the Benignant Power that had preserved the state from the perils afflicting so large a portion of the common country and secured to it peace and quietude, undisturbed by any political commotion and blessed with a season of general health. He referred to the floods of the previous winter as a calamity unprecedented in the annals of California. He next referred to the state debt as amounting, including all bonds and claims, to a little over five and a half million dollars. The indebtedness of the general fund on January 10, 1862, was a little over five hundred and thirty-five thousand, while the receipts from January 10 to December 1, 1862, were a little over eight hundred and twenty-nine thousand, leaving the excess of receipts over expenses for the year 1862 a little over ninety-one thousand dollars.' But, notwithstanding this excess and notwithstanding current expenses had been greatly reduced, the general fund was largely behind; and he recommended for the next year a tax for state purposes larger than the estimate of twenty-three cents, in addition to the sixty-two cents imposed by the revenue act of May 19, 1861, on each one hundred dollars of valuation, as made by the state controller. In explanation he declared his object to be "to put the treasury upon a strict cash basis, believing as I emphatically do in the 'pay as you go' system wherever it is practicable." He attributed some of the deficiency in the general fund to a decision of the supreme court of the state declaring unconstitutional a stringent and oppressive statute passed April 26, 1862, purporting "to protect free white labor against competition with Chinese coolie labor" by imposing a capitation tax of two dollars and fifty cents per month upon every person, male or female, of the Mongolian race of the age of eighteen years and upwards residing within the state." He referred to Indian troubles, particularly those in the northwesterly counties, and said there should be absolute protection afforded against the hostiles, and he believed the object might be accomplished at far less expense than that incurred by the general government "under its miserable management of Indian affairs in California." He spoke of the military training of Californian youth as a necessity; thought the 1Senate Journal, 1863, 27-29.

2 Senate Journal, 1863, 30, 31; Stats. 1862, 462; Lin Sing vs. Washburn, 20 Cal. 534.

reclamation of swamp lands up to that time not much of a success, and was of opinion that the statutes ought to be revised and codified. And in conclusion he pronounced Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation not only a necessary war measure but also a great moral declaration, insuring for the future the entire abolition of slavery throughout the country. He called it "an act that will inure to his lasting fame and to which the future statesman will recur as one that blotted out an ignoble stain from our national escutcheon and gave a new impulse to human liberty and human progress."1

Stanford at the same time called attention to the fact that Delos R. Ashley, the treasurer of state, had in the previous September paid the first installment of the direct tax, apportioned to California by the act of congress of August 5, 1861, and assumed by the state, in legal tender notes in lieu of coin paid into the treasury by the people for that purpose. By this payment of greenbacks, he had saved the state over forty-four hundred dollars-the difference between sixty-three thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine dollars and thirty-one cents in coin and the same amount in legal tender notes, then nearly eight per cent below par in California. This Stanford had deemed entirely unauthorized and had written to the United States authorities, expressing deep mortification and earnestly assuring the general government that the loyal people of California had no desire to benefit themselves at its expense. He had been answered that the government had advisedly accepted legal tender notes for the tax; and Ashley afterwards showed that the government, in imposing the tax, had contemplated its payment in legal tender notes; that all the other states paid their proportions in such notes, and that, if California paid in coin, it would pay more than its proportion. Ashley further said that the state was not making a gratuity but simply complying with a strict legal obligation; and he added that, if the state felt able and desired to make a direct donation. in addition to the tax, it would be a praiseworthy act and the United States would receive the benefit of it-which would not be the case if coin were paid for the tax instead of notes, for the reason that, if so received, it would have to be paid out at the Senate Journal, 1863, 33-46.

same nominal value as notes.' Notwithstanding this exposition, Stanford brought the matter before the legislature; and committees were appointed by both houses to investigate it. By the time they reported, Ashley had paid the remainder of the direct tax in legal tender notes and thereby saved the state altogether nearly twenty-five thousand dollars. But, after much bother and considerable expense without accomplishing any good, the legislature put a quietus upon the controversy by appropriating the whole amount so saved the state as a "military recruiting fund" to assist in filling up the regiments of California volunteers.

3

In addition to the appropriation last mentioned, and in the same loyal spirit, the legislature of 1863 appropriated one hundred thousand dollars to be expended in equipping for service the volunteer soldiery of the state with the object of providing a "more efficient state of defense against foreign or internal foes." It also appropriated six hundred thousand dollars as a "soldiers' relief fund" to be used in compensating soldiers of the California volunteers, in addition to the pay allowed them by the United States. It likewise appropriated five thousand dollars for the benefit of the widow and children of Colonel Roderick Matheson of Sonoma county, who had volunteered in a regiment of Californians raised at the breaking out of the war in New York and fell fighting at the head of the regiment at Crampton Gap in Maryland on October 2, 1862, and five thousand dollars to aid in the completion of the monument in Lone Mountain cemetery in San Francisco to the memory of United States Senator David C. Broderick, who was by many looked upon as a martyr to the Union cause. At the same session, acts were passed making it a misdemeanor to display rebel flags or devices and declaring them public nuisances to be abated by any peace officer; also making it a felony, punishable with death if the jury should so direct, to fit out, arm, furnish, provide or equip within the state any vessel for piratical or privateering purposes or intended to cruise against or commit hostilities upon the citizens of the United States or their property, or to take part in any hostile 'Senate Journal, 1863, 30, 50; Appendix No. 2, 23-29.

2 Senate Journal, 1863; Appendix, Nos. 15 and 16; Stats. 1863, 246. 3 Stats. 1863, 477, 662.

Stats. 1863, 250, 302.

expedition of any kind, or to accept or deliver any commission or letter of marque with such intent. It was likewise declared a misdemeanor to profess adherence to the enemy or indorse, defend or cheer any attempt of any person to subvert or destroy the lawful authority of the United States in any state thereof. Acts were also passed to exclude traitors and alien enemies from the courts of justice in civil cases by requiring plaintiffs, if demanded by defendants, and attorneys in all instances to take the oath of allegiance, and requiring teachers of the public schools to take similar oaths.1

In respect to most of these acts, it can hardly be said that they accomplished any good purpose, except perhaps to indicate the general public opinion and sentiment. As in all great popular movements, in which there is much feeling, zealots and fanatical partisans are almost sure for a time at least to be thrown to the top and almost always succeed in carrying things too far. In view of the United States laws and the care and watchfulness of United States military officers, it was unnecessary for the state to pass so many statutes that could accomplish no good but were annoying as well to the loyal as to the disloyal. There were in fact no dangerous secessionists in the state that were not in very short order taken in hand by the United States officers. At the beginning of hostilities most of those, who might have done harm, migrated to the Confederacy, including General Albert Sidney Johnston, Judge David S. Terry, Calhoun Benham and others; and they succeeded in reaching their destination without being stopped. Afterwards Daniel Showalter and a party of his friends, who were bent on mischief and might have done some, were, as has already been stated, seized and their career nipped in the bud before they could do any harm. There were a few others who talked loudly and violently but were hardly dangerous. One, and the most prominent of these, was E. J. C. Kewen of Los Angeles, formerly attorney-general of the state and afterwards a sort of missionary in the southern and southwestern states for Walker's pro-slavery, filibustering schemes in Nicaragua. Sympathizing as he did with the south, from which he had come, and being a good stump-speaker, he ventilated his secession Stats. 1863, 350, 490, 566, 727, 755.

proclivities a little too freely to his Los Angeles neighbors in October, 1862, and as a result was arrested by the United States authorities, carried to San Francisco and clapped into the fort on Alcatraz Island. His prison walls and possibly the voices of the wild waves, that were beating on the bare rocks on every side, appear to have soon cooled his ardor; and, after two weeks incarceration, he was released upon subscribing an oath of allegiance to the United States and giving a bond in the sum of five thousand dollars that for the future he would be more cautious in his utterances.

Kewen had been elected a member of the assembly from Los Angeles in September, 1862, and at the beginning of the session of 1863 presented himself and was sworn in. A few weeks afterwards, January 26, Thomas Fitch, a stump-speaker on the Union side who had been elected to the assembly from El Dorado county, introduced a resolution into that body asking for a committee to inquire whether Kewen had not been guilty of publicly uttering treasonable language or committing treasonable acts of a character to prove him disloyal to the government and unfit to occupy a seat as a member of the legislature of a loyal state. It is not unlikely that the resolution would have been adopted, had it not been for Silas W. Sanderson, another member from El Dorado county, one of the ablest, most liberal-minded and most judicious men in the state, afterwards chief justice of the supreme court. He moved as a substitute resolution that all charges of disloyalty against a member, that had been investigated by the civil or military authorities of the federal government, ought not to be entertained, and that any investigation of such charges by the assembly was wholly uncalled for, impolitic, unwise and contrary to the spirit of that clause in the constitution, both federal and state, which provided that no person should be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense. The substitute was at once adopted and then the whole Kewen matter was laid on the table -not to be taken up again-by a vote of thirty-four ayes to twenty-nine noes,1

But whenever a fair opportunity presented itself of putting a Union man in place of one who was not sound on the Union