The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War (42 page)

22. Rowland,
Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist,
2:288–90, 461–62, 464–66;
The Reports upon the Purchase, Importation, and Use of Camels and Dromedaries to Be Employed for Military Purposes,
34th Cong., 3rd sess., 1857, Senate Executive Document, 62; Walter Prescott Webb,
The Great Plains
(Boston, 1931), 199–200; Eaton,
Jefferson Davis,
84–85; Cooper,
Jefferson Davis, American,
258–59.

23. John W. Burgess,
The Middle Period, 1817–1858
(New York, 1900), 385; Robert W. Johannsen, “The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Pacific Northwest Frontier,”
Pacific Historical Review
22 (May 1953), 129–41.

24. Richard C. Bain,
Convention Decisions and Voting Records
(Washington, D.C., 1960), 17ff. app.; Congressional Quarterly,
National Party Conventions, 1831–1872
(Washington, D.C., 1976); James S. Chase,
Emergence of the Presidential Nominating Convention, 1789–1832
(Urbana, Ill., 1973), 264–66; David M. Potter,
The South and the Concurrent Majority
(Baton Rouge, La., 1972).

25. Johannsen,
Douglas,
208–9, 211, 232, 299–300, 337–38, 870–71.

26.
Congressional Globe,
33rd Cong., 1st sess., 1853–54, 1303, 1309; app. 240, 533.

27. Douglas to J. H. Crane, D. M. Johnson, and L. J. Eastin, Dec. 17, 1853, in Robert W. Johannsen, ed.,
The Letters of Stephen A. Douglas
(Urbana, Ill., 1961), 269; James C. Malin, “The Motives of Stephen A. Douglas in the Organization of the Nebraska Territory: A Letter Dated December 17, 1853,”
Kansas Historical Quarterly
19 (Nov. 1951), 351–52; James C. Malin,
The Nebraska Question, 1852–1854
(Lawrence, Kans., 1953), 18–19, 81–82, 443–48; Don E. Fehrenbacher,
The Slaveholding Republic
(New York, 2001), 273–74.

28. Frank Heywood Hodder, “The Railroad Background of the Kansas-Nebraska Act,”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
12 (1925), 4–5.

29. Douglas to Whitney, Oct. 15, 1845, in Johannsen,
Letters of Douglas,
127–33;
Congressional Globe,
28th Cong., 2nd sess., 1845–46, 41; Frank Heywood Hodder, “The Genesis of the Kansas-Nebraska Act,”
Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin for 1912,
69–86; Johannsen,
Douglas,
163–65.

30. William E. Parrish,
David Rice Atchison of Missouri, Border Politician
(Columbia, Mo., 1961); Benjamin C. Merkel, “The Slavery Issue and the Political Decline of Thomas Hart Benton, 1846–1856,”
Missouri Historical Review
38 ( July 1944), 388–407.

31. Malin, “Motives of Douglas: Letter Dated December 17, 1853,” 342–43.

32. Henry Barrett Learned, “The Relation of Philip Phillips to the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854,”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
(1922), 303–17; Mrs. Archibald Dixon,
True History of the Missouri Compromise and Its Repeal
(Cincinnati, 1898), 445.

33.
National Era,
Jan. 24, 1854. The “Appeal” is also printed in
Congressional Globe,
33rd Cong., 1st sess., 1853–54, 281–82.

34.
Congressional Globe,
33rd Cong., 1st sess., 1853–54, 532.

35. Ibid., app. 425–29; Robert R. Russel, “The Issues in the Congressional Struggle over the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 1854,”
Journal of Southern History
39 (May 1963), 188–89, 208–9.

36.
New York Evening Post,
Feb. 21, March 31, 1854;
Hartford Daily Times,
March 17, 1854;
Philadelphia Daily News,
June 5, 1854;
Chicago Democratic Press,
Feb. 16, May 24, 1854; Allan Nevins,
Ordeal of the Union: A House Dividing, 1852–1857
(New York, 1947), 2:146–49.

37. For the details, see Leonard L. Richards,
The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780–1860
(Baton Rouge, La., 2000), 185–86.

38. Summers,
Plundering Generation,
211ff.

39. “Notes on Party Spirit,” Caleb Cushing Papers, Library of Congress.

40.
Congressional Globe,
33rd Cong., 1st sess., 1853–54, 1130–33.

41. For details on the vote, see Richards,
Slave Power,
185–89.

42. Quoted in Johannsen,
Douglas,
434.

43. Some accounts indicate that the Democrats started out with ninety-one seats and ended up with twenty-five seats. The disparity in the tallies stems largely from discrepancies in the sources and the turmoil that characterized the 1854 election. Not only did Whigs and Free-Soilers run under a host of new labels, and some under two labels, but five incumbent Democrats switched parties, ran against the Democracy, and won. I have counted these reelections as “losses” for the Democratic Party, but they have sometimes been counted as Democratic victories, even though the party’s official candidates were defeated. Another source of confusion is that some documents list two incumbent Democrats as Free-Soilers before the Kansas-Nebraska debacle, while others list them as Democrats. I have counted them as Democrats, which was their party affiliation in the 1852 election. For the discrepancies in the sources, see Kenneth C. Martis,
Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789–1989
(New York, 1989), 380–90.

44. The cause of the Northern Democracy’s decline is a matter of much debate. Some historians blame the turn of events mainly on bungling politicians. Others claim that antislavery and anti-Southern sentiment overwhelmed the existing parties and created the new Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln. And still others point to underlying changes in local politics, the demise of the old economic issues of Jackson’s day, and the rise of ethno-cultural issues such as temperance and anti-Catholicism. See Avery Craven,
The Coming of the Civil War,
2nd rev. ed. (Chicago, 1966); Eric Foner,
Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men
(New York, 1970); David M. Potter,
The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861
(New York, 1976); Stephen E. Maizlish,
The Triumph of Sectionalism: The Transformation of Ohio Politics, 1844–1856
(Kent, Ohio, 1983); Tyler Anbinder,
Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s
(New York, 1992); Michael F. Holt,
The Political Crisis of the 1850s
(New York, 1978); Paul Kleppner,
The Third Electoral System, 1853–1892
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1979), 59–74; Joel H. Silbey, “‘There Are Other Questions Beside That of Slavery Merely’: The Democratic Party and Antislavery Politics,” in Alan M. Kraut, ed.,
Crusaders and Compromisers: Essays on the Relationship of the Antislavery Struggle to the Antebellum Party System
(Westport, Conn., 1983), 163–66; William E. Gienapp,
The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852–1856
(New York, 1987).

45. For the rise of the Republican Party in New Hampshire, see Thomas R. Bright, “The Anti-Nebraska Coalition and the Emergence of the Republican Party in New Hampshire, 1853–1857,”
Historical New Hampshire
27 (Summer 1972), 57–88.

46. Hodder, “Railroad Background of the Kansas-Nebraska Act,” 17–18.

CHAPTER 7

1. Richard H. Sewall,
Ballots for Freedom: Antislavery Politics in the United States, 1837–1860
(New York, 1976), 279–84;
Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions of 1856, 1860, and 1864…as Reported by Horace Greeley
(Minneapolis, 1893), 15–78; William B. Hesseltine and Rex G. Fisher, eds.,
Trimmers, Trucklers, and Temporizers: Notes of Murat Halstead from the Political Conventions of 1856
(Madison, Wis. 1961), 83–90.

2. Jessie Benton Frémont to Elizabeth Blair Lee, [April 18, 1856], in Pamela Herr and Mary Lee Spence, eds.,
Letters of Jessie Benton Frémont
(Urbana, Ill., 1993), 97–98; Whitman Bennett,
Whittier: Bard of Freedom
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1941), 240–41; William E. Gienapp,
The Origins of the Republican Party
(New York, 1987), 376; Tom Chaffin,
Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire
(New York, 2002), 442–43; Ruhl J. Bartlett,
John C. Frémont and the Republican Party
(Columbus, Ohio, 1930); Margaret Clapp,
Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow
(Boston, 1947).

3. Frederick S. Dellenbaugh,
Frémont and ’49
(New York, 1914), 385, 464; Paul W. Gates, “The Adjudication of Spanish-Mexican Land Claims in California,”
Huntington Library Quarterly
21 (May 1958), 213–36; Paul W. Gates, “California’s Embattled Settlers,”
California Historical Society Quarterly
41 ( June 1962), 99–130; W. W. Robinson,
Land in California
(Berkeley, Calif., 1948); Donald Jackson and Mary Lee Spence, eds.,
The Expeditions of John Charles Frémont,
3 vols. and supps. (Urbana, Ill., 1970–84), 2:299, 3:lix–lxiii.

4. Paul W. Gates, “The Frémont-Jones Scramble for California Land Claims,”
Southern California Quarterly
56 (Spring 1974), 37–38;
Alta California,
June 23, 1857, Nov. 6, 1856; Charles Gregory Crampton, “The Opening of the Mariposa Mining Region, 1849–1859” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1941), 217n and passim; Susan Lee Johnson,
Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush
(New York, 2000), 259–74; Jackson and Spence,
Expeditions of Frémont,
2:297–300; 3:xxxvi–lxix.

5.
San Joaquin Republican,
1852–56, esp. July 20, Aug. 6, 1856.

6. Royce D. Delmatier et al.,
The Rumble of California Politics, 1848–1970
(New York, 1970), 48;
Sacramento Daily Union,
Nov. 18, 1856.

7. Cornelius Cole,
Memoirs
(New York, 1908), 97, 112–14; photocopy of the records of the Republican Association of the City of Sacramento, Organized March 8, 1855, MS, 3, California Historical Society, San Francisco. See also Gerald Stanley, “Slavery and the Origins of the Republican Party in California,”
Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly
60 (1978), 1.

8. Cole,
Memoirs,
112–14;
Sacramento Daily California Times,
Aug. 15, 17, 1856; Ray R. Albin, “Edward D. Baker and California’s First Republican Campaign,”
California History
60 (Fall 1981), 280–83.

9.
Sacramento Daily Union,
Nov. 18, 1856;
Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections,
3rd ed. (Washington, D.C., 1994), 999; Delmatier et al.,
Rumble of California Politics,
48.

10. Norman D. Brown, “Edward Stanly: First Republican Candidate for Governor of California,”
California Historical Society Quarterly
47 (Sept. 1968), 251–72;
Congressional Globe,
25th Cong., 2nd sess., 1837–38, app., 87; 26th Cong., 1st sess., 1839–40, 526; 31st Cong., 1st sess., 1849–50, app., 339; Gerald Stanley, “The Politics of the Antebellum Far West: The Impact of the Slavery and Race Issues in California,”
Journal of the West
16 (Oct. 1977), 19–20.

11.
Speech of the Hon. Edward Stanly Delivered at Sac. July 17, 1857
(Sacramento, Calif., 1857);
Sacramento Union,
July 18, Aug. 27, 1857; Stanley, “Impact of the Slavery and Race Issues in California,” 20.

12.
Sacramento Journal,
Aug. 28, 1856; Albin, “Edward D. Baker,” 283–87; Stanley, “Impact of the Slavery and Race Issues in California,” 23;
Sacramento Union,
Oct. 6, 1857.

13.
Sacramento Union,
June 9, Oct. 12, 1859; Gerald Stanley, “The Slavery Issue and Election in California, 1860,”
Mid-America
62 ( Jan. 1980), 37.

14.
Alta California,
Aug. 2, 1849; Jay Monaghan,
Chile, Peru, and the California Gold Rush of 1849
(Berkeley, Calif., 1973); Peyton Hurt, “The Rise and Fall of the ‘Know Nothings’ in California,”
California Historical Society Quarterly
9 (March and June 1930), 16–49, 99–128.

15.
Alta California,
Sept. 3–6, 1854; Hurt, “Rise and Fall of the ‘Know Nothings’ in California,” 27–28; R. A. Burchell,
The San Francisco Irish, 1848–1880
(Berkeley, Calif., 1980), 212 n. 54, 127.

16. [William H. Rhodes],
The Political Letters of “Caxton”
(San Francisco, 1855), 14–16.

17.
Sacramento Pictorial Union,
Jan. 1, 1856; Howard Brent Melendy,
The Governors of California
(Georgetown, Calif., 1965), 66–79; Robert Sobel and John Raimo, eds.,
Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States,
4 vols. (Westport, Conn., 1978).

18. Lionel E. Freedman, “The Bigler Regime” (master’s thesis, Stanford University, 1959).

19. California State Capitol Museum Archives, capitolmuseum.ca.gov/english/legislature/history/year1856.htm;
Journal of the California State Senate, 1856,
87, 89;
Sacramento Daily Union,
Oct. 3, 1855;
California Chronicle,
Oct. 4, 1855; Arthur Quinn,
The Rivals: William Gwin, David Broderick, and the Birth of California
(New York, 1994), 172.

20.
Alta California,
Feb. 26, 1854;
San Francisco Daily Herald,
March 1, 1854;
Sacramento Union,
June 25, Dec. 21–24, 1855; Flint obituary,
San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin,
Jan. 5, 1857; Henry S. Foote,
Casket of Reminiscences
(Washington, D.C., 1874); John D. Carter, “Henry Stuart Foote in California Politics, 1854–1857,”
Journal of Southern History
9 (May 1943), 224–37.

21. Tyler Anbinder,
Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the
Politics of the 1850s
(New York, 1992), 162–74; Henry Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America,
3 vols. (Boston, 1872–77), 2:423–33.

22. California State Capitol Museum Archives, capitolmuseum.ca.gov/english/legislature/history/year1857.htm; Delmatier et al.,
Rumble of California Politics,
48.