USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > A history of the city of San Francisco; and incidentally of the state of California > Part 18
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That legislature had also to elect a senator of the United States, and Broderick wanted the office, but he had not yet enough influence. Other men were far better known and more popular, and among them were Fremont, John B. Weller, who had been a member of congress from Ohio, and others. While he did not succeed in getting the place, he was gratified by the failure of the legislature to agree-a result to
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which he contributed-and by the postponement of the election to the next year, thus giving him more time. He worked industriously, and not without effect, for though he had not been recognized as a candidate in 1851, in 1852 he gave John B. Weller a hard contest in the democratic caucus, and the latter did not triumph till the fifth ballot and then by only two majority. The defeat was a great disappointment to Mr. Broderick, but it gave him a high place in the party, and made him the head of its northern faction.
SEC. 136. Hostility to Slavery. The first oppor- tunity for Mr. Broderick to show his hostility to the chivalry on a question relating to slavery was when a bill was introduced permitting southern men who had brought negroes as slaves to California before the ad- mission of the state, to take them back by force. Although the majority of his party were for this measure, he opposed it energetically, and when a bill was introduced to provide for the enforcement of labor contracts (the purpose being to encourage the import- ation of a large number of Chinamen under agreement to work for cheap labor), Broderick denounced it as a substitute for slavery, and contributed to its defeat. Notwithstanding his dislike of slavery, he was not dis- posed to leave the democratic party, which was the stronghold of the pro-slavery party. When in 1852, the democratic national convention, sub- mitting to the dictation of the fire eaters, adopted the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798 and 1799 as " one of the main foundations of their polit-
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ical creed," and declared an intention " to carry them out in their obvious meaning and import," thus reject- ing President Madison's attempt made during the nullification excitement to show that they did not justify nullification and secession ;- when in accord- ance with the spirit of that platform the Missouri compromise was repealed in 1854, opening all the ter- ritories to slavery ;- and when in 1856 the national con- vention re-adopted the resolutions of 1798 and 1799, asserting for every state the right of judging for itself whether the federal constitution had been violated, and what should be the mode and measure of redress, thus pledging the national administration to permit secession ;- when all these things were done in the interest of slavery, Mr. Broderick, whose position re- quired him to understand their purposes and tenden- cies, submitted to them quietly.
At the presidential election of 1852, the state gave a majority of eight thousand, out of a total vote of eighty thousand, to Pierce, and thus the democratic character of California seemed to be well established at the first opportunity of taking part in a national political contest. The result was considered by Mr. Broderick as a promise that he should have the sen- atorship if he could get the control of the party organ- ization, and he devoted all his energies to that point.
SEC. 137. Campaign of 1853. In the democratic state convention held in the spring of 1853 to nomi- nate a governor and state ticket, he proved his power. He was acknowledged by the representatives of the
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party as their leader, and by his influence John Big- ler, notwithstanding the opposition of the southern faction and the protest of San Francisco, where he was especially unpopular, was renominated. The elections returns gave a majority to Bigler, though it was a common opinion, and probably a correct one, that if an honest count had been made, he would have been defeated by not less than five thousand. The men in charge of several of the election precincts in San Francisco were professional ruffians and political swindlers, and if they did not commit frauds upon the ballot-box, it was not because their reputations were too good, or the precautions of the law to prevent abuses too careful and judicious.
Mr. Broderick could look upon the election as a great triumph for himself; the executive officers of the state had been selected by him, the majority of the members of the legislature looked to him as their leader, and he was the chairman of the state demo- cratic committee which had charge of the general business of the party. The circumstances were full of promise for him. He was suspected of being the manager of serious election frauds in San Francisco; he was known to be the employer and protector of the ruffians who had taken charge of the ballot boxes, and he had given some needless offense to various in- fluential southern politicians; but he now stood so high that he could have discarded his base supporters, conciliated the leaders of the adverse faction, and strengthened his influence in many ways.
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SEC. 138. Hammond Denounced. But such a method of procedure was contrary to his tastes. He could be gentle in his demeanor towards his friends, and he owed much of his ascendency to his manners; but in political tactics it was his rule to completely crush the enemy who fell into his power. He tried the crushing process upon the chivalry men in fed- eral offices, and especially upon R. P. Hammond, col- lector of customs and a member of the Southern faction, who, disliking Bigler and Broderick, had re- fused to contribute personally or to assess his subordi- nates for the campaign funds. In November, 1853, two months after election, Mr. Broderick, as chairman of the state committee, issued a proclamation to the party, congratulating it upon the victory, and com- plaining that many of those who held federal offices under a democratic administration, and bound by the usages of the country to furnish the sinews of war, had refused to contribute in the late critical contest, and denouncing them as traitors. The following is an extract from this proclamation:
We made the next appeal to the stipendiaries of the na- tional purse who owed their offices and ingots to the permission of the party in this state. We had a peculiar right to look in that direction for relief. We had responded to the appeal of the first national election in our history by four electoral votes, and we felt entitled to expect that the influence and aid of the general administration would be cheerfully reciprocated by its agents here in fair requital for that profound pledge of our de- votion. We invoked the aid, therefore, of those who held ap- pointments under the government at Washington. But, except in a few honorable instances, our hopes were vain.
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SEC. 139. Grab for Senatorship. Mr. Broderick supposed that this language would be approved by the party generally, and would greatly weaken, if it did not destroy the power of the chivalry leaders; but as they had both the federal senatorships-Weller, though a native of a free state, being in full harmony with them-all of the federal offices, many of the county offices, and the devoted adherence of a large faction, the excommunication was generally regarded as a cause of discord which would seriously endanger the success of the party in the future. It failed to produce the effect upon which Mr. Broderick had cal- culated, and indeed it reacted and seriously damaged him. He had cherished a plan which he revealed to his friends so soon as the election returns assured him of the preponderance of his faction in the state admin-
istration. The democrats had majorities in both houses of the legislature, and most of them were his friends. He proposed that a federal senator should be elected without delay for the term to commence March 4, 1855. Objections that such an election, a year before the time fixed by custom, would be highly unpopular as well as unlawful; that if the legislature meeting in January, 1854, could choose a senator for the term commencing in March, 1855, it could with
mencing in 1857, 1861, 1865, and so on indefinitely, equal right and propriety elect for the terms com-
thus robbing future legislatures of their rights; and that the members of this legislature had not been selected with any reference to this question, and there-
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fore could not properly act upon it-all such objections were overruled by Mr. Broderick, who answered that custom was not good authority; that no statutory or constitutional provision fixed the time when the sena- torial election should be held; that the party might not have a majority in the next legislature, and that it is the rule of politics to take every prize within reach, leaving nothing to the enemy. A large pro- portion of the democratic members of the legislature accepted the ungenerous dictation of Mr. Broderick, and labored strenuously to bring on the senatorial election, but a few of the Tammany men refused to sacrifice themselves to gratify an unscrupulous leader, and these, with the southern democrats, whigs, and independents, defeated the scheme. They had one vote more than all those under Mr. Broderick's con- trol.
The struggle to elect Mr. Broderick was not fin- ished in a day, or limited by a single vote, but it absorbed the attention of the legislature for two months, and had many serious accompaniments and consequences. One of the members of the legislature reported that J. C. Palmer, a banker friendly to the senatorial aspirant, had offered to pay him for his vote, and a trial for bribery followed. The evidence was conflicting, and the verdict acquittal; but the cus- tody of certain public funds was taken from the house of Palmer, Cook & Co .- a severe punishment in itself. The angry journalistic disputations about the propri- ety of then electing a senator, led to a duel between
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two editors, each prominent on his side; and C. A. Washburn received a troublesome bullet in his shoul- der from the rifle of his opponent, B. F. Washington. To prevent a second attempt to seize the senatorship before the proper time, the legislature at its next ses- sion passed an act prescribing the manner in which future elections should be held, reserving to the legis- lature, which should begin its session next before the commencement of the senatorial term, the privilege of making the selection. It was an official and appro- priate rebuke of a discreditable plot.
SEC. 140. Chivalry Triumph. Complete as had been the control of Mr. Broderick over the majority of the democratic members of the legislature, the party was against him, and when a state convention met, a few months later, his faction was in a woeful minority. Rather than submit to the rule of his ene- mies, he managed affairs so that the convention di- vided into two conventions, each claiming to be the fair representative of the organization. The claim was honestly made on the chivalry side. The only officers to be elected by general vote of the state in that year were two congressmen, and there were three tickets in the field. The chivalry democrats obtained thirty-seven thousand votes, the whigs thirty-five thousand, and the Broderickites ten thousand. These figures looked like political destruction to the man who a few months before considered himself master of the state.
But the whirligig of fickle fortune soon turned
19
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again in his favor. In the year of 1854 the Mis- souri compromise, prohibiting slavery in the territories north of latitude 36° 30', was repealed at the demand of the slavery extensionists, and many of the whig leaders favored the repeal. This was the death-blow of the whig party, on the ruins of which rose the know-nothing party, whose main purposes were to ex- clude all foreign-born citizens from office, and to dis- courage immigration.
The slaveholders complained that the rush of immi- grants occupied the territories, and thus prevented them from getting any benefit from their half owner- ship of the southern states in the public lands. Their dislike of foreigners shared by the chivalry faction of the democracy in California, made discord in the com- bination which had overwhelmed Mr. Broderick. Many of the northern democrats who had voted to punish him for his attempt to grab the unripe sen- atorship, were galled by the manner of the chivalry leaders towards them, and were unwilling to be used against the interests of free soil. The election of 1854 had elevated Dr. Gwin to the dictatorship of the party. He was a southerner by birth, a politician of much experience, ability and tact, an industrious public servant, a hospitable entertainer, and a gentleman in his manners. His social position, his attractive home, the good character of his most intimate associates, and his refusal, perhaps his inability, to manage pri- maries, or personally employ ruffians or swindlers for service in conventions and elections, gave him a su-
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periority in the estimation of many genteel people over Broderick. When the latter was overwhelmed by the election of 1854, Gwin was recognized as the master. He was the senior senator, and the head of the dominant faction. Inferior as a political orator, he was much superior as a party manager and influen- tial member of congress to his senatorial colleague, John B. Weller, who made no effort to control the fed- eral patronage. The two representatives in the lower house acknowledged the authority of Gwin, and no important federal appointment was made without his consent.
Now, as on previous occasions, he used his power unwisely. He gave the best offices to ultra southern men. The democrats of northern birth could get nothing, unless they had southern principles and were hostile to Broderick; and even then the inferior men were preferred, and usually got only inferior places. No encouragement was to be given to the northern faction of the party. Under this policy the federal spoils in California were distributed, and the public buildings swarmed with men whose chief qual- ification for government service were their southern birth and advocacy of the extension of slavery.
S. W. Inge, of Alabama, United States district at- torney, and Volney E. Howard, of Texas, law agent of the United States in the land commission, had as mem- bers of congress in 1850 voted against the admission of California, because its territory was dedicated to freedom. Mr. Inge was succeeded by Mr. Della
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Torre, of South Carolina. The highest federal judicial officer, appointed before Dr. Gwin obtained much power, was Judge Hoffman, a native of New York, who held his place during good behavior ; so he could not be removed, bút another federal court was placed over him, with Judge McAllister, of Alabama, pre- siding. The custom-house, the chief field of federal patronage, swarmed with southern men, and several years later was nicknamed " The Virginia Poorhouse," because of the multitude of penniless men belonging to noted families of the old dominion there provided with refuge.
It was partly because of his sacrifice of the party to his southern feelings that Gwin was not re- elected senator by the legislature that began its session in January, 1855. Most of the democrats were devoted to him; but in violation of custom the minority refused to go into caucus, or to be governed by the majority, and the know-nothings and anti- Gwin democrats were strong enough to prevent a choice. It was a triumph for Broderick to prevent his rival from grasping the prize.
SEC. 141. Know-Nothing Triumph. When the democratic state convention met in the spring of 1855, to nominate a full ticket of state executive officers, notwithstanding the dissatisfaction among the Irish- men, Germans and northern democrats with Gwin, the chivalry faction still had undoubtedly a large ma- jority of the party; but it had no manager of primaries equal to Broderick; no one so willing to make pecun-
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iary sacrifices for the sake of success; no one for whom personal friends would so freely contribute their money. To the great astonishment of the general public, when the two factions came to vote on the nomina- tion for governor, they were about equally divided, neither having a majority. A squad of delegates from the northern end of the state had the balance of power, and would not decide till its leader had time to consider the situation. He took a walk dur- ing a recess of the convention with Mr. Broderick, and at the next vote the chivalry were defeated and Mr. Broderick was again the dictator of the party. This was too much for the chivalry; they had been overreached in the primaries, defeated in the state convention, and rather than submit would defeat the democratic ticket. Circumstances per- mitted them to do this conveniently. The whig party had disappeared, the republican organization was as yet in embryo, and the native American order a secret society, the nucleus of a national party, had run, like electricity, throughout the Union. The branch of it established in California struck out the hostility to Catholics, and thus deprived it of any sectarian character. The chivalry democrats went into the lodges in swarms, and J. N. Johnson, the know-nothing nominee for governor had a majority of nearly five thousand in a state where the previous year the democrats had a plurality of twelve thou- sand.
SEC. 142. H. S. Foote. Again Broderick had
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been defeated before the people; again there was to be a senatorial election, and he had no chance. Again he was subjected to the ridicule of his enemies, and the complaint of pretended friends. However, he had the satisfaction of seeing that the know-nothings could not grasp the senatorial prize, of which they consid- ered themselves secure. They had a majority of one, but that one was a man of decided free soil principles, and he refused to vote for the know-nothing nominee, Henry S. Foote, a native of Mississippi, an advocate of slavery extension, who, if rumor were true, had come to California on purpose to be elected senator. Thus it happened that again the senatorial election was defeated; again the state was left without complete representation in the federal senate; again Mr. Brod- erick could have a chance in a struggle at the prima- ries for the great prize of his life.
SEC. 143. Chivalry in Discredit. He went to work industriously early in the spring of 1856 to get control of the county conventions, so that the legisla- tive candidates throughout the state should be pledged to his service. Circumstances turned strongly in his favor. The policy pursued by the chivalry leaders to defeat him in the previous year now reacted against them with strong effect. The know-nothings had been demoralized by their inability to elect a senator. They saw that they had not the elements for the maintenance of a national party, and letters from their friends in the eastern states said there was little hope for the new organization there. The foreign born
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voters, with the aid of the large class of Americans who appreciated the immense benefit of immigration to the country, together made up a majority of the votes.
Having withdrawn in 1855 and given serious offense to the Irish and Germans, the chivalry leaders could not regain control of the party in the spring of 1856. As Broderick had been previously the chief enemy of the southern faction, so now, when that faction was overthrown, the power naturally fell into his hands. The prize seemed at last to have come within his reach.
SEC. 144. Vigilantes against Broderick. But the kaleidoscope of fate had not yet exhausted its black pictures for him. It took another and a fearful turn in May, 1856. The rise of the vigilance committee was a rebuke to Mr. Broderick. Its main purpose and its most valuable results were to drive from power the tricksters by whose help he held control of the democratic organization in San Francisco. The city officials recently installed had been selected with his approval, and with special regard to the service they could render him. The vigilance committee, while it did not expel them from office, deprived them of in- fluence and disgraced them. The intelligence, the respectability and the weight of the city were with the committee. The adherents of Broderick had cap- tured most of the counties before the vigilance com- mittee broke out; and though that movement brought great discredit upon him in the opinion of the general
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public, yet it gave him strength among the managers of his party. It was regarded by them and their fol- lowers as an act of hostility to the democracy. Some chivalry leaders who disliked Mr. Broderick, by giv- ing their countenance to the committee, excluded themselves from the partisan councils and left the power to his followers. Thus it was that many of the nominations for the legislature-and they form a large part of a senatorial contest in California, as in other states of the Union-belonged to him.
SEC. 145. Senator at Last. The popular election was not less favorable. The people were called upon to elect a president in 1856, and they had to choose between the democratic and republican candidates. Know-nothingism had sunk back into insignificance. The people were not ready to accept the republican doctrines; the democrats carried away the offices in California, as well as in some other free states, and their success implied the triumph of Mr. Broderick. There was now no question about his predominance in the party. Two senators were to be chosen, and before election by the legislature, were to be nominated by a caucus of the democratic members. No candidate had an absolute majority, but Broderick was much stronger than Gwin, Latham, or Weller (each had his adherents), and it was conceded that he must be nom- inated first, and could control the nomination of the other. He lacked three of a majority, and as he said he would prefer Latham to anybody else for his col- league, four Latham men voted for him in the caucus
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and gave him the nomination, expecting that their man would be nominated immediately afterwards.
SEC. 146. Sale of Second Senatorship. This was a reasonable expectation; but when Mr. Broderick had gained his part of the spoils, he interrupted the proceedings. At his dictation, the caucus adjourned to give him time for intrigue. Having obtained the end of his great ambition, he ought to have been satisfied; but now that he had so much, he wanted more. The selection of the higher federal officials in California had been the privilege or perquisite of the senators, and Mr. Broderick wanted it all for himself. As the Tammany faction of the party had a majority in the legislature, custom demanded that it should select another of its members to the other senator- ship, but that did not suit Mr. Broderick. The fac- tion, indeed, had few leaders whose election would have done credit to the state. Mr. Broderick's method of requiring complete submission repelled men of ability, who otherwise would willingly have worked with him. Besides, he wanted to impose humiliating conditions upon his colleague, and he could not propose them to any of his friends.
Having been elected on the tenth of January, his first step was to send for Dr. Gwin, who, in compli- ance with the invitation, went to see him on that night. Of the conversation between these eminent politicians on this occasion we have no record, but we know that Dr. Gwin, having received what he con- sidered satisfactory assurance that he should have
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Mr. Broderick's support for the senatorship, addressed to him the following letter, which, though evidently confidential, was afterwards published by the recipient and acknowledged to be correct by the author:
SACRAMENTO, January 10, 1857.
DEAR SIR: I am likely to be the victim of the unparalleled treachery of those who have been placed in power through my aid. The most potential portion of the federal patronage is in the hands of those who, by every principle that should govern men of honor, should be my supporters instead of enemies, and it is being used for my destruction. My participation in the distribution of this patronage has been the source of number- less slanders upon me, that have fastened a prejudice in the public mind against me, and have created enmities that have been destructive of my happiness and peace of mind for years. It has entailed untold evils upon me; and while in the senate, I will not recommend a single individual for appointment to office in this state. Provided I am elected, you shall have the exclusive control of this patronage, so far as I am concerned, and in its distribution I shall only ask that it may be used with magnanimity, and not for the advantage of those who have been our mutual enemies, and unwearied in their exertions to destroy us. This determination is unalterable; and in making this declaration I do not expect you to surport me for that reason, or in any way to be governed by it. But as I have been betrayed by those who should have been my friends, I am powerless myself, and dependent on your magnanimity.
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