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promise anything in reference to his administration. All his remarks were therefore rather perfunctory than otherwise. He, however, spoke in favor of a united and persistent effort to secure a daily overland mail connection with the eastern states and eventually a transcontinental railroad; and he characterized the doings of the vigilance committee of 1856 as a "scene of lawlessness without a parallel in the history of our republic." On Wednesday, the second day after the inauguration, a concurrent resolution was adopted to the effect that the two houses would that day go into the election of a United States senator, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Broderick; and it accordingly took place. The office of United States senator, then as now, was considered as of much more importance and more desirable than that of governor; there was nothing then to prevent a governor from being elected to it; and it was perfectly well known that Latham wanted it. The arrangement to bring on the election forthwith was in his interest. The candidates presented were Latham by the triumphant chivalry Democracy; Edmund Randolph by the anti-Lecompton Democracy, and Oscar L. Shafter by the Republicans. There was but one ballot. The vote was ninety-seven for Latham; fourteen for Randolph, and three for Shafter.'

On the next day, January 12, Latham transmitted to the legislature a special message to the effect that, as an act had been passed in 1859 authorizing the people of the six southern counties to vote on the question of separation from the remainder of the state, he had transmitted to the president of the United States a copy of that act, a statement of the vote that had been taken which was two to one in favor of it, and a letter embodying his own views upon the subject. He, however, deemed it proper, as the people of the state were deeply interested in the matter and as he himself might soon be required to urge or oppose the formation of the new government in the United States senate, to communicate what he had written. In his letter to the president, which bore date the same day, he maintained that what he termed the power to go backward-by which he seems to have meant the power to return from the condition of a state to 1Senate Journal, 1860, 111–126.

that of a territory-was subversive of the Union. "Equally with the doctrine of nullification and secession, it is unprovided for in the federal constitution." At the same time he drew a distinction between an entire state being made a territory, and a small portion of a state being segregated with the purpose of making a new state out of it. Such a change, he claimed, could be made by congress and the state legislature without a vote of the people; and he cited various instances, in which changes had been made in state boundaries, in alleged support of his views. But such changes of boundaries, he went on to maintain, were not amendments to state constitutions and could not be effected by mere amendments to state constitutions, for the reason that the United States constitution required the consent of congress to them.'

It might be too much to say that the scheme of making a new southern state out of the southern counties of California was to be credited to Latham. But it seems certain that it was just such a scheme as suited the caliber of the man. His extraordinary success, after Broderick was out of the way and Weller had been shelved, was calculated to give him a very exalted idea of the position he might, by skillful manipulation, occupy in the country. If for instance he could, by means of the proposed new territory and state that was to be made of it, restore the equilibrium and particularly the supremacy of the south and the slave power, there was a career before him to which his attainment of the United states senatorship would bear no comparison. It had been found that compromises were worthless; it had been found that the Lecompton constitution of Kansas did not fill the bill; but if this new Southern territory-the only one with population sufficient for a new state-could be pressed into the service of slavery, what a long and brilliant vista of office and influence, even among the blue-bloods of the chivalry party, it would open up for him who could identify himself with the movement and claim it as his own! There can be not much question, if search be made for the motives of Latham's actions, that notions of this kind had taken possession of him, little as he was calculated either by acquirements or natural breadth of mind to carry them successfully through. No man ever left California, 1Senate Journal, 1860, 127–131.

as its representative in congress, with a grander idea of what he was to accomplish or a more confident belief that he would accomplish it.

In the meanwhile, on the day of his election as United States senator and the day before the letter to the president was dated, Latham wrote out his resignation of the office of governor, fixing the time for it to take effect on Saturday, January 14, at noon. In his resignation, having apparently only the United States senatorship in his mind, he said to the legislature, “I accept the new position, so honorable in its character, and vacate the executive chair without hesitation at the bidding of the state, firmly believing that I can serve her more effectively in the national council than elsewhere." On January 14, accordingly, the legislature met in joint convention; the resignation was read and accepted; and the lieutenant-governor, John G. Downey, was inducted into the office of governor. Upon thus assuming his new position at the head of the state government, Downey made a few brief inaugural remarks, in which he promised to practice in his administration a rigid and just economy and to pursue the same general policy "so plainly and admirably indicated" by Governor Latham. One of his first moves was in the line of policy thus indicated. Latham had not only found fault with his predecessor, Weller, for abusing the pardoning power; but he had also, at least impliedly, condemned his action in reference to Indian disturbances by saying that, if forces were to be sent against Indians, a sufficient number of troops should be sent to crush resistance instead of merely provoking it. This was on January 13, the day after Latham's resignation was written and the day before it took effect; and a few days subsequently Downey transmitted a message on the extravagance of conducting Indian wars on the plans adopted by Weller and the quartermaster and adjutantgeneral, William C. Kibbe, acting under his instructions. He said that a very few expeditions, conducted on such plans, would bankrupt the state.3

3

A few days afterwards the subject of Indian disturbances came

1 1 Senate Journal, 1860, 142, 143.

2 Senate Journal, 1860, 153.

3 Senate Journal, 1860, 142, 143, 153; Assembly Journal, 1860, 154, 165.

up again. Most of the expeditions, and notably that conducted by Kibbe in 1859, known as the Tehama county war, for which he presented bills amounting to seventy thousand dollars, were undertaken in response to petitions and complaints about Indian depredations. It may readily be imagined how easy it was to get up such petitions; and how a too-compliant governor could be deceived into paying too much attention to them. Downey showed a disposition not to trust them implicitly. Much the same kind of complaints that had been made to Weller about the Tehema county Indians in 1859 were made to Downey about the Mendocino county Indians in 1860. It was said, and members of the legislature appeared to indorse the reports, that they were "exceedingly hostile, committing depredations of a serious character, murdering and troubling the settlers" at Round valley. Downey immediately, instead of sending troops, addressed General Newman S. Clark, then in command of the Pacific division of the United States army at San Francisco, on the subject; and he was more than surprised by General Clark's answer that he had troops sufficient and ready to move to any point where their services might be needed for the protection of life or property, and that he had an officer with a detachment of troops at Round valley at that very time; but that not a word had reached him about any hostile movement among the Indians or a single murder. And in further answer, General Clark, a few weeks afterwards, transmitted a report from Edward Dillon, lieutenant in command at Round valley, to the effect that not only were the reports of Indian depredations in that quarter entirely without foundation but that the Indians were in much more need of protection than the whites. He said that there were certain parties, having interests in Round valley, whose aim it was to exterminate the Indians, and that a company of volunteers had been ranging in the vicinity all winter and in connection with the citizens of the valley engaged in the indiscriminate murder of all the Indians whose misfortune it had been to fall in with them. He added that the presence of his detachment had been the saving of the Indians; for he was fully persuaded that nothing but fear had prevented the lawless citizens of Round valley 1 1 Assembly Journal, 1860, 165, 210, 211.

from destroying, root and branch, the establishment of the Indian department.'

The company of volunteers, referred to by Lieutenant Dillon, was a squad of twenty men, called "Eel River Rangers," which had been raised in Mendocino county in September, 1859, under authority from Governor Weller. It was under the command of Captain W. S. Jarboe. Weller had been informed, and without doubt believed, that the Indians had been committing depredations; and, in his instructions to Jarboe, he directed him to confine his operations strictly against "those who are known to have been engaged in killing the stock and destroying the property of our citizens." A few weeks later, Weller again wrote to Jarboe to the effect that an indiscriminate warfare would not be justified by the facts in his possession, and that the object of the organization of his company was "to protect the lives and property of the citizens in certain localities and not to wage a war of extermination against the Indians." Notwithstanding these instructions, it appears that Jarboe and his men, instead of acting on the defensive, waged a war of extermination against the Indians, which became known as the "Jarboe war." It was so indiscriminate and unjustifiable as to provoke a revulsion in the public mind; and on January 5, 1860, just before he went out of office, Weller ordered the force to be disbanded. It became Downey's duty, when he became governor, to bring the whole subject before the legislature; and, in response to his messages, that body, after pronouncing the "Jarboe war" as it had been carried on without cause or justification, came to the conclusion that the United States army, and not the legislature of California, was the proper and legitimate source to apply to for aid and protection against Indian hostilities; that it was only in case of failure on the part of that army to act that the legislature should make any appropriation for the suppression of such hostilities, and that so long as it would make appropriations, just so long would hostilities continue and the legislature be called upon for newer and newer appropriations. The result was a stop to the longcontinued abuse of state appropriations for the suppression of

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