History of California.

BOOK XI.

EARLY STATE ADMINISTRATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

W

BURNETT.

HEN California was admitted into the Union, Peter H.
Burnett was governor.
He had been chosen at the election

of November 13, 1849, at the same time that the constitution of 1849 was adopted by the vote of the people. He had been inaugurated at San José on Thursday, December 20, 1849; and he had acted as governor throughout the important first session of the legislature, than which, as has already been stated, no legislature in the state ever did more work, more important work or better work. No governor of the state, except perhaps the one who acted at the breaking out of the civil war, had a better chance of making and deserving a great reputation.

Burnett was born at Nashville, Tennessee, on November 15, 1807. His father, a carpenter by trade, was a native of Virginia. The family name had been Burnet; but Peter, when about nineteen years of age, with an idea of improving and making it more emphatic, as he said, added a second "t" and changed the accent from the first syllable to the last; and his example was followed by all the others. In 1817 his father moved to Missouri, first to

Howard county and from there in 1822 to Clay county. In 1826 Peter returned to Tennessee and became clerk in a country hotel and afterwards in a country store. In 1828 he married and undertook to conduct a country store on his own account, but failed with an indebtedness of seven hundred dollars. He then commenced to study law. In 1832 he went back to Missouri, where he again engaged in the mercantile business, first as clerk and then as partner; but in 1838 he again failed, this time with an indebtedness of about fifteen thousand dollars. Satisfied by this experience that he was not fitted for a mercantile life, he a second time turned to the law; and, having in the meanwhile 'gained some little reputation as a speaker in a debating society and at political meetings and as a writer by having for a short time edited a weekly newspaper, called “The Far West," he felt himself qualified for practice. He had already in 1833 been admitted to the bar of all the courts of Missouri. Upon opening his office at Liberty, the county seat of Clay county, in 1838, he came in competition with a number of old-established lawyers, among whom were David R. Atchison, Alexander W. Doniphan and William B. Almond. His first complaints as legal documents. seem to have afforded a great deal of amusement to his brother lawyers; but he soon improved; and in 1839 he was employed as one of the counsel for Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon and other Mormon leaders, who were then under arrest in Liberty jail on charges of treason, arson and robbery. The cause of the Mormons was exceedingly unpopular; the community in general was excessively bitter against them; there were threats and indications of mob violence; and counsel had to go armed. At a hearing on habeas corpus for the release of the prisoners, Burnett made the opening speech on their behalf and Doniphan the closing one. As the latter rose, Burnett whispered to him. to "let himself out" and he would kill the first man that dared attack him; and, according to Burnett's account, Doniphan made one of the most eloquent and withering speeches he ever heard; while the maddened crowd foamed and gnashed their teeth, and Burnett sat with his hand upon his pistol, calmly determined to do as he had promised.'

1Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer, by Peter H. Burnett, New York, 1880, 1-55.

About the beginning of 1840 he was appointed district attorney of his judicial district and he continued to serve as such for three years and upwards. In the same year 1840 he became a professor of Christianity and joined the Disciples of Christ or Campbellites, a sect somewhat similar to the Baptists. In the spring of 1843, having six children and understanding that an emigrant to Oregon would be entitled to six hundred and forty acres of public land for himself and one hundred and sixty for each of his children, making sixteen hundred acres in all, he determined to emigrate to that then wild. country; and, after traveling about in several neighboring counties and making speeches in favor of Oregon, he set out with his family in the early part of May, 1843, for the general rendezvous at Big Springs with three wagons, four yoke of oxen and two mules. On May 22 a general start was made and by the end of the month the Kansas river was reached and crossed. On June 1 the emigrants, who numbered nearly three hundred men besides women and children, organized a company by the election of Burnett captain, James W. Nesmith orderly sergeant, and nine councilmen. Burnett, however, soon found that he could not manage his constituents and on June 8 he resigned his position as captain; and William Martin was elected his successor. On August 7 they crossed the summit of the Rocky mountains and drank of water flowing towards the Pacific ocean; on August 27 they reached Fort Hall, and on October 16 Fort Walla Walla. In January, 1844, after looking around for a few months, Burnett assisted in laying out the town of Linnton on the Willamette river, some miles below Portland. He supposed it to be the head of ship navigation; but in the course of four or five months, becoming convinced that the real head of navigation was further up the river, he abandoned the idea of city building and removed to the Tualatin plains, some twentyfive miles west of Linnton, where he took up a "claim," as it was called, in the middle of a circle of level land about three miles in diameter, and commenced farming.'

The people of Oregon had already in 1843 organized a sort of provisional government; but it was found to be very imperfect 1 Burnett's Recollections, 68–141.

and did not work well. Soon after settling at Linnton in January, 1844, Burnett was consulted as to the right of the people to organize a provisional government for themselves; and at first he gave his opinion against such right. But a few weeks subsequently he changed his mind and advised that the right undoubtedly existed and ought to be exercised. The question of sovereignty over the country, he said, was in dispute between the United States and Great Britain; and therefore neither could well establish a government. On the other hand the population, being composed of British subjects as well as American citizens, was heterogeneous; and government of some kind was a necessity. Having thus taken the correct and, as it proved, the popular view of the subject, he was soon afterwards nominated and elected a member of the "Legislative Committee of Oregon," which held two sessions in 1844, one in June and the other in December, and in several short statutes provided a new scheme of government, essentially like that of Iowa territory and a great improvement on the previous attempted organization. An act was passed giving to each bona-fide settler upon public land, who had made or should make permanent improvements, a right to occupy and hold six hundred and forty acres, provided he should hold only one claim at one time; but he might hold town lots in addition to his claim. Another act prohibited the importation, distillation, sale or barter of ardent spirits. Taken altogether the legislation was for a community which had passed through trials that had tested their patience and were not difficult to govern. Burnett said that he never saw a finer population and added, "They were all honest, because there was nothing to steal; they were all sober, because there was no liquor to drink; there were no misers, because there was no money to hoard; and they were all industrious, because it was work or starve."1

Another remarkable act passed by the legislative committee in 1844 was to the effect that any person, who refused to pay his taxes, should have no benefit of the laws of Oregon and should be excluded from voting at any election in the country-in other words, it made of every citizen, who for any reason failed to pay his taxes, an outlaw without any civil rights whatever. But the 1 1 Burnett's Recollections, 168-181.

most remarkable piece of legislation, which was introduced by Burnett and known as one of his laws, was in relation to slaves, free negroes and mulattoes. It provided in the first place that slavery and involuntary servitude should be forever prohibited in Oregon. It then provided that in all cases where slaves had been or should thereafter be brought into Oregon, the owner should have three years after their introduction to remove them out of the country; and that, if not so removed within such time, such slaves should be free. It further provided that any free negro or mulatto then in Oregon of the age of eighteen years or upwards should leave the country within two years if a male, and within three years if a female; or, if any such free negro should thereafter arrive, he or she should leave within the same periods after arrival, and if under age then within like periods after coming of age. Upon failure to leave, he or she might be arrested and, if found guilty before a justice of the peace of not leaving, should receive upon his or her bare back not less than twenty nor more than thirty-nine stripes to be inflicted by the constable, and a like punishment every six months thereafter. Within less than six months after the passage of this act public sentiment demanded an amendment of these clauses in reference to corporal punishment; and, on motion of Burnett, a change, though hardly an improvement, was made by providing that instead of being flogged, the free negro or mulatto male or female, who failed tc leave, should be publicly hired out, or in other words sold into slavery to the bidder for the shortest term of service, who would engage under bonds to remove such negro or mulatto within six months after such term of service should expire. The whole business was, however, felt to be so unjust that in 1845, before any attempt could be made to enforce any of its provisions, the act was repealed.'

In the autumn of the same year 1844 Burnett, while still a Campbellite, borrowed and read a published debate between Alexander Campbell, the founder of his sect, and John Purcell, the Catholic bishop of Cincinnati. He said that he borrowed it because the Catholic question was so often mentioned, and that upon reading it, though not convinced of the entire truth of the Burnett's Recollections, 212-221, 227, 228.