plishing any good, was declared unconstitutional by the supreme court on the ground that the legislature had no right to forbid or enjoin the lawful pursuit of a lawful occupation on any day of the week any more than it could forbid it altogether. Afterwards in 1861 another somewhat similar statute was passed and pronounced constitutional by the supreme court; but, though for a time it also gave much trouble, it was not sustained by public opinion and by degrees fell into a state of substantial desuetude. In 1883, on account of an effort to revive prosecutions, a stop was put to it by an absolute repeal of the law.'

Several interesting propositions in regard to the state and state improvements came up during Weller's time. One was a project by an association, called the Oxon Company, to turn the head-waters of the Klamath river into the Sacramento. It presented itself in the form of a bill in the legislature of 1858, to authorize the work and grant the right of way therefor; but the proposed bill was defeated almost immediately by indefinite postponement. Another proposition of somewhat similar character was a project by Oliver M. Wozencraft to irrigate the Colorado desert by turning into it water from the Colorado river; and an act, granting all the right, title and interest of the state to certain desert lands on condition that water should be supplied, was passed by the legislature of 1859. The act, however, was to be null if the United States should fail within three years to cede the land to the state. And, the United States having failed to make the cession, the desert failed to blossom in Wozencraft's time. In January, 1858, W. M. Ormsby and Martin Smith, claiming to be commissioners for the country lying east of California, presented a proposition to the legislature, asking the cession of all its lands east of the main Sierra Nevada range of mountains for the purpose of incorporating it with other land as far east as the Goose Creek range of mountains and forming a new territory. Their petition was referred to the committee on counties; and there it appears to have died of inanition. In

Stats. 1858, 124; Ex parte Newman, 9 Cal. 502; Stats. 1861, 655; Ex parte Andrews, 18 Cal. 678; Ex parte Koser, 60 Cal, 177; Stats. 1883, 1. 2 Serate Journal, 1858, 606.

3 Stats. 1859, 238.

Assembly Journal, 1858, 137–140.

February, 1859, William F. Watkins of Siskiyou county presented a bill in the assembly to authorize citizens residing north of the fortieth parallel of north latitude to withdraw from California and organize a separate government; and about the same time Andres Pico of Los Angeles offered a proposition to erect out of the southern counties a territory of Colorado. It would seem, had all these wild projects gone through, though none of them did, that California was to be shaved off on the east and then what was left was to be divided up into three states or territories—the north probably to be called the state of Klamath and the south the territory and perhaps in time the state of Colorado. As for the last, an act was actually passed on April 19, 1859, giving the consent of California to the segregation of the six southern counties provided the people of those counties should vote for such segregation at the next election, and the creation out of said counties by congress of a new territory

or state.1

During the two sessions of the legislature in 1858 and 1859, while Weller was governor, he had occasion to exercise the veto power on numerous occasions, in some of which he was sustained and in some overruled. In several cases his vetoes were on account of clerical errors in the engrossing or enrolling of bills or neglect to attach the proper signatures; and his vetoes or rather the manner in which they were made were not agreeable to the respective houses. On one occasion in 1858, upon vetoing a bill for a claim, which it seems was proper and was afterwards allowed, he said that he "regretted having to differ so often from the legislature; but he had to guard the treasury from improper demands and he had to do so without stopping to inquire who the claimants were." Soon afterwards he vetoed a bill in reference to the authentication of certain evidence in relation to swamp and overflowed land; but the next day he withdrew his veto and the following day approved the bill. One bill he approved notwithstanding an error of the enrolling clerk, to which he called attention; another he vetoed on the ground that the bill that had been sent him, though in every respect properly

1

2

1 Assembly Journal, 1859, 230, 291, 341–352; Stats. 1859, 310.

Senate Journal, 1858, 330, 338-354, 670.

16 VOL. IV.

attested, was not in his opinion the one which had passed the legislature; and three others he sent back to the assembly with a message that, as soon as he was officially informed that they had received the sanction of the senate, they would probably receive his approval. After approving one bill, he called attention to the fact that he had acted inadvertently for the reason that it had no enacting clause; and, in vetoing another in reference to municipal offices in San Francisco, where it seems that the Democratic majority of the legislature were in favor of the bill while the entire San Francisco delegation were against it and some remarks had apparently been made about the politics of the latter, he said, "I have nothing to do with the political opinions of these gentlemen. As the chosen representatives of the people, they are entitled to respect and their views in regard to a question purely local ought not to be disregarded. I should lose my own self-respect if I stopped to inquire into the politics of men who are to be benefited by the passage of laws. In this regard I have neither friends nor foes. In the exercise of the appointing power I always prefer those who belong to the same political organization that I do; but in legislation, no consideration of this character can be allowed to influence my actions."1

In 1859 he appeared to be somewhat more complaisant towards the legislature. In approving an act for several new judicial districts he said he deemed it necessary to express his doubts about the bill; but he was unwilling to set them up "against the expressed opinions of the immediate representatives of the people." Later on, in approving several bills for rewards for capturing criminals, he expressed doubts but "yielded his convictions to the judgment of the legislature." Still later, and about the end of the session of 1859, he had occasion to supplement something he had said at the beginning of the session in a very striking manner. In his annual message to the legislature he had deprecated the influence of so-called "lobby members" and had said, "Gentlemen of influence and position are frequently found at the seat of government during the session of the legislature, selling out their services to secure the passage of laws. 'Senate Journal, 1858, 452, 695; Assembly Journal, 1858, 159, 645, 657,

Caring but little for the merits of the measure, they are ready for a consideration to undertake its passage. If, as it is said is generally the case, the fee is contingent, their energies and ingenuity are constantly taxed; and means are used which sometimes throw suspicion upon the integrity of the legislator himself." On the occasion referred to, the governor sent in an indignant veto of a bill in relation to pilots, which had passed both houses, on account of a letter written by one of the gentlemen lobbyists before mentioned, in which he had said, "Its passage will be recommended by the committee and I think it will become a law; for I have bought up everybody and used the whole appropriation to do so;" and again, "my promises are all distributed in the right place and I feel more like success to-day than I have any day since I have been up here;" and again, “I suppose, when this bill gets to calling, that all the clique will be up here; and, unless they have got over five thousand dollars to offer, I think that they will go down with their fingers in their mouths." It is hardly necessary to add that the veto was sustained without a dissenting voice.1

But the most exciting object of consideration before the legislature still continued to be that of slavery and its adjuncts. The course of public events in this respect had reached what may be called the condition of rapids before the last, unavoidable, fatal plunge. No one in California, or for that matter in any free state, regarded the position of affairs so desperate as it in fact was. No one for a moment thought the precipitous chasm so near. But the southern leaders were determined to plunge or, to put it in ancient parlance, the gods intended to destroy them and first made them mad; and the issue came with fearful rapidity. In the legislature of 1858, the old and long-continued fight was resumed by the introduction in the senate, on February 1, of a resolution by William I. Ferguson of Sacramento against the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton or pro-slavery constitution. In opposition to this, a substitute resolution was offered by John C. Burch, concurring in Buchanan's views on the Kansas question and in favor of its admission under the Lecompton constitution "and to encourage in our senators and congressmen that 1 Senate Journal, 1859, 186; Assembly Journal, 1859, 704, 705, 748.

non-intervention with the domestic institutions of the country, which by our federal constitution is guaranteed to the states and the people." In the assembly a somewhat similar resolution to that of Ferguson in the senate was introduced by Thomas Gray of San Francisco; but it was almost immediately laid on the table and then indefinitely postponed. After much wrangling a simple concurrent resolution was adopted, instructing the Californian senators and requesting the representatives in congress to vote for the immediate admission of Kansas, with the Lecompton constitution, "into the Union on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatever."1

The slavery question and the influence exerted by the slave power made themselves felt in numerous other ways besides direct votes. Among them was a renewal of the proscription or attempted proscription against free negroes. A bill was introduced into the assembly of 1858 to prohibit the immigration to, and residence in, the state of negroes and mulattoes; and a long and bitter fight, causing much ill-feeling and involving numerous quarrels but ending in nothing of importance, was the result. Though the bill passed both houses, it was, however, not pressed and never became a law. There were also two other remarkable results of the agitation—one of which turned out to be a comedy or rather a farce, laughed at throughout the country, and the other a sad and deplorable tragedy, which under no circumstances could have accomplished any good or afforded anybody any real satisfaction. The first was what was known as the Archy case. One Charles A. Stovall, a citizen of Mississippi, had in 1857 come to California overland from that state and brought along his slave, a negro boy called Archy. After hiring Archy out for some time at Sacramento, Stovall thought of returning to Mississippi and, as a preliminary, put the slave on a Sacramento river steamboat, with the intention of sending him to San Francisco and thence to Mississippi in charge of an agent. But the boy, who had attracted a great deal of attention as a slave brought voluntarily into the state, refused to be taken back and escaped from the vessel. Stovall thereupon for such escape had him

1 Senate Journal, 1858, 151; Assembly Journal, 1858, 106, 169; Stats. 1858, 353, 354.

'Assembly Journal, 1858, 408, 462.