but when the legislature met there December 15, 1849, the building was unfinished and for a time the meetings of the legislature were held at a private residence. There was a great deal of complaining and dissatisfaction. The first capitol of the state was a two-story adobe building 40x60, which had been intended for a hotel. It was destroyed by fire April 29,

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1853. The accommodations at San Jose were so unsatisfactory that the legislature decided to locate the capital at some other point. Prop- · lation in boats and again there was dissatisfac- ositions were received from Monterey, from tion. Then Benicia came to the front with an offer of her new city hall, which was above high water mark. General Vallejo had become financially embarrassed and could not carry out his contract with the state, so it was annulled. The offer of Benicia was accepted and on May 18, 1853, that town was declared the permanent capital. Reed of San José, from Stevenson & Parker of New York of the Pacific and from Gen. M. G. Vallejo. Vallejo's proposition was accepted. He offered to donate one hundred and fifty-six acres of land in a new town that he proposed to lay out on the straits of Carquinez (now Val- lejo) for a capital site and within two years to give $370,000 in money for the erection of pub -. lic buildings. He asked that his proposition be submitted to a vote of the people at the next general election. His proposition was accepted by the legislature. At the general election, Octo- ber 7, 1850, Vallejo received seventy-four hun- dred and seventy-seven votes; San José twelve hundred and ninety-two, and Monterey three hundred and ninety-nine. The second legisla- ture convened at San José. General Vallejo ex- erted himself to have the change made in accord- ance with the previous proposition. The cit- izens of San José made an effort to retain the capital, but a bill was passed making Vallejo the permanent seat of government after the close of the session, provided General Vallejo should give bonds to carry out his proposals. In June Governor McDougal caused the gov- ernmental archives to be removed from San José to Vallejo.

When the members of the third legislature met at the new capital January 2, 1852, they found a large unfurnished and partly unfinished wooden building for their reception. Hotel ac- commodations could not be obtained and there was even a scarcity of food to feed the hungry lawmakers. Sacramento offered its new court house and on the 16th of January the legislature convened in that city. The great flood of

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A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 27

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1184

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184