CHAPTER IX.

WELLER.

THE

HE Know Nothing or American party, which had come into power in 1855 and was represented, so to speak, by John Neely Johnson, was entirely and totally defeated, as has been stated, at the election of September 2, 1857. In that election, and in the conventions and canvasses that preceded it, little or no attention was paid to the incumbent governor. He had perhaps better not have been regarded at all than to be regarded as he was. He had in various respects, and particularly in everything relating to the vigilance committee of San Francisco, manifested so great a want of discretion and strength that, even when he deserved credit, he received little or none. On the contrary there seemed to be a general disposition to pass him over and ignore him; and, when his term expired, as it could not be said that there had been much if any improvement in the course of it and as many thought there had been a deterioration, no one appeared to regret his retirement or to look back to his administration with either pride or satisfaction. He went out of office on January 8, 1858, as soon as the legislature of that year was organized and John B. Weller was ready to take his place. Before he went out, however, he presented his annual message and made public a number of facts and considerations which were interesting and some of them important.

Among these the first was that at the recent election, and by a decisive vote of the people declared binding and obligatory by the supreme court, the state had been rescued from the necessity of repudiation and consequent disgrace. The financial situation, therefore, was cheering and the effort, so long unsuccessfully made "to pay as we go," had at length been attained. In 1855, the public expenditures had been nearly a million and a half, and

nearly half a million over the receipts; in 1856 a little over a million and nearly one hundred and fifty thousand over receipts; while in 1857 the expenditures were not quite seven hundred thousand dollars and the receipts nearly twelve hundred thousand. The taxable property of the state was worth one hundred and forty millions. Under the recent funding law of April 25, 1857, new state bonds had been authorized to be issued in accordance with the terms of the act and prior to May 1, 1859, to the amount of three million nine hundred thousand dollars, which would more than cover all the indebtedness, including previous bonds, warrants, audited accounts, interest and claims. of all kinds, and leave a handsome surplus. On account of this favorable financial showing, Johnson thought the revenue laws needed very little amendment; but, as before, he insisted upon a stamp tax and recommended renewed efforts to induce congress to relinquish the "civil fund." He had been in favor of a constitutional convention; but, as at the recent election there had not been a majority of all the voters expressly in its favor, it could not be called; and he therefore recommended a new attempt. He thought a capitol should be built at Sacramento to cost three hundred thousand dollars. He gave a sort of history of state prison affairs; announced himself opposed to the San Quentin system, and seemed to think that each county should attend to its own convicts. He favored a house of refuge and a good apprentice act. He spoke in favor of requiring druggists as well as physicians to graduate. "There is perhaps no country," he said, "where empiricism is so rife as in this state; and the lives and health of our people are too valuable to be placed at the indiscriminate mercy of arrogant pretenders." He demanded amendments to the attachment, the insolvent, the homestead, the sole-trader and the divorce laws. He laid particular stress upon the divorce law and thought the district attorney should in each case intervene and defend; and he insisted that the adoption of his suggestions "would materially reduce the number of applications and prevent the disreputable uses to which the law has been prostituted." He also demanded a change in the law excluding the testimony of Indians and negroes and said "this indiscriminate prohibition I regard as utterly at variance with the

spirit of our constitution and a wise and judicious governmental policy."

After his retirement as governor, Johnson resumed the prac tice of law, without apparently paying much further attention to politics in California. But early in 1860, when the Nevada mines were attracting great attention and a large emigration from California was pouring over the Sierra Nevada, he joined the throng, removed to the new territory and commenced a new political career. He was elected a member of the first constitutional convention of Nevada in 1863 and became president of the second constitutional convention in 1864. In 1867 he was appointed a justice of the supreme court of Nevada and at the succeeding general election was elected to that office and held until the end of his term at the close of 1870. In 1871, he was appointed by President Grant a visitor and examiner of the West Point military academy; and on August 31, 1872, he died from the effects of what was popularly known as a sun-stroke at Salt Lake City in the forty-eighth year of his age.2

John B. Weller, the successor to Johnson in the office of governor of California, and who as has been seen had been United States senator from California for one full term and defeated for a second one by Broderick, was a native of Ohio. He was born on February 22, 1812, at a place called Montgomery in Hamilton county in that state, but at an early age was removed to the adjoining county of Butler, where he was sent to school and finally attended the college at Oxford, known as Miami University. After leaving that institution of learning, he removed to Hamilton, the county seat of Butler county, where he read law and began to practice; but, instead of devoting himself to the constant and laborious work required to become very eminent as a lawyer, he switched off into a career, more congenial to his nature, and became a politician and stump-speaker on the Democratic side. He had considerable talent, an easy command of language, a good presence and an agreeable voice; and, devoting himself with assiduity to the business of rising in the world, he advanced rapidly, was made district attorney, got to be a politiSenate Journal, 1858, 17-33.

2 Davis' Political Conventions, 598.

cal leader and at length, in 1838, at the early age of twenty-six, was sent to congress and was twice re-elected to the same office. At the breaking out of the Mexican war he entered the volunteer service as a private and rose to be a colonel. In 1849 he was appointed by President Polk a commissioner to run the boundary line between the United States and Mexico; and that business brought him to California, where he resumed his profession of politician and soon found a favorable field for his stumpspeaking qualities and ultra Democratic doctrines. In 1852, as has already been seen, he was elected United States senator in place of Fremont and he continued in that office for the full term of six years, and for two years of the time was sole senator from California. As a United States senator he can not be said to have made any very great figure or accomplished anything of very great importance; but his defeat for re-election and the sudden revulsion of feeling in the state against Broderick, who had secured his place, contributed to make him available as a candidate for governor and give him the overwhelming majority at the polls by which he was elected.

He assumed office, upon the retirement of Johnson, on January 8, 1858, and commenced with a very strong declaration or series of declarations by way of inaugural. As has already been said, he was a northern man; but in politics he favored the southern chivalry; and in his campaign and canvass he had repeatedly boasted of his adherence under any and all circumstances to the Democratic party. Upon taking office, however, notwithstanding the large vote by which he had been chosen, he seemed to feel uneasy and to put himself, as it were from the start, on the defensive. "Whilst I place a high estimate upon the good opinion of my fellow-citizens," said he, "and am always proud to have it, no one has less regard for what may be denominated popular clamor. I may injure myself; but the state shall not be shipwrecked during my administration, if I have the power to prevent it. It is far more important that I should be right than that I should be praised; and therefore I will do what I conceive to be my duty at all times and under all circumstances, and leave the vindication of my character, if assailed, to my acts and to posterity." He then proceeded to deplore the

prevalence of lynch-law and promised the whole power of the state to protect the regularly organized tribunals and the supremacy of the laws. He pronounced the practical operation of the United States land-commission act of 1851 as very bad and spoke in favor of settlers and laws protecting squatters. After some further observations on subjects, which had formed the common staple of stump speeches for years, he came to his main topic, which was the toleration of slavery. He was for the preservation of the Union and particularly for non-intervention with the slavery question in the south. He declared that the states could never be kept together by force. "We must live together as friends," he said, "and as equals in all respects, or we can not live together at all. We can not live together as friends unless we cease slandering and abusing each other. We can not be equals unless territory acquired by our common blood and common treasure is left free to emigrants from the respective states with their different species of property."

1

Turning now from politics to legislation, one of the first acts approved by him was a bill to change the name of Maria Rebecca Spear to Maria Rebecca Morrill. In doing so, he took occasion to observe that the executive could spend his time more profitably than in examining bills passed to gratify the taste or fancy of men and women in regard to names; and he added that, as the males in the state far exceeded in number the females, it was to be hoped that the females in general would not find it necessary to resort to the legislature or the courts in order to change their names. Upon another early occasion, he recommended by special message the distribution, pro rata among all the creditors, of the property of failing or absconding debtors levied on and held by attachment; and in the same connection he took occasion to express himself in reference to the usury laws, which were so common in the eastern states but had not found favor in California. “As a general principle," he said, "I have thought that freemen are quite as competent to agree on the amount which should be paid for the use of money as for any other property real or personal. Besides, where usury laws prevail, all sorts of devices are resorted to in order to evade them; and I doubt very Senate Journal, 1858, 54-60.