plentiful capital. It was true that Latham, fresh from the United States custom-house and intimate relation as collector of the port with the mercantile and shipping interests, had spoken against it in his inaugural; but, notwithstanding his disparaging remarks, the project in the shape of a bill, introduced into the senate by Isaac S. Titus of El Dorado county, passed that house with a majority of sixteen to thirteen and the assembly with a majority of forty-three to thirty. Several assemblymen from San Francisco favored it; while the others and all the senators were violently opposed, and the community in general, supported by the most influential newspapers, condemned it and its advocates in unmeasured terms. Some of the bitterest speeches ever made in the California legislature arose out of the controversy-among which may be particularly mentioned one by Henry Edgerton of Napa county, who favored the bill, in answer to newspaper attacks upon him on account of his advocacy of it.'

It appears to have been supposed by those who favored the bill that Downey would approve it. But if so, they were mistaken. On April 16, two days after it had been placed in his hands, he vetoed it. In his veto message, he said, “After giving this bill the most careful consideration in all its details, I am led to the irresistible conclusion that its provisions are not only in conflict with the constitution and the principles of natural justice, but that the measure as a whole is calculated to work irreparable injury to our commerce, internal and external, of which San Francisco is and must forever remain the metropolis." Upon the receipt of the news of the veto, the city of San Francisco grew almost wild with joy; and for the time, and in that quarter at least, Downey suddenly became the most popular man in the state. Never, since the defeat of the San Francisco water-front-extension scheme by the casting vote of Lieutenantgovernor Purdy in 1853, had there been anything of the kindso sudden, so spontaneous and so general. Not long afterwards, when Downey visited San Francisco, he was welcomed with a great popular ovation. About two weeks subsequent to the defeat of the bill by Downey's objections, an effort was made in the senate to pass it over the veto; but the attempt failed by a 'Senate Journal, 1860, 352, 582-651; Assembly Journal, 1860, 602, 663.

vote of fifteen to fifteen; and from that time the city of San Francisco felt more confidence in its future advance and prosperity than it had for several years. And Downey might have had almost anything he asked of it, if he had only managed to stear as clear of entanglement on the Union question as he had on the bulkhead.1

Although the Union question was not yet presented in such shape as to be considered of vital importance, it was nevertheless felt, as it were in the air, to be so. Up to that time California had given decided majorities in favor of the party that favored slavery. But at the presidential election of 1860, when the line came to be drawn with great distinctness between the north and the south, between freedom and slavery, between union and secession, California broke its old Democratic record and wheeled into line as a Republican state, strong on the side of the Union. An effort had been made to bring together the two wings of the Democratic party; but the Lecompton wing, which favored slavery and preferred John C. Breckenridge for president, could not or would not harmonize with the anti-Lecompton wing, which favored squatter-sovereignty and preferred Stephen A. Douglas for president. In July, when news came of the split in the Democratic national convention and the nomination of Douglas by one wing and of Breckenridge by the other, it produced great excitement and consternation. Downey and many other old-time Democrats declared for Douglas; while Weller, Gwin, Latham, almost all the federal office-holders and various others supported Breckenridge. Latham, who seems to have still imagined that he wielded a mighty influence, thought proper to issue a lengthy address, in which he avowed his adherence to Breckenridge, not because he claimed him to be the regular nominee of the Democratic party but because he agreed with the political principles advocated by him; and he added that he opposed Douglas because he did not agree with him, and not for any other reason. In the meanwhile news had also come of the nomination by the Republican national convention of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin as president and vice-president; and in a very short time after the canvass opened, it was perfectly 1 Senate Journal, 1860, 668-672, 800; Hittell's San Francisco, 323.

well understood that the struggle, call it by whatever name they might and without reference to individuals, was to be between union and threatened secession.1

The presidential campaign of 1860 in California was a memorable one. The people were thoroughly aroused and many able speakers took part in the conflict. There was not so much. personal vituperation as in the campaign of the year before; but there was more political bitterness, for the reason that the greater portion of the Democracy, which had hitherto trained with the chivalry, had gone over to the anti-Lecompton or Douglas side; and each wing hated the other even more than it hated the Republicans. Besides, the killing of Broderick, which was attributed to the chivalry, was still fresh in the minds of the people, and the influence it produced was powerful. Though Broderick was dead, his spirit was alive and worked greater wonders than he himself could have worked if he had lived. It was in this campaign that Edward D. Baker pronounced, in favor of freedom and the Republican party, what was supposed to be the greatest speech ever delivered in California. Baker had distinguished himself as an orator on various former occasions and particularly at the celebration in San Francisco of the laying of the Atlantic cable and at Broderick's funeral. He had been defeated in 1859 as a candidate for congress; after which he had gone to Oregon and been elected United States senator from that state; and he was on his way to Washington when called upon to speak. It was in this speech, on October 29, 1860, that he uttered the words, "Where the feet of my youth were planted, there, by Freedom, my feet shall stand. I will walk beneath her banner. I will glory in her strength. I have watched her, in history, struck down on a hundred chosen fields of battle. I have seen her friends fly from her. I have seen her foes gather round her. I have seen them bind her to the stake. I have seen them give her ashes to the winds, regathering them again that they might scatter them yet more widely. But when they turned to exult, I have seen her again meet them, face to face, resplendent in complete steel and brandishing in her strong right hand a flaming sword, red with insufferable light. I take cour'Davis' Political Conventions, 110-116.

The Genius of America
On the other hand, and

age. The people gather round her. will at last lead her sons to freedom."1 about the same time, John B. Weller delivered a speech for the chivalry at San José, in which he said, "I do not know whether Lincoln will be elected or not. But I do know that, if he is elected and if he attempts to carry out his doctrines, the south will surely withdraw from the Union. And I should consider them less than men if they did not."*

At the election, which took place on November 6 and resulted, as has been stated, in favor of the Republican party, the chivalry, that had enjoyed such a phenomenal triumph in 1859, was completely beaten. Its vote in the state amounted to only about thirty-four thousand, while Douglas received thirty-eight thousand and Lincoln nearly thirty-nine thousand. On the Union question, as it then stood, the Douglas vote was to be counted with the Republicans; and there was also a vote of a little over nine thousand for John Bell and Edward Everett, who had been nominated as president and vice-president by a party that called itself the Union party. In a short time afterwards, when the chivalry, having been defeated at the polls, rebelled and appealed to arms, a number of the so-called Union as well as of the Douglas party returned to their old principles; they at least gave no aid to but talked against, and in fact opposed, those who saved the Union. But up to the breaking out of the war -which compelled men to show themselves in their true colors. -all, except the avowed chivalry, talked Union.

When the new legislature of 1861 assembled on January 7, it was, or it professed to be, decidedly Union. At the previous session, when Downey succeeded Latham in the gubernatorial chair, Isaac N. Quinn of Tuolumne county had been president of the senate and in effect lieutenant-governor. But at the beginning of the session of 1861, Quinn's term having expired, the place was filled by the election of Pablo De La Guerra of Santa Barbara. De La Guerra was one of the old native Californian stock of Spanish blood, a man of considerable culture

Hitell's San Francisco, 327, 328; Bench and Bar in California, by Oscar T. Shuck, San Francisco, 1888, 18.

Davis' Political Conventions, 127. Davis' Political Conventions, 127. 18 VOL. IV.

and refinement, who had become a citizen of the United States in 1848 by virtue of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. He gave expression to his feelings about the Union in a few remarks which he made to the senate upon taking his seat as its presiding officer. "Allow me," he said, "to express the hope that the session upon which we are entering will be characterized by industry, harmony, wise legislation and, above all, by such a marked devotion to the Union that our young state shall help to reproduce, in these days of discord, that fraternal spirit of ‘amity, mutual deference and concession' in which the government of the Union was established and by which alone it can be kept from utter dissolution." At the same session of 1861, on January 18, Downey presented his first regular annual message. He addressed his introductory remarks to the extravagance, bad management and dishonesty of former years, which had left an indebtedness of over four millions of dollars, for which there was nothing to show except an unfinished state prison and an incomplete and indifferent building for the insane patients of the state. There were no railroads, no canals, no state capitol and no seminary of learning-no equivalent in fact for the vast public incumbrance that had been created. It was true that a brighter day seemed to be dawning; we were reducing our expenditures to our income; we were promptly paying the interest upon our bonds, and a large sinking fund was being annually laid by for the redemption of the same; and our securities were being sought for by capitalists as an investment inferior to none in the American Union-all of which augured well for our future stability and material prosperity. There was a surplus of over six hundred and forty-three thousand dollars in the treasury; but at the same time there were extraordinary expenses to be met―among which were a ruinous contract for the support of the state prison, expensive Indian war debts, expenses of the state capitol building, of the state reform school at Marysville, of the deaf, dumb and blind asylum at San Francisco, of the orphan asylums and other charities, of the boundary survey and of the geological survey."

1 Senate Journal, 1860, 179; Senate Journal, 1861, S.

2 Senate Journal, 1861, 29–35.