History of California, Volume VI, Part 75

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe
Publication date: 1885-1890
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers
Number of Pages: 816

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On the 28th of January the two branches of the legislature met in convention to elect a United States senator to succeed Frémont, the term having still five years to run from the 4th of March. On the eighth ballot John B. Weller was elected. In this election the opposing candidate 33 was David Colbert Broder- ick. He was an Irishman, born in Kilkenny, in 1820, his father, a skilful stone-cutter, being, with others, selected by an agent of the American government to perform the decorative work in the interior of the national capitol at Washington. Here, as a lad, Brod- erick began learning the trade of his father, who afterward removed to New York, where he soon died, leaving the mother of David and a younger brother to the care of the eldest son, who was apprenticed to a stone-cutter of the city. It is recorded of him that he discharged his duty faithfully, even fondly. But the mother soon died, and young Broderick was left without parental guidance in the metropolis, where his condition in life brought him in contact with the

31 The third legislature created 3 additional counties; namely, Tulare, with the county seat at Woodsville; Siskiyou, county seat at Shasta Butte (Yreka); Sierra, county seat at Downieville. Cal. Stat., 1852, pp. 240-1, 233-5, 230-3. 32 Soulé, Statement, MS., 4. In the assembly from his district there were 4 whigs, Orrick, Ellis, Wood, and Thorne. S. F. Alta, Sept. 7, 1851.

33 There were several nominees, but none with any chance against Weller and Broderick. George B. Tingley, A. Anderson, William Smith, R. M. Mc- Lane, J. H. Ralston, Tod Robinson, T. B. King, and others were nominated. Cal. Jour. Sen., 1852, 63-82.

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rude and muscular element. He became a chief among firemen, an athlete, a gladiator, the champion of weaker men who were his friends. Feeling within him the forces of a strong nature ever striving upward, he grew fond of exercising these faculties, and being desirous of educating himself, abandoned his laborious trade to keep a dram-shop, which occupation brought him more in contact with men, and gave him better opportunities for reading. Before he reached his majority he was a thorough politician, was called to preside in conven- tions, and gave advice in the management of political campaigns. He preserved a high tone and correct demeanor; and although his origin was lowly, and his associations more or less debased, he seemed not to be sensibly bound down by them, but to rise year by year on the shoulders of the electors of the ninth ward of New York City to higher and yet higher places, obtaining at length a position in the New York custom-house, where he dispensed patronage.

In 1845 Broderick was chosen by his district to preside in convention for forming a new charter for the city, and was applauded for his liberal views, and for the firmness with which he adhered to them. In this same year he lost his young brother, which left him alone in the world, his serious nature becoming from this time sad in a marked degree. During these early years he attracted the attention and secured the friendship of George Wilkes, editor of the National Police Gazette, who for the remainder of his life was the Jonathan to this David, loving him with a devo- tion passing the love of woman.

In 1846 he was nominated for congressman, but defeated by a small majority, by a split in his party, he refusing to coalesce with the 'barn-burners.' He was renominated in 1848, but declined to run, for pe- cuniary reasons. He came to California in the spring of 1849, penniless and sick; for among the character- istics of this man of brawn and stature was a feminine sensibility, which had received many a jar in his polit-

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THE SENATORIAL GOAL.

ical strife and failures, and pecuniary losses. Here he met some former friends, and as there was a lack of coin on the coast, and several months being required to procure it from the east, it was proposed to form a company to assay and coin gold. Frederick D. Kohler was selected for the assayer, and Broderick became his associate, performing the severe manual labor required. They coined so-called five and ten dollar pieces; and the profit upon these coins, which con- tained only four and eight dollars respectively, and upon the gold purchased at $14 per ounce, soon placed Broderick in good circumstances, and laid the foun- dation of a fortune, large for those times. In the autumn of 1849 the firm sold the business, and Brod- erick began to think of returning to politics. The New York democracy, with whose ways he was famil- iar, was largely represented in California, and particu- larly in San Francisco, at this period. What more natural or likely than that the habit of managing politics should return with the opportunity ?

Nathaniel Bennett having resigned from the senate of the first state legislature to accept a place on the supreme bench, Broderick was elected to fill the va- cancy, as I have stated in another place. In 1851 he was elected president of the senate, and ruled with extreme propriety, not one of his decisions being re- versed.34 He studied law, history, and literature with the same ardor with which he pursued any object; in due time was admitted to the bar, and became clerk of the supreme court. In these successive steps, Broderick was constantly encouraged by the letters

3+ On one occasion he assaulted a reporter of the Alta, who he fancied had impugned his motives and conduct in reference to the military appropriation bills, calling him into a committee-room and treating him with violence, the reporter being rescued by other senators. S. F. Alta, March 27, 1851. He fought a duel with J. Caleb Smith of S. F., in 1852, in which his life was saved by his watch. Sac. State Journal, March 10, 1852. The quarrel grew out of remarks by Broderick upon the habits of Ex-gov. William Smith of Va, who had provoked a scoring by his offensive deportment during the previous senatorial election. The eldest son of Smith took up the matter, which re- sulted in a duel following upon a card by Judge Smith, Broderick being the challenger. S. F. Post, Sept. 12, 1878.

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POLITICAL HISTORY.

of his devoted friend Wilkes, who as early as 1850, seeing that California was about to become a state, urged him "to fix his eye boldly and steadily upon the position of United States senator for California ;" 35 to which Broderick had replied, like the great evan- gelist, "Come over and help us," and took the proffered advice.

Broderick was now thirty-five years of age; was thoroughly trained in party politics, and was an un- compromising, if not a pro-slavery, democrat. There had begun to be a distinction made between northern and southern men of the same party, and Senator Gwin, a southern democrat, was the leader of the pro- slavery faction in California. To divide the party, on any pretence, had always been regarded as a crime by democrats. The immediate adherents of Gwin looked with disfavor upon the presumptuous northerner, of plebeian origin, who aspired to sit among the patricians of southern birth in the nation's highest council.

John B. Weller, from Ohio, was not at all the equal of Broderick as a politician, but he had occupied places of honor in his state, had commanded a regiment in

35 There was a story current that on leaving New York Broderick swore he would never return except as a U. S. senator. If this is true, he did not know what he was swearing about. At that period-the spring of 1849- little was known of Cal .; certainly not that it would so soon become a state of the union. Men went there, then, for gold, and thought of politics after- ward. In the sworn statement of George Wilkes, from which I have just quoted, he avers that Broderick replied to his suggestion, that the mark set was too high for him; but if he, Wilkes, would come to Cal., and unite his efforts with his own, 'there was nothing in the way of political ambition which he, Broderick, would not then venture to undertake.' Affidavit of George Wilkes, this being a sworn statement of the relations between Broder- ick and himself, made in 1862, on the contest of Broderick's will. Concern- ing Broderick, and the circumstances of his life, the evidence is now abundant, and it is time to present him in his true character, which has been distorted by both enemies and friends into something abnormal. I find nothing in it not easily accounted for by his circumstances and evident traits of constitu- tion. Among his biographers are: Quigley, Irish Race in Cal., 295-302; Shuck, Representative Men, 385-93; Fields' Reminiscences, 79-84; Ryckman, MS., 3; S. F. Bulletin, Oct. 16, 17, 18, 1855, and Sept. 16, 1859; Sac. Union, Sept. 17, 1859; Id., Apr. 27, 1872; S. F. Herald, Sept. 18, 1859; S. F. Alta, Dec. 8, 1856, and Sept. 17, 18, 1859; S. F. Argonaut, Apr. 28, 1878; Monrow, MS., 3; Hayes' Coll., Cal. Pol., ii. 82; McGowan, in S. F. Post, Feb. 22 and March S, 1879; Pajaro Times, Dec. 31, 1864; Crosby's Early Events, MS., 66-7; Hittell's Hist. S. F., 307-19; Merrill, Statement, MS., 10; J. W. Forney, in S. F. Post, March 8, 1879.

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JOHN B. WELLER.

the Mexican war, and when his former general became president, was appointed commissioner to settle the Mexican boundary, and was, besides, a southern pro- slavery democrat. Only to such would the Gwin management permit the prize to fall. Like Gwin and Frémont, he fixed upon California as the field where he was to achieve the triumph of an election to the national senate, and when the state was admitted, resigned his place on the boundary commission to engage in law and politics. Care for the best inter- ests of California was no motive. To do what would strengthen party and make votes was the aim. Every $100,000, or land grant, or other gift to the state, was as a bribe to reelection. A more effectual bribe was personal patronage. During Fillmore's administra- tion Gwin managed this matter with much adroitness. Being a democrat in a democratic senate, he had the power to cause the rejection of the whig president's appointments, in other states as well as California; yet during the whole of Fillmore's term, with a single exception, the harmony between the president and the California senator was disturbed but once.36 While maintaining amicable relations with the executive he controlled the federal appointments by finesse, as he governed affairs in California by the inflexible demo-

36 This was in relation to the appointment of a district judge for the north- ern district of Cal. J. P. Benjamin, of La, a typical southern, pro-slavery democrat, who was afterward secretary of the southern confederacy, was nominated to the southern and Currey to the northern. But Gwin objected to Currey because he was not known to him. Finally neither of the nominees accepted, on account of the small pay, only $3,500. 'Pet Halstead,' whom I have before mentioned, a whig, but an enemy of Currey's, also opposed this nomination, 'and he made this opposition so formidable,' says Gwin, 'that there was no remedy left for me but to oppose his confirmation.' Currey was a personal friend of the prest, who persisted in the nomination; but Gwin again rejected him, when the prest became angry, and threatened to leave Cal. without U. S. courts. In this dilemma Gwin besought the good offices of Webster, sec. of state, who recommended Ogden Hoffman, of N. Y., son of O. Hoffman, Sr, the lawyer, orator, and statesman. Seward unexpectedly opposed this nomination-Hoffman being a leader of that wing of the whig party called the 'silver grays'-on account of the youth of the nominee, whom he described as 'only a boy.' He proved to be 29 years old, and a thorough jurist. He was confirmed, and Cal. received an able judge, while Fillmore was placated. Both Hoffman and Jones, the first U. S. judges, were under 30 when appointed.

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POLITICAL HISTORY.

cratic discipline. A southern whig, like T. B. King, might hold an office, but a northern anti-slavery democrat found no favor and no mercy.

The legislation of 1852 was remarkable chiefly for the distinction sought to be made between the white and colored races. There was a color even to crime, black wickedness being more horrible than white.37 Of nineteen pardons to criminals granted during Mc- Dougal's term, four were to Mexicans and the remain- ing fifteen to white men bearing English names, to all of whom, including the Mexicans, citizenship might be granted under the laws; while another man, who has not yet appeared on the criminal list, "on account of color," should be legislated against, and doomed forever to live under laws which " patent his inferior- ity," and rouse in him, justly, a hatred of his oppres- sors. Senator Broderick vigorously opposed these sentiments, but was almost alone in his party in con- demning them. It made him an object of distrust on the part of the chivalry, who thenceforward sought occasions of hostility toward the advocate of free labor and human rights.

37 The annual report of the board of state prison inspectors, with Gov. McDougal at its head, had this significant paragraph: 'The board of state prison inspectors beg leave, in conclusion, to call attention, simply with ref- erence to its bearing upon crime, to the expediency of prohibiting, by strin- gent law, the importation into this state of foreign convicts, or of those other persons belonging to alien and servile races, who, on account of color or from other causes, are excluded by the spirit of our laws from participating in the privileges and rights of citizenship. This, though a matter of less immediate than eventful importance, is nevertheless worthy of present attention. For a while, no doubt, they may continue peaceable and obedient, but we submit whether jealousies and hatred will not inevitably spring up; whether they will not learn to detest and violate laws that patent their inferiority until our jails shall be filled with their numbers, and the ingenuity of legislation be exhausted in devising coercive laws. We submit whether danger is not to be apprehended from the presence amongst us, in great numbers, of an ignorant and dependent caste, excluded from rights to the enjoyment of which all others may freely aspire, and yet, at the same time, exempt from that complete subjection to the will of another which can only result from the formidable relation of master and slave. From the Pelagian races in Greece to the free negroes of the United States, and the peace of neighbor- ing republics, the degraded race have always needed the jailer and execu- tioner, and been conspicuous for drunkenness, improvidence, and crime.' Thus lucidly the pro-slavery democracy reasoned.

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THE BAD BLACK MAN.

In consonance with the suggestions offered in the report herein quoted, an act was passed "respecting fugitives from labor, and slaves brought to this state prior to her admission to the union," which provided for the arrest of fugitive slaves, and their return to servitude in the state or territory from which they had escaped. Under this law a colored man or woman could be brought before a magistrate, claimed as a slave, and the person so seized not being permitted to testify, the judge had no alternative but to issue a certificate to the claimant, which certificate was " con- clusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted," and prevented " all molestation of such person or persons, by any process issued by any court, judge, justice, or magistrate, or other person whomso- ever." Any assistance rendered the fugitive, against his arrest, made the person so aiding him liable to a fine of $500 dollars or imprisonment for two months. All slaves who had escaped into or were brought to California previous to the admission of the state to the union were held to be fugitives, and were liable to arrest under the law, although many of them had been free for several years, and had by industry accu- mulated a competency. Illustrative instances have been given in a previous chapter. The law of 1852 confined the operation of the last-named section to one year from date, but the legislature of 1853, see- ing that there were still free negroes in the state, extended this provision to 1854. The legislature of 1854 also extended it another year.

Under the constitution of California slavery could not exist; but this legislative body attempted to in- troduce the coolie system by an act providing for the enforcement of contracts for foreign labor, made under it, for a term not exceeding five years. The bill origi- nated in the senate with G. B. Tingley, a whig, and was referred to a select committee composed of Ting- ley, Anderson, Walsh, Foster, and Roach, democrats, which reported favorably upon it, except Roach, who

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in a minority report stripped the scheme of its dis- guises and laid it to rest under an indefinite postpone- ment.38 To all these devices to ingraft slave-state sentiments upon the politics of California, Broderick was as actively opposed as to slavery itself, regardless of the frowns of the majority.

In January Senator Gwin suggested to Governor Bigler, and through him to the legislature, to pass a law giving its consent to the purchase of lands from individuals or companies for sites on which to erect any of the public improvements provided for in bills then before congress, and even sent a draught of such

38 Cal. Stat., 1852, 67-9; Id., 1853, pp. 94-5; Cal. Jour. Sen., 1852, 306-7. The report of Roach is so superior to the general tone of legislation at this session that I am prevented from giving it entire only by lack of space. Its tone will be understood from a few extracts. 'Thus far the mines have been open and free to the labor of the world, and they have been so productive that hardly a law has been needed for their regulation. This state of things has assembled in Cal. people of every race and clime, of every tongue and creed; some entitled to work our mines upon the same terms as our own peo- ple, for reciprocal justice gave them the right to claim it, while others were entitled to no such privilege; yet they formed, perhaps, a majority of the foreign miners, and drew from our soil a greater quantity of the precious metals than our own citizens. This led to the cry that foreigners, as such, ought to be taxed; and as a concession to public clamor, a law, unjust, un- constitutional, and indiscriminating, was passed, prohibiting foreigners with- out a license from working upon lands belonging to the U. S., whereas, by the solemn faith of our govt, as pledged by treaty stipulations, various peoples have as much right to work those lands as to breathe the air in which we live. ... At the same time, a ruinous competition should not be forced upon the people of this state by bringing servile labor to contend against the interests of our working classes. That population forms the majority of our people; it is they who are to uphold upon the shores of the Pacific that government and its principles which seem destined to make the circuit of the globe. When, under this bill, Asiatic labor shall take its march to our state, the low price at which it can be brought renders necessary that some restriction be imposed as to what branches of industry it shall be confined; for we must have a population of our own race sufficiently numerous to control it, and not depending upon the same pursuits in which this servile labor may be employed. ... The apparent object of this bill is to place foreign labor at the disposal of our own people, in order that, if foreigners earn money, it may be for their masters. The amount of money is of little consequence compared with the degrading effect of any law that, to deprive them of their gain, shall make their labor inferior, by law, to capital, and give to the latter a more feudal right to dispose of their persons and happiness. I am opposed to any enact- ment that seeks to place burdens upon, or to doom to inferiority, any race of men who have no other disability to become citizens except residence .. .. The hopes of the republican world have been scared by the retrograde movements of France; but there despotism has not thought of making one white man the serf or bondsman of another, or of giving to capital, for the term of five years, the hand and heart of labor.'

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GWIN'S MEASURES.

an act.39 This was the beginning of a scandal which troubled the senator not long after, concerning the purchase of the assay office in San Francisco, and might readily have been taken for personal anxiety to consummate a bargain, but seems not to have been so understood, for the mandate was obeyed.

Gwin, in his manuscript Memoirs, makes much of his services to California in the establishment of a mint, and says little of the charges brought against him of permitting a government assay office to be es- tablished instead, which for four years charged two and one half per cent on the gold assayed, causing a loss to the miners of California each year of more than the cost of a mint,40 while one half per cent would have covered the cost of the assaying. The democrats raged against the whig administration as the cause of this loss; but now and then a whig put the question of how came the two and one half per cent in the bill, and who received the extra two per cent. A writer in a Marysville journal, in 1854, signing himself 'Interior,' reviewed Gwin's course in connection with the mint, and exposed his method. In the last days of the thirty-second congress, the act making appropriation for a mint having passed, Gwin introduced into the deficiency bill an amendment, which in effect repealed the mint bill, and gave the whole appropriation to the secretary of the treasury, to be applied to the rent, lease, or purchase of an assay office. This was the explanation of his desire to have the legislature confirm his action, even before it was consummated.41 Marshall opposed it in the lower

39 Gwin says that defeated office-seekers, who had entered into a solemn pledge to destroy him, were responsible for the story that when an appropri- ation was made for a mint in S. F., he had urged, and succeeded in securing, the purchase of the assay works there for the purpose of immediately com- mencing the mint operations, and had received a consideration from the own- ers of the property for his services in securing the sale to the government. Memoirs, MS., 135; Cal. Stat., 1852, 149; Marysville Herald, Sept. 26, 1854.

40 In the report of the committee on commerce and navigation for 1852, it was stated that the want of a mint in California for three years had cost the miners $21,000,000. Cal. Jour. Sen., App. 656.

Al ' Interior ' quotes Gwin's repeal of the mint bill as follows: Sec. 6th.

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POLITICAL HISTORY.

house, more than intimating that a fraud was contem- plated, and secured an amendment declaring that "the sum of $300,000 appropriated by said act, or so much thereof as may be necessary, shall be applied only to the erection and putting in operation a mint in Cali- fornia, and not to the purchase of any building for that purpose." Nevertheless, in the face of the law the assay office was purchased, and converted into a mint, at a swindling price. It was not in the nature of things that such services to Moffatt & Co. should go unrewarded.

The legislature sat for 119 days, and passed 232 acts and resolutions. A bill was introduced in the lower house "recommending the electors to vote for or against calling a convention to revise and change the entire constitution of the state," which was killed in the senate.42 The subject being referred to a special committee in the assembly, the grievances stated as a ground for revising or reenacting the constitution were

Be it further enacted, that nothing in the provisions of an act entitled 'an act to establish a branch mint of the U. S. in Cal.,' shall be construed so as to prohibit the appointment of the assayer therein authorized, before the execu- tion of the contract for and the completion of the branch mint buildings therein authorized; but that the president is hereby empowered to appoint, in the manner presented by that act, an assayer for said branch mint, in an- ticipation of the completion and establishment thereof; that the secretary of the treasury is here authorized to procure, by rent or lease, a building or apartments, and to lease, purchase, or rent machinery in the city of S. F., suitable for the receipt, melting, and assay of deposits of gold, in dust or otherwise, and for the custody of gold coin .... And that there is hereby ap- propriated, out of the money heretofore appropriated for the establishment of a branch mint in Cal., so much as may be necessary for the purposes of this act. That, of course, left nothing for the mint, and was, as Marshall said, equivalent to a repeal; and it was slyly introduced in the long deficiency bill, where it was not likely to be detected. But the addition of 'provided, that no contract be made for the erection and establishment of the said mint till the further order of congress.' It is impossible, says 'Interior,' addressing his letter to Gwin, ' to doubt that you acted corruptly in the affair. No in- genuity can defend, no charity can cover, a transaction which has only to be understood to establish your faithlessness as a representative.' But Gwin makes in his Memoirs the poor excuse that 'defeated office-seekers in the democratic party entered into a solemn pledge to destroy him, at the begin- ning of Pierce's administration.' Pierce's administration and the war for places had not begun when the mint and deficiency bills referred to were passed; and it mattered not, indeed, what Gwin's enemies desired to accom- plish; they had nothing to do with the draughting or passage of the bills in question.

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History of California, Volume VI, Part 75

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe Publication date: 1885-1890 Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers Number of Pages: 816

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe
Publication date: 1885-1890
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers
Number of Pages: 816