negro empire on our southern border. At the commencement of the war, congress made a formal declaration of its object in a resolution that 'the war was not waged on our part in any spirit of oppression, nor in any spirit of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those states; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the constitution and preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several states unimpaired.""

He then insisted that the reconstruction enactments of congress, embodied principally in the so-called military reconstruction acts passed in March and July, 1867, "assume that ten of the southern states are conquered territory and proceed to divide them into five military districts, each under the command of a military officer not below the grade of brigadier-general. They abolish in effect their right of trial by jury and make the accused subject to trial by military commissions; they prohibit any interference by the state authorities, thereby abolishing the writ of habeas corpus; they ignore presentments by grand juries; they tacitly permit the suppression of public journals by military orders, and allow no appeal from military sentence, except in capital cases, to the clemency of the president. They assume the control of the elective franchise, which the constitution vests exclusively in the states; and after disfranchising a large class of the white population confer the rights of suffrage upon all negroes over twenty-one without regard to qualification for its intelligent exercise." "In these measures," he continued, "congress commits the solecism of legislating martial law—that is: under a constitutional government, in a period of profound peace, the national legislature enacts that in ten states of the Union there shall be no law but the will of the department commander, and that the political power in those states shall be given to the negroes, who can thereby control their domestic administration and send to congress negro senators and representatives to assist in making laws to govern the white people of the north. Thus the reconstruction policy of congress is the subversion of all civil government under military rule; the abolition of those personal rights guaranteed by the constitution and

held sacred since the government was formed, and the subjection of the white population of the southern states, men, women and children, to the domination of a mass of ignorant negroes just freed from slavery."

"That any white man," he went on, "could be found on this continent to sanction a policy so subversive of rational liberty, and in the end so fatal to the Union and the government, is a subject of unceasing astonishment. These measures are a violation of the fundamental principles of the constitution and of liberty, of every dictate of sound policy, of every sentiment of humanity and of Christianity, and a disgrace to the country and to the age in which we live. In using this strong condemnatory language I am not insensible to the fact that thousands of good men appear to approve of the measures of congress, nor do I presume to sit in judgment on their motives. Many of them, doubtless, are unconsciously influenced by the passions and resentments of the war and, in their anxiety to guard against an imaginary danger, sanction principles the tendency of which is subversive of republican institutions." And in much the same. strain he went on, urging in effect the ultra secession Democratic doctrine that immediately after the war the rebels should have been admitted to congress on the same terms of representation as before. "What is there," he insisted, "in the crushed and subdued people of the southern states, with their slaves emancipated, which should excite any fear on the part of a powerful and victorious government? It is inconceivable that any person should seriously apprehend resistance to federal authority for a generation to come, if the people of those states are not goaded to desperation by wanton persecution and oppression. Had their representatives been admitted to congress in December, 1865, quiet and harmony would have been restored long before this time and industry would have revived there. Population and capital would have flowed in from the north and Europe; but neither population nor capital will trust themselves where civil rights exist only at the pleasure of the military and the negro has political control."

Haight's entire inaugural, as might perhaps have been expected of a person occupying his equivocal position, was devoted almost

entirely to an exposition of the extreme doctrines of the party he had espoused and opposition to the reconstruction policy of the party he had deserted. He had something to say against Chinese immigration and the incoming of any other Mongolian or effete Asiatic race; against special legislation; in favor of an eight-hour law, of economy and retrenchment in public expenditures, of a revision of the statutes and of appointing judges to hold office during good behavior; but in general his remarks were devoted to attacking congress and the Republican party and-reviling what he called the "brutal ignorance and barbarism" of negro suffrage. It was perhaps a matter of little or no importance, though it might have been interesting to know, why he had so suddenly and so completely changed from a bitter Republican to a violent Democrat; but he said nothing indicating or suggesting the reasons of his tergiversation, confining his indictment against the Republican party exclusively to what had taken place since he abandoned it and voted against Lincoln in 1864.1

One of the first and most remarkable moves in the new legislature of 1867-8 was a joint resolution offered in the senate on December 14, 1867, by William J. Shaw. It declared it to be "the moral and humane as well as governmental duty of the United States to acquire the possession of all vacant Mexican territory lying north of the twenty-sixth degree of north latitude;" "that such possession should be acquired peaceably and fairly but without hesitation, without failure and without delay," and it directed the senators and representatives in congress to urge upon the legislative and executive departments of the general government "the necessity and humanity of such immediate acquisition, until the same shall be accomplished." Had such a resolution been offered a few years earlier, it would at once have been pronounced a device for the extension of slave territory and would doubtless have caused great commotion; but, though presented by a Democrat, it attracted little or no attention; was not even considered important enough to be ordered printed; never was brought to a vote, and accomplished nothing more than to recall two historical events of much interest to California that had taken place the

2

1Senate Journal, 1867-8, 96-107.

2Senate Journal, 1867-8, 142.

previous summer, and had been briefly noticed in Low's message at the beginning of the session, as already stated.

The first of these events was the liberation of Mexico, after a long series of intestine disorders, from the despotism and tyranny of a European invader. The end of the Mexican war in 1848 was followed by the forced retirement of Santa Anna to Jamaica and the election of General José Joaquin de Herrera to the presidency of the republic. Herrera was succeeded in 1851 by General Mariano Arista. In 1853 Santa Anna was recalled and for the fifth time assumed the presidency, or more properly speaking the dictatorship, of Mexico. He, however, had learned nothing by his experiences and in 1855 was again driven from the country. Thereupon General Martin Carrera became president but was soon succeeded by General Juan Alvarez, who in a few months delegated his authority to General Ignacio Comonfort. In 1856 Comonfort, on account of the opposition to his government by the Mexican clergy, ordered the confiscation of the church property and forbade the holding of real estate by either church or clergy. This proceeding, as was perhaps to have been expected, evoked revolts in certain quarters, which were however promptly repressed; and there was a good prospect of progress and advance. But on February 5, 1857, a new constitution was promulgated, which met with violent opposition from the Mexican army; and the result was a revolution which in 1858 ended in the resignation of Comonfort and the elevation to the presidency, by a faction known as the Conservatives, of General Felix Zuloaga. As, however, according to the provisions of the new constitution, the resignation of Comonfort devolved the office upon Benito Pablo Juarez, chief justice of the supreme court, that remarkable man and distinguished representative of the Liberal party came forward and not only expressed, but by his actions manifested, a determination to maintain his rights and carry out the trust constitutionally reposed in him.

Juarez assembled an army and gave battle for his cause; but, being defeated by Zuloaga, he retired to Panama and thence proceeded to Vera Cruz, where he set up a government on a small scale as constitutional president. Not long afterwards Zuloaga was deposed by General Robles and General Robles in 1859 by

General Miguel Miramon, each of whom in turn had to sustain the energetic and uninterrupted efforts of Juarez to bring order out of chaos or, in other words, intelligent government out of anarchy and military license. The long and bloody struggle that ensued, and was well known and well named the "war of reform," was terminated about the end of 1860 by the battle of Calpulalpam near Mexico, which resulted in favor of Juarez and forced Miramon to leave the country. Immediately thereafter, while Juarez was endeavoring like a patriot to bind up the wounds of the republic, Miramon like a parricide proceeded to Europe and assisted in inducing Louis Napoleon, the emperor of the French, to attempt the foundation on Mexican soil of an empire, to be nominally governed by a prince of titular imperial blood but of which he himself was to be the real ruler, the power behind the throne.

In March, 1861, after the re-establishment of the constitutional government consequent upon the defeat of Miramon and his partisans, a new election was held and Juarez was chosen to the office, which he had previously held only by virtue of Comonfort's resignation. In July, on account of the general financial exhaustion of the country, Juarez as such president induced the Mexican congress to suspend the payment of public obligations for two years; and the result was an armed intervention in December, 1861, by the landing of English, Spanish and French troops at Vera Cruz. The English and Spanish governments soon withdrew their forces; but the French, under the dictation of Louis Napoleon, having the ulterior design of holding possession of the country and making out of it a vassal empire, resolved to maintain their position. There were several reasons that actuated Louis Napoleon in this conduct. One was the fact that the United States had entered upon a desperate conflict and thus presented to him an opportunity of getting a foothold on American soil, without anything to fear for the time at least from the northern states, and with the prospect on the other hand of having the aid, sooner or later, of the southern states in considderation of favors which he was always willing to do them. It is well known that, with this as one of his purposes in view, he was always ready to recognize the Confederacy and would have