THE ATTITUDE OF CALIFORNIA TO THE CIVIL WAR.

BY IMOGENE SPAULDING.

SECESSION SENTIMENT AND MOVEMENTS.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, California occupied a position in the United States that was unique in many ways. Separated from the East by natural physical barriers in the Rocky Mountains and Great American Desert, and lacking telegraphic communication with the States about to go to war,1 California had naturally come to have a feeling of remoteness with respect to her sister States. Economically, as interest throughout the United States was sectional rather than national in 1861, California had no connection with the growth of the middle-western, eastern or southern States; as a growing State, she was busy developing her own resources and building up her own budding industries. Politically, California was not interested from a material and selfish standpoint in the questions which were tearing the Union asunder in 1861. She had no cause for grievance against the national government: the States Rights question had never been a disturbing element in her politics as it was in the East; slavery had always been forbidden. A comparatively new State, situated almost beyond the margin of the nation's life, and almost forgotten by her sister States in the anxious days of '61, it would seem that California would not play a role of any consequence in the great national drama of 1861-1865. That she did display a deep-seated interest in the struggle so far from her borders, and that she played a part which redounds to her honor, is especially noteworthy and remarkable.

California's interest in the Civil War may be attributed in part to the newness of the State and the fact that so many of her inhabitants had recently come from the States about to engage in the life-and-death struggle of the Union. Those who were from the northern States were unqualifiedly Union men in California, while those who were from slave States, or whose families, relatives or friends were living in the South, where-after the war beganhomes were being ruined and devastated by war, were naturally

1. The Pony Express, established in 1859, was the quickest conveyor of war news at first. The Northern Overland Mail stage line was organized in 1861. The Southern stage by way of the Santa Fe trail, El Paso, Yuma and Los Angeles to San Francisco had to be abandoned when the war began.

bitter against the Union, and were hot-heated secessionists. Especially among the southern counties keen partisan hostility was revealed; and sympathy with the Confederate States was only restrained from rendering active assistance to the Confederacy by the loyalty of State officers and the prompt action of the national military authorities.

The fact that there was so large a disloyal element in California at the beginning of the Civil War, Mr. Earle explains by pointing to California's cosmopolitan population at that time. The three elements, in his estimation, contributing to disorder were: (1) the large number of immigrants in the State who had come from southern States, and whose sympathies were therefore always with the Confederacy; (2) the large, adventurous, lawless element, so large a portion of which had come to California during the gold rush; and, (3) the large element of native Californians themselves, i. e., the mass of ignorant natives whose instincts socially and politically were Spanish rather than American, and who could not therefore assimilate or appreciate American ideals, American laws, etc. Few of the native Californians could be compared to the refined and cultivated De La Guerra. Few felt any ties binding them to the United States,-land troubles having left them none too loyal;— hence they cared not whether they were to be allied to the Confederacy or to remain a part of the Union. Thus it was that disloyal sentiment was aroused and was continually seeking expression in various forms throughout the war. In the early part of the great struggle, the inactivity of the over-confident Union men allowed the secessionists to create more of a disturbance than they otherwise would have been allowed to do. General Sumner, commander of the Department of the Pacific after Johnston's recall, wrote to Washington in June of 1861: “I believe there is a large majority of Union men in the State, but they are supine with confidence, while there is an active and zealous party of secessionists who will make all the mischief they can."

Slavery, as we have said, never was a legalized institution in California. In 1829 slavery was abolished from all Mexican territory, and by 1848 there were relatively few negroes in California. In 1849, the constitutional convention excluded slavery from California with practical unanimity, so that when Congress admitted the State into the Union, it came in as a free State. The sentiment of the Golden State in 1849-1850 against the institution of Slavery, however, did not wholly deter slave owners from bringing their slaves with them to California. At the beginning of the gold rush, in fact, quite a number of people from the South brought their slaves with them to work in the mines. Many hoped and believed that California would side with the South on the great

slavery question. In 1850, there were nearly one thousand negroes in the State. In 1852, the number had increased to nearly two thousand two hundred,—many in virtual slavery, for contemporary evidence goes to show that many negroes continued in the state of slavery in California for shorter or longer periods after 1849, some not being released from this involuntary servitude until the period of national emancipation.

The slavery laws in California were stringent. "No other free State in the Union had such odious laws against negroes as had California."* Just after the State was admitted into the Union, a fugitive slave law was passed authorizing the extradition of slaves brought into the State voluntarily by their masters. Also, the legislature of 1852 enacted a law against negroes (which the legislatures of 1853, 1854, and 1855 re-enacted), the intention being to "legalize the kidnapping of free negroes, as well as the arrest of fugitives." The Supreme Court in California in 1852 said that slavery was still a legal institution, i. e., that slaves brought to California before 1849 were still slaves when California was admitted to the Union.2 But in 1859, a case was decided reversing the former decision, and stating that only travelers or temporary visitors could lawfully hold slaves in California. Laws and judicial decisions, however, were not sufficient to prevent either the introduction or continuance of the institution; and they did not by any means abate the aggressive sentiment of the active and able pro-slavery minority in California, which dominated the politics of the State for the first decade of its existence, and which preached the delusive doctrine of Popular Sovereignty3 whenever opportunity. offered.

The slavery question played a distinct part in the settlement of the boundaries of California in the constitutional convention of 1849, and in attempted divisions of the State later. In 1849, "the southern faction led by Gwin made the eastern boundary of the inchoate state the crest of the Rocky Mountains. Gwin's plan was to make the area of the state so large that Congress would refuse to admit

** Guinn, A History of California, I, 206.

1. Ibid, I, 206.

2. In this "Andy Slave Case" decision of 1852, Judge Murray enunciated the same doctrine relating to the status of an African that Chief Justice Taney afterwards set forth in the Dred Scott decision. Cole, Memoirs, 94, 95, 96.

3. In the Charleston Democratic Convention in April, 1860, California and Oregon were the only free States that voted for the majority report (on the platform) in which this doctrine was enunciated: "Congress has no power to abolish slavery in the Territories. The Territorial Legislature has no power to abolish slavery in any Territory, nor to prohibit the introduction of slaves therein, nor any power to exclude slavery therefrom, nor any power to destroy or impair the right of property in slaves by any legislation whatever."

it as one state, and would divide it into two states on the line of the Missouri Compromise 36 degrees 30 minutes. The Northern men in the convention discovered Gwin's scheme and defeated it by a reconsideration of the boundary section at the very close of the convention." Up to the Civil War, the question of the State division repeatedly aroused the pro-slavery element, who "reasoned that if a new state could be cut off from the southern portion, it could be made slave territory. Many pro-slavery men had settled in that section, and although slave labor might not be profitable, the accession of two pro-slavery senators would help to maintain the balance of power to the South in the Senate.”2

The legislature of 1859, which was intensely pro-slavery, passed a bill, which the Governor approved, to set off six southern counties and form a separate territorial government for them; the people of these counties themselves voted 2477 for, 828 against dismemberment, and the results of the vote and the act were sent to the President and Congress. But "the intense national excitement over the questions which led to the Civil War delayed action," and nothing ever came of this movement in the interests of the pro-slavery element in California.

This vexed slavery question was settling itself in California, however, because the geographical, social and economic conditions were not favorable to the continuance of the "peculiar institution" of the South. By 1860, an anti-slavery party had been formed, too, not strong in numbers at first, but containing in its roll many prominent names, such as C. P. Huntington, Cornelius Cole, Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, Edwin B. Crocker, Charles Crocker and others. David C. Broderick, United States Senator from California from 1857 to 18594 also made his influence felt in the contest against the representatives of a slave oligarchy in California which dominated the politics of the State at that time. Although a Democrat, Broderick was an unswerving anti-Lecompton Democrat who consistently fought slavery and slavery issues throughout his political career.

By 1860, natural political and economic conditions in California plus the strenuous efforts of prominent anti-slavery men had

1. Guinn, How California Escaped State Division, Publications of the Historical Society of Southern California, VI, 226.

2. Ibid, VI, 226.

3. Widney, A Historical Sketch of the Movement for a Political Separation of the Two Californias, Northern and Southern, under both the Spanish and American Regimes, Publications of the Historical Society of Southern California, I, 21.

4. Senator Broderick was elected to serve in the Senate from 1857 to 1861; but he was killed in a duel with Judge Terry of the Supreme Bench in California.

wrought a great change in the attitude of the majority of the people towards slavery. Cornelius Cole, who accompanied Stanford on an electioneering tour through the State in 1860, after Stanford had been nominated for Governor, said that they were given a respectful hearing on all occasions, notwithstanding the fact that Stanford and Cole were both active anti-slavery men, and slavery was one of the principal themes of discussion. And the result of the fall election in 1860 "proved that the anti-slavery doctrines, urged with so much consistency in regions that seemed to give no token of respect for them, by Republican stump speakers and a portion of the press, not always without peril of insult, and for the orators showers of stale eggs, had taken unexpected hold of the interior; that the Northern sentiment was strengthening in the larger cities, that the quarrels of the Democracy and the corruption of a party. that ran the State for its spoils, had worked out their legitimate result in the disgust of its more intelligent adherents.”1

One way, however, in which secession sentiment found expression at the opening of the war was in the advocacy of a Pacific Republic. The "copperheads" (Northern men with Southern principles) especially favored the formation of a new government on the Pacific Coast. Governor Weller was not opposed to the idea. In fact, he said: "If the wild spirit of fanaticism which now pervades the land should destroy the magnificent confederacy-which God forbid she (California) will not go with the south or north, but here upon the shores of the Pacific, found a mighty republic, which may in the end prove the greatest of all."? A year before the outbreak of the war, the project for the creation of a Pacific Republic was enthusiastically advocated by a number of prominent citizens and by several widely circulated newspapers. The Sonora Democrat, for example, said: "We are for a Pacific Republic if unfortunately the Confederacy should be disrupted. We believe it to be the true policy of California in such an event, to cut loose from both sections and not involve herself in the general ruin. She has all the elements of greatness within her borders. Situated thousands of miles from the distracted States, she would be an asylum of peace and safety, and many thousands would flock to her shores-the effect of which would be to build upon the Pacific a mighty, prosperous and independent nation. If the fond spirit of fanaticism (of the North) is to culminate with the destruction of the Confederacy, we would be loth indeed to see our young state arrayed on the side of injustice and oppression."

1. Tuthill, The History of California, 576. 2. Hittell, History of California, IV, 255.