VIGILANCE COMMITTEE OF SAN FRANCISCO. 215

ment. There was a general desire manifested, and by tokens most unmistakable, to have the alleged culprit subjected, as soon as possible, to exemplary punishment. It chanced that I personally knew General Baker to have been offered a large fee both to prosecute and to defend in this case. He appeared eventually on the side of the defense, and, after a most intensely interesting trial, the jury being unable to agree, Corah was sent back to prison. In a few days another appalling homicide was perpetrated, and, in this instance, a man who had been once a penitentiary convict (Casey by name) had assassinated, in cold blood, a most popular newspaper editor, a gentleman of great worth, who had at one time been known as an eminently public-spirited and liberal banker. The people almost immediately arose in mass, assumed an organized character, took possession of the greater part of the arms and warlike munitions of the city, broke open the public prisons, and put to death several persons who were found in confinement, in addition to the two atrocious criminals already referred to. The city was proclaimed to be in a state of siege, and all municipal authority was declared suspended. Any ordinary man would have quailed before this terrible array. Not so General Baker. He immediately advertised a meeting of the citizens upon the public Plaza of the city, and announced his intention to address them. At the stated time and place, a considerable popular assemblage had convened according to notice. General Baker took upon himself the perilous task of addressing them. I never saw him calmer or more collected in my life. At first, those who were present listened to his gentle and soothing

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strains in quiet, and apparently with attention. Presently the orator began to employ the language of complaint and indignation in regard to the recent proceedings of the Vigilance Committee. A low moaning sound was in a few minutes heard in the very centre of the crowd, which soon became a wild and multitudinous roar. Fierce menaces were distinctly uttered in various quarters. After repeated efforts to gain attention, the audacious and gifted orator, finding it impossible that a calm and undisturbed hearing could be secured, retired from the stand. In an hour or two he learned from his friends that his own life was in danger, and he left the city of San Francisco for Sacramento, the capital of the state, where he remained for several months without active occupation of any kind. I chanced to visit Sacramento just as the presidential contest was fairly commencing, and General Baker came to see me. He told me that he designed entering into the canvass, but frankly disclosed several causes of embarrassment which were at the time giving him annoyance. He said that, being a Whig, he should be pleased to support Mr. Fillmore, but he could not, as a foreigner born, he thought, support a presidential candidate nominated by the American party; that he had been contending with the Democratic party all his life, and, therefore, he could not decently cast his suffrage for Mr. Buchanan; that he had no special partiality for Genera! Fremont, and was by no means an approver of the extreme Free-soil creed; but that, upon the whole, having resolved not to be idle at such a crisis, he thought he should espouse the Republican cause, and exert himself actively in its support. So indeed he did; for several

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weeks thereafter, in traversing the state, I found at various points that General Baker had either preceded me, was expected to appear at the place which I had already reached in a few days, or, as once or twice happened, he was actually at the place of holding a public debate at the same time that I was. He spoke almost every day, and to immense crowds, in almost every part of the state, and with prodigious effect every where. Toward the close of his very brilliant campaign the fame of his wondrous achievements reached San Francisco, where a large majority of those whose hostility had driven him into banishment were ardent supporters of Fremont. Immediately such a revulsion in popular feeling occurred as I presume never took place before, save in the memorable case of Cicero, called back to Rome by the unanimous voice of the populace only a few months after Clodius had persuaded them to drive him into exile. The whole Republican party in San Francisco concurred in inviting the leading advocate of their cause, but whose life six months before would have been deemed but a just sacrifice to a furious popular resentment, to return to their midst, and deliver one of his soul-stirring harangues in their hearing. He came accordingly, and seldom has such an imposing ovation been tendered to any man. He ascended the stand prepared to be occupied by himself, and gave utterance to one of the most overwhelming popular harangues that has ever been any where listened to. A few months later, he was invited to the Territory of Oregon, to take part in the excited popular contest there then in progress. He complied with this invitation, went to Oregon, delivered

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some twenty or thirty speeches, and was almost immedi ately thereafter chosen to represent the new Pacific state in the national Senate, where he soon took a prominent part in the proceedings of Congress; and then, in a few months more, the brilliant orator, the ardent patriot, the gallant soldier, disappeared forever from the view of men amid the smoke and toil of battle.

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CHAPTER XII.

Some farther Notice of the "Irrepressible Conflict" Theory.-Analysis of the Condition of Parties at the Time of Mr. Buchanan's Inauguration.-Statement of the Election Results during the first Year of his Administration. Historic Recital of some important Facts which occurred during the Summer of 1857, anterior to Mr. Buchanan's succumbing to the Dictation of the Secession Leaders.-Efforts to reanimate his Courage made at that Period, all of which signally failed.— Recital of Particulars connected with the Lecompton Struggle in Congress. Some Scenes, both amusing and painful, which at that time had their progress in Washington.-Remarkable banqueting Scene, in which Mr. Seward bore the principal Part.-Last Interview between Mr. Buchanan and the Author, in which some startling Revelations were made. THE fancied "irrepressible conflict of antagonistic elements imbedded in our complex frame of government," if such a necessary and inevitable conflict ever had an existence, must be recognized as having displayed itself first to the public view, in a distinct and menacing form, about the year 1835, when the first abolition associations were formed in England, and in the Northern States of the American Union, for the eradication of African Slavery wheresoever it had gained footing, and especially in the Southern States of the Union, where, wisely or unwisely, our fathers had yielded to it, in all the states at least, as no one denied until recently, organic guarantees of protection; which conflict must be supposed to have farther developed itself during the eventful thirteen years which intervened between 1835 and 1848, when