The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War (39 page)

7.
Californian,
March 15, 1848;
California Star,
March 25, 1848; Peter H. Burnett,
Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer
(New York, 1880), 221, 127–31; Etta Olive Powell, “Southern Influences in California Politics Before 1864” (master’s thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1929), 36–37; Lucile Eaves,
A History of California Labor Legislation
(Berkeley, Calif., 1910), 89–90; Paul Finkelman, “The Law of Slavery and Freedom in California, 1848–1860,”
California Western Law Review
17 (1981), 451.

8. Justus H. Rogers,
Colusa County
(Oakland, 1891), 370–71.

9. “Sherman Was There: The Recollections of Major Edwin A. Sherman,”
California Historical Society Quarterly
23 (Dec. 1944), 350–52; James J. Ayers,
Gold and Sunshine: Reminiscences of Early California
(Boston, 1922), 49–63; Leonard Pitt,
Decline of the Californios: A Social History of Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846–1890
(Berkeley, Calif., 1966), 57–58.

10. George Tennis, “California’s First Election, November 13, 1849,”
Southern California Quarterly
50 (Dec. 1968), 358; Neal Harlow,
California Conquered: The Annexation of a Mexican Province
(Berkeley, Calif., 1982), 318, 323–25; House Executive Document 17, 31st Cong., 1st sess., 1849–50, 744, 748.

11. For T. Butler King and his mission, see Edward M. Steel, Jr.,
T. Butler King of Georgia
(Athens, Ga., 1964); Holman Hamilton,
Zachary Taylor: Soldier in the White House
(Hamden, Conn., 1966); Brainerd Dyer,
Zachary Taylor
(Baton Rouge, La., 1946); K. Jack Bauer,
Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest
(Baton Rouge, La., 1985); Elbert B. Smith,
The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore
(Lawrence, Kans., 1988);
Re-union of the Passengers on the Fourth of June, 1874, Being the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Arrival of the Steamship
Panama
at San Francisco
(San Francisco, 1874). On Taylor’s slaveholdings, see Dyer,
Taylor,
55, 72–73, 256–57, 262.

12.
San Jose Pioneer,
March 30, 1878, quoted in Peter V. Conmy, “William Edward Shannon, 1823–1850” (Oakland, 1954), MS, 4, Bancroft Library, Berkeley.

13. Shannon to Bartley Wilkes, Nov. 25, 1846, quoted in Donald C. Biggs,
Conquer and Colonize: Stevenson’s Regiment and California
(San Rafael, Calif., 1977), 84.

14. “Members of the Convention of California,” in J. Ross Browne,
Report of the Debates in the Convention of California on the Formation of the State Constitution in September and October, 1849
(Washington, D.C., 1850), 478–79; William H. Ellison,
A Self-Governing Dominion: California, 1849–1860
(Berkeley, Calif., 1950), 25, 27.

15. Powell, “Southern Influences in California Politics Before 1864,” 31–32; Hubert Howe Bancroft,
History of California, 1848–1859,
6 vols. (San Francisco, 1888), 6:286.

16. Biggs,
Stevenson’s Regiment in California,
177–96; Frank Soulé,
The Annals of San Francisco
(New York, 1854), 773–78;
Alta California,
Jan. 1–June 14, 1849.

17. Donald E. Hargis, “Pre-convention Speaking, California: 1849,”
Western Speech
18 (May 1954), 167–75.

18. Charles A. Barker, ed.,
Memoirs of Elisha Oscar Crosby
(San Marino, Calif., 1945), 40, 61.

19. Ibid., 41; Barbara R. Warner,
The Men of the California Bear Flag Revolt
(Sonoma, 1994), 107–23; Arthur Quinn,
The Rivals: William Gwin, David Broderick, and the Birth of California
(New York, 1994), 67.

20. Cardinal Goodwin,
The Establishment of State Government in California, 1846–1850
(New York, 1914), 242; Merrill Burlingame, “The Contribution of Iowa to the Formation of the State Government of California in 1849,”
Iowa Journal of History and Politics
30 (April 1932), 189–91. One unidentified delegate made margin notes on his copy of the Iowa Constitution detailing the sections cribbed by the California convention (California State Archives, Sacramento).

21. Browne,
Report of the Debates,
43–44; Barker,
Memoirs of Crosby,
48–49.

22.
New-York Tribune,
Feb. 20, 1850, quoted in Roy S. Bloss, “Biography of William McKendree Gwin and Supporting Documents, 1856–1873,” MS, Bancroft Library, 90.

23. Thomas W. Prosch,
McCarver and Tacoma
(Seattle, 1906).

24. For the debate, see Browne,
Report of the Debates,
137–62, 330–40. For various scholarly perspectives, see Goodwin,
Establishment of State Government in California,
112–32; Powell, “Southern Influences in California Politics Before 1864,” 38–39; David Alan Johnson,
Founding the Far West: California, Oregon, and Nevada, 1840–1890
(Berkeley, Calif., 1992), 127–30.

25. Browne,
Report of the Debates,
137–38, 140.

26. Ibid., 333.

27. Ibid., 335.

28. Ibid., 138.

29. Ibid., 138–39.

30. Ibid., 144.

31. Ibid., 149.

32. For legal details, see Norma Basch,
In the Eyes of the Law: Women, Marriage, and Property in Nineteenth-Century New York
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1982). The Basch book, while good on details, is rather poor on the party politics of the period. For the party politics, see Michael D. Pierson, “‘Guard the Foundations Well’: Antebellum New York Democrats and the Defense of Patriarchy,”
Gender and History
7 (April 1995), 25–40; Michael D. Pierson,
Free Hearts, Free Homes: Gender and Antislavery Politics
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 2003). For women’s rights generally, see Sylvia D. Hoffert,
When Hens Crow: The Woman’s Rights Movement in Antebellum America
(Bloomington, Ind., 1995).

33. Browne,
Report of the Debates,
257–69, 478–79; Goodwin,
Establishment of State Government in California,
217–18.

34. For the debate, see Browne,
Report of the Debates,
167–96, 417–58; Goodwin,
Establishment of State Government in California,
chap. 7.

35. Browne,
Report of the Debates,
178–79.

36. Ibid., 196; Mary Agnes Oyster, “Gwin in the Constitutional Convention of California of 1849” (master’s thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1928), 113–14.

37. Browne,
Report of the Debates,
180; Powell, “Southern Influences in California Politics Before 1864,” 50; Oyster, “Gwin in the Constitutional Convention of California of 1849,” 114.

38. Browne,
Report of the Debates,
442.

39. Samuel Upham,
Notes of a Voyage to California via Cape Horn, Together with Scenes in El Dorado, in the Years 1849–50
(Philadelphia, 1878), 304.

40. Charles H. Shinn,
Mining-Camps: A Study in American Frontier Government
(New York, 1884); Joseph W. Ellison, “The Mineral Land Question in California, 1848–1866,”
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
30 ( July 1926), 9–15; Maureen A. Jung, “Capitalism Comes to the Diggings: From Gold-Rush Adventure to Corporate Enterprise,”
California History
77 (Winter 1998–99), 56–58.

41. Browne,
Report of the Debates,
136. For more on the individual liability clause, see Ira Cross,
Financing and Empire: History of Banking in California,
4 vols. (Chicago, 1927), 1:113.

42. Browne,
Report of the Debates,
135–36.

43. William H. Ellison, ed., “Memoirs of the Hon. William M. Gwin,”
California Historical Society Quarterly
19 (1940), 8, 10.

44. Ralph Mann,
After the Gold Rush: Society in Grass Valley and Nevada City, 1849–1870
(Stanford, Calif., 1982), 10, 13–15.

45. Ibid., 10–12.

46. Jung, “Capitalism Comes to the Diggings,” 62–68;
Manhattan Quartz Mining Company, Facts Concerning Quartz and Quartz Mining: Together with the Charter
(New York, 1852), 24.

47. Robert L. Kelley, “Forgotten Giant: The Hydraulic Gold Mining Industry in California,”
Pacific Historical Review
23 (Nov. 1954), 343–46.

48. Edwin Bean,
Bean’s History and Directory of Nevada County, California
(Nevada City, Calif., 1867), 65; Harry A. Wells,
History of Nevada County, California
(Oakland, 1880), 171.

49. Kelley, “Forgotten Giant,” 343–48.

50. Don Alexander, ed.,
History and Mining Techniques of the Empire Mine
(Grass Valley, Calif., 1994), 5–8; Charles A. Bohakel,
A Brief History of the Empire Mine of Grass Valley
(Grass Valley, Calif., 1968), 1–3.

51. Mann,
After the Gold Rush,
238.

52. Arthur C. Todd,
The Cornish Miner in America
(Glendale, Calif., 1967); Eliot Lord,
Comstock Mining and Miners
(Washington, D.C., 1883), 382–86; Mann,
After the Gold Rush,
142–47; Richard E. Lingenfelter,
The Hardrock Miners: A History of the Mining Labor Movement in the American West, 1863–1893
(Berkeley, Calif., 1974), 6–7; John Rowe,
The Hard-Rock Men: Cornish Immigrants and the North American Mining Frontier
(Liverpool, U.K., 1974), 96.

53. Thomas Senior Berry, “Gold! But How Much?”
California History Quarterly
55 (Fall 1976), 251; David Martin, “1853: The End of Bimetallism in the United States,”
Journal of Economic History
33 (Dec. 1973), 825–44; Barry Eichagreen and Ian W. McLean, “The Supply of Gold Under the Pre-1914 Gold Standard,”
Economic History Review
47 (1994), 294; James Gerber, “Gold Rushes and the Trans-Pacific Wheat Trade: California and Australia, 1848–57,” in Dennis O. Flynn, Lionel Frost, and A. J. H. Latham, eds.,
Pacific Centuries: Pacific and Pacific Rim History Since the Sixteenth Century
(London, 1999), app. 1, 147; George W. Van Vleck,
The Panic of 1857: An Analytical Study
(New York, 1943), 38–39, 50, 105; E. J. Hobsbawm,
The Age of Capital, 1848–1875
(New York, 1975), 33–34; Kenneth Pomeranz and Steven Topik,
The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400–the Present
(Armonk, N.Y., 1999), 123; Mark A. Eifler,
Gold Rush Capitalists: Greed and Growth in Sacramento
(Albuquerque, N. Mex., 2002), pt. 3.

54. Conmy, “Shannon,” 4; Biggs,
Stevenson’s Regiment and California,
190.

CHAPTER 4

1. The population figure in the federal census of 1850—92, 567—is clearly inaccurate, as it doesn’t include the returns of Contra Costa, Santa Clara, and San Francisco counties. For the guesswork in figuring out California’s population in 1850, see Warren S. Thompson et al.,
Growth and Changes in California’s Population
(Los Angeles, 1955), 9.

2. George Tennis, “California’s First Election, November 13, 1849,”
Southern California Quarterly
50 (Dec. 1968), 374–75; Elisha Crosby, “First State Election in California,”
Quarterly of the Society of California Pioneers
5 ( June 1928), 73.

3. Jennie to Milton, Nov. 11, 1849, in
Apron Full of Gold: The Letters of Mary Jane Megquier from San Francisco, 1849–1856,
ed. Robert Glass Clelland (San Marino, Calif., 1949), 30; Tennis, “California’s First Election,” 383.

4. Edward M. Steel, Jr.,
T. Butler King of Georgia
(Athens, Ga., 1964), 7 and passim;
Re-union of the Passengers on the Fourth of June, 1874, Being the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Arrival of the Steamship
Panama
at San Francisco
(San Francisco, 1874).

5. Elisha Crosby, “Events in California,” MS, 29, Bancroft Library, Berkeley.

6.
Reminiscences of Francis J. Lippitt
(Providence, 1902), 81–82.

7. Daniel Knower,
Adventures of a Forty-Niner
(Albany, N.Y., 1895), 115; Tennis, “California’s First Election,” 367.

8. Cardinal Goodwin,
The Establishment of State Government in California, 1846–1850
(New York, 1914), 260–61; Frederic Hall,
The History of San José and Surroundings
(San Francisco, 1871), 218–21; Hubert Howe Bancroft,
History of California, 1848–1859,
6 vols. (San Francisco, 1888), 6:309–11.

9. Crosby, “Events in California,” 64.

10. Herbert C. Jones,
The First Legislature of California
(Sacramento, Calif., 1950), 10–11; Goodwin,
Establishment of State Government in California,
256, 258.

11. Charles A. Barker, ed.,
Memoirs of Elisha Oscar Crosby
(San Marino, Calif., 1945), 40, 61; Crosby, “Events in California,” 29.

12. Toombs to Linton Stephens, March 22, 1850, in U. B. Phillips, ed., “The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb,”
Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911
(Washington, D.C., 1913), 2:188.

13. Cobb to his wife, Dec. 20, 1849, ibid., 2:179.

14.
Congressional Globe,
31st Cong., 1st sess., 1849–50, app., 702.

15. Ibid., 757. See also Etta Olive Powell, “Southern Influences in California Politics Before 1864” (master’s thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1929), 40; William L. Barney,
The Road to Secession: A New Perspective on the Old South
(New York, 1972), 67, 107–8.

16.
Congressional Globe,
31st Cong., 1st sess., 1849–50, app., 702.

17. Ibid., 27; Joshua Giddings to his son, Dec. 14, 1849, Joshua Giddings Papers, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, microfilm.

18.
Congressional Globe,
31st Cong., 1st sess., 1849–50, 28.

19. Ibid., 29.

20. Giddings to his son, Dec. 14, 1849, Giddings Papers.

21. Clay’s “Alabama Letter, July 27, 1844,” repr. in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Fred J. Israel, eds.,
History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–1968,
4 vols. (New York, 1971), 1:855–56.

22. For Clay’s resolutions and accompanying remarks, see
Congressional Globe,
31st Cong., 1st sess., 1849–50, 244–49.