they were very willing to listen to others speak against it. And this was the kind of an audience to whom Johnson addressed his annual message of January 7, 1857. He commenced with a reference to the political troubles that had convulsed the country from one end to the other, and intimated that a very great danger had been run and been passed. "The choice of the people in the recent presidential contest," said he, "has been everywhere proclaimed, and still our flag floats proudly on the breeze with not a star unsphered-the emblem of that Union which, through all emergency, has ever yet been cherished and maintained. Let us then congratulate ourselves that the storm has passed away and that the elements of our political existence have subsided to a peaceful calm.”1

But the main and most touching part of the message, that in which the governor personally was most interested and concerned, was in reference to the San Francisco vigilance committee. He entered at length into his own way of looking at it. Notwithstanding all he could say, however, he could not avoid the appearance at least of being on the defensive. Without attempting to describe the condition of affairs, which brought about the popular outbreak, or to say anything about his own vacillations and shortcomings, except that he had been deluded, he contented himself with pronouncing the movement treason and rebellion and declared that the state had been powerless against it and the authorities compelled to calmly await the issue of events. "I have deemed it not improper," he said in conclusion of his account, "to detail the more important incidents. of this period and, without regard to personal considerations, have presented an authentic history of my official acts in this connection in the conscious belief, not less than in the earnest hope, that by the judgment of the people the shafts of falsehood and calumny will be repelled and the course of the executive triumphantly vindicated and sustained. In all that I have done or sought to do, I heeded not the plaudits of the populace, nor feared their threats. I know no higher law than the constitution of my country; and, as a rule of action alike incessant and inflexible, the observance of the duties it enjoins will ever be 'Senate Journal, 1857, 22.

paramount in my regard as a public officer and private citizen."1

Much of the time of both the houses was taken up with "questions of privilege," chiefly growing out of vigilance committee affairs; and as a rule these were violent and bitter. But there was also a sprinkle of the ridiculous in the proceedings. The Rev. Dr. William A. Scott, minister of Calvary Presbyterian church in San Francisco, had seen fit to take sides and preach against the vigilance committee and had thereby thrown himself, so to speak, into the arms of its opponents and enemies. On this account a proposition was made in the assembly, on the day after its meeting, to invite him to preach in Assembly Hall on Sunday, January II. As an offset, Assemblyman William W. Shepard of San Francisco moved to amend by adding an invitation to the Rev. Edward S. Lacy and the Rev. Rufus P. Cutler, two other ministers of San Francisco, who had taken sides with the vigilance committee, to preach in the same place—one on Sunday, January 18, and the other the Sunday following. This, as was to have been expected, was voted down; and the original motion was then adopted by sixty-five ayes to thirteen noes. It can only be conjectured what kind of a “sermon" Scott would have preached; but he answered the invitation by saying that it was the week of holy communion in his congregation and he could not absent himself. He took occasion, however, to send up to the legislature "as a present to each member a copy of his little volume 'Trade and Letters' as a small token of the author's esteem and good-will for the senators and representatives of the people of California." The senate, when the box arrived and was opened and the books distributed, as if not to be outdone in compliments, on motion of Jesse O. Goodwin of Yuba, returned a vote of thanks for "his valuable work" and "our best wishes towards him as a man and a divine.'

In addition to what he had to say about the Union being saved and his own course in reference to the vigilance committee being triumphantly vindicated, Johnson made a number of recommendations in his message. Before adverting to them, it may be proper to state that William H. Rhodes was no longer

Senate Journal, 1857, 25, 26.

2 Assembly Journal, 1857, 16-19, 93; Senate Journal, 1857, 360.

his private secretary, having been succeeded by William Bausman on April 21, 1856. His principal recommendations were: first, that tax deeds should be conclusive evidence of compliance with the revenue laws, unless the claimant should within thirty days serve a notice that he would contest the legality of the sale; second, that assessors should be allowed a percentage on taxes collected; third, an income tax; fourth, a stamp tax; fifth, the calling of a constitutional convention; sixth, the substantial repeal of the attachment law; seventh, such a modification of the insolvent law as to render it practically worthless; eighth, various amendments in the laws relating to married women and particularly abolishing references in divorce proceedings and requiring the district attorney to appear in all cases for the defense and allowing him a fee for defeating the application; ninth, the giving of a landlord a lien on the property of his tenant for his rent, and, tenth, the election of notaries public by the people. There were a few others; but the legislature paid no attention to any of them."

Several of his recommendations were not bad and in fact some years later, under more favorable circumstances, were adopted. One was requiring a declaration of homestead to be recorded; another, a general law for the incorporation of cities and towns, and still another, a law for the registration of voters. In reference to a constitutional convention he said that the chief opposition to it had been based upon a fear that a new constitution might be adopted without a submission to the vote of the people, but that such an objection was obviated by a recent amendment to the constitution, which required such a vote in any case. He referred to an amendment of section two of article ten of the constitution of 1849, which had been proposed in the legislature of 1855; agreed to by the legislature of 1856 and ratified by vote of the people on November 4, 1856. In regard to abolishing references in divorce cases and requiring all such trials to be in open court, he gave as one ground for his recommendation that all reasonable obstacles should be placed in the way of divorces and that trials in open court would insure more thorough

Assembly Journal, 1856, 863.

*Senate Journal, 1857, 32–42.

investigations than the taking of testimony by a referee. And yet he at the same time and in the same message recommended that in all chancery cases the testimony might be taken by deposition not only as more consonant with equity practice but particularly because it would "give greater precision and certainty to the evidence.""

But, as has been already stated, it made little or no difference what Johnson recommended, as the legislature was not disposed to pay attention to him. An effort was made in the senate to pass a law for the calling of a constitutional convention on the ground mainly that "the recklessness, extravagance and profligacy, which had continually marked the career of the state government ever since its first organization, ought to be sufficient reasons of themselves to convince all that there was something radically defective in the constitution;" but the great majority could not see or be convinced that relief against such recklessness, extravagance and profligacy was to be found, and declined to seek it, in that direction. On the other hand they made up their minds that they would attend to a little of it, which was under their immediate supervision, in a much more direct and drastic manner. William A. Cornwall, who had been elected secretary of the senate in 1855 but had been removed for a violent and unjustifiable personal assault upon Charles A. Tuttle, senator from Placer county, for something spoken in debate, had presented a bill claiming extra pay, in addition to his salary, for furnishing the state printer with a copy of the senate journal for publication. He was clearly not entitled to make the claim, as his salary was ample and he was allowed plenty of assistants to do the work; but a peculating practice had grown up among secretaries to demand such pay and it had been allowed. It is likely that the vicious practice would have continued, if it had not been for Cornwall's violence. His demand was scrutinized and rejected in 1856 as unauthorized and in substance fraudulent. He persisted and presented it again in 1857, when it was again and finally thrown out by indefinite postponement. Another pecu1Senate Journal, 1857, 36, 37, 40-42.

2 Senate Journal, 1857, 153–163.

3 Senate Journal, 1855, 460, 467, 480; Senate Journal, 1856, 182, 183; Senate Journal, 1857, 115, 116.

lating practice was exposed by David F. Douglass, the secretary of state, in reference to claims for the translation into Spanish of certain public documents. Augustin Ainsa, the translator, had been demanding and receiving pay to which he was not entitled. His scheme was promptly crushed and the attorney-general instructed to commence suit for what had already been improperly paid.'

The most remarkable work in this line, however, by the legislature of 1857 and perhaps by any legislature in California, was the impeachment of Henry Bates, treasurer, and George W. Whitman, controller of state. The charge against Bates was that he had illegally, if not corruptly, placed upwards of eighty-eight thousand dollars in the hands of Palmer, Cook & Co. for the avowed purpose of paying the interest on state bonds in New York in July, 1856, which was not paid. A report to that effect was presented in the senate in January, 1857. Soon afterwards the assembly drew up articles of impeachment against him, not only for intrusting Palmer, Cook & Co. with public money without taking security therefor, but also for purchasing state warrants with state coin and pocketing the difference in value; for receiving the money of counties and substituting warrants in place of it, and for a corrupt combination with E. A. Rowe, president of the Pacific Express Company, for loaning state money. A few days subsequently the assembly drew up articles of impeachment against Whitman, charging him with disregarding the orders of the board of examiners and obstructing them in the discharge of their duties; with refusing to give information about his office when lawfully demanded by the governor; with illegally drawing warrants in favor of James M. Estell, and, in corrupt combination with E. A. Rowe, with authorizing the receipt of warrants in place of money actually forwarded by various counties. As soon as the articles were finished and approved, the assembly appointed managers to present and try them at the bar of the senate, which on its part adopted rules of trial and resolved itself into a high court of impeachment as provided by the constitution.'

'Senate Journal, 1857, 105, 113.

* Senate Journal, 1857, 142, 143, 297-304, 340-346.