Extreme turmoil best describes California in 1849. Overrun with gold-seekers and faced with mounting violence in the mining camps and nearby towns, some Americans in San Jose, Monterey, and Sacramento urged military governor Bennett Riley to organize a government. Generally, Congress had overseen the process whereby the federal government acquired territories that, after meeting certain requirements, were admitted to statehood. Caught in the crossfire of sectional politics and stymied by the thorny issue of slavery’s status in the Mexican land cession of 1848, Congress failed to provide a governing structure for California in 1849. For good reason, Riley exceeded his authority and called for the election of delegates to attend a constitutional convention to accomplish that task. Next, a legislature was established, followed by statehood.
Monterey, a principal Pacific port and the capital of early California, served as the site of the six-week convention that wrote the constitution of 1849. In Colton Hall, beginning September 1, 48 delegates assembled: 37 represented northern districts, 11 came from southern districts; 14 were lawyers, 11 were farmers, none were miners; 8 were Californios, 6 were European-born immigrants. The Californios included Pablo de la Guerra, Jose Carrillo, and Mariano Vallejo. Pre-Mexican War Anglo settler delegates included Thomas O. Larkin, Abel Stearns, and convention president Robert B. Semple. Apropos of the times, there were no women, Native Americans, African Americans, or Asians among the constitution-writers. English was spoken, with translators for the delegates who only spoke Spanish. Moreover, the resulting constitution required that “all laws, decrees, regulations,
And provisions” be published in both English and Spanish, thereby mandating an early bilingualism in governance.
Attendees looked to the constitutions of Iowa and New York for guidance, and generally divided on the key issues along north-south lines. Their major concerns included whether California would be a state or a territory, how to handle slavery, who should receive citizenship, where the eastern boundary should be drawn, and the property rights of married women. Delegates from southern California favored territorial status because they correctly feared that the landowners in and around Los Angeles would carry a disproportionate tax burden under statehood. By majority vote statehood won. Led by William E. Shannon, delegates from both the northern and southern reaches of California decided to disallow slavery. While moral considerations were not entirely absent, the determining factor was that attendees did not want non-slaveholding gold miners to have to compete with gangs of chattel workers. Such competition was thought to be unfair and would “degrade [white] labor.” As in the United States as a whole, citizenship was extended to whites only. Californios fell within that category. With citizenship went voting rights. Accordingly, the constitution affirmed that the suffrage could be exercised by “every white, male citizen of Mexico who shall have elected to become a citizen of the United States.” Indians, but not African Americans, could be given voting rights in the future if both houses of the state legislature passed, by a two-thirds vote, a measure to that effect. Besides women and nonwhites, voting was also denied to “idiots,” “insane persons,” and those convicted of “any infamous crime.”
The eastern boundary issue aroused considerable debate at the convention. Some delegates wished to include parts of today’s Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, as all of these areas fell within the Mexican cession contained in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. Delegate Charles T. Botts responded sarcastically: “Why not indirectly settle it [the eastern boundary controversy] by extending your limits to the Mississippi [River]? Why not include the island of Cuba?” The sense of the majority was that land east of the Sierra Nevada was mainly desert and of little value. Consequently, the constitution-writers settled on the present eastern boundary, which basically follows the length of the Sierra Nevada range. (See Chapter 1 for a detailed explanation.)
Delegates deliberated on the property of married women. Spanish and Mexican law recognized the separate property of women both before and during marriage. Under English common law, which prevailed throughout much of the United States, upon marriage a woman’s property was transferred to her husband. According to Botts, “the God of nature made women frail, lovely and dependent. . . the only despotism on earth that I would advocate is the despotism of the husband.” Botts was answered by Henry Wager Halleck, who argued pragmatically that by protecting the property rights of female spouses the delegates could not “offer a greater inducement for women of fortune to come to California.” Halleck’s call for adopting the Spanish-Mexican legal precedent in this matter carried. California, thereby, became the first state to safeguard constitutionally the separate property rights of married women.
Besides these specific issues, the framers included in their document a more philosophical statement regarding individual rights. Among these was the right of “pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.” This was truly novel, particularly the achievement and not
Merely the pursuit of happiness. No other state constitution contained such a promise. Some authorities, for good reason, view this feature of the charter as characteristically Californian.
Reminiscent of the outsized vision of citizen happiness, the delegates not only accepted federal land grants for support of public schools, a standard procedure for new states, but went a step beyond and anticipated the founding of a university. Such an institution was thought necessary “for the promotion of literature, the arts and sciences.”
Before adjourning, conventioneers adopted a state seal. The Great Seal of the State of California brims with lofty aims and hopes. In the foreground it features Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and the arts, who sprang fully formed from Jupiter’s head - a reference to California’s bid to bypass territorial status in favor of immediate statehood. A grizzly bear crouches at her feet, while nearby a prospector wields a pick, and ships and isles dot San Francisco Bay. Hillsides and snow-sprinkled Sierra peaks form the background. Inscribed above this idyllic scene is the Greek motto “Eureka,” meaning “I have found it.” An arc of 31 stars, indicating California’s position in the order of statehood, graces the upper reaches of the design.
The constitution was approved by voters in a referendum on November 13, 1849: 12,061 in favor, 811 opposed. Argentina’s leaders were so impressed with the document that it became the model for their nation’s constitution of 1853. With a charter in hand, California’s lawmakers set about completing a governmental framework for America’s first Pacific state.
On the same day as the referendum, elections were held for the state’s first officeholders. Peter H. Burnett won the governorship; John McDougal became lieutenant governor. The
Figure 5.1 The great seal of the state of California. Photo Atlaspix / Shutterstock. com.
First legislature convened in San Jose, on December 15. The two houses of the legislature, the senate and assembly, elected John C. Fremont and William M. Gwin to the U. S. Senate. Audaciously, Californians established the apparatus of a state government without statehood. In short, lacking Congressional approval, decisions made in San Jose meant little if anything.
Undaunted, the first legislature went about its business. Locating a permanent capital proved elusive, as rival towns put in their bids. From 1849 to 1854 the capital shifted six times, mainly around San Francisco Bay among San Jose, Vallejo, Benicia, and finally the river and Pacific port city of Sacramento, which became the permanent seat of state government, due mainly to its central location, influential advocates, and access to the sea. Legislators gained greater traction on such policy issues as organizing local and county governments, establishing law enforcement agencies, and collecting revenues. Despite such achievements, many of the delegates remained fixated on their narrowest political interests, and repaired to a local saloon often enough to be dubbed “The Legislature of a Thousand Drinks.”
Congress’s decision on statehood was entangled in sectional and partisan disputes ultimately tied to the slavery question. As that question became increasingly divisive, states were admitted to the Union in pairs so as to ensure an equal balance between those allowing and those prohibiting slavery. Importantly, this method prevented either the North or South from gaining a numerical advantage in the Senate. California’s admission would tip the nation’s sectional balance in favor of the non-slaveholding northern tier of states. Southerners in Congress would not allow that, unless in so doing they could receive compensatory concessions.
to the wits of Kentucky Senator Henry Clay and others, the impasse was broken by a political bargain between leading Whigs and Democrats: the Compromise of 1850. Incorporated into the so-called Omnibus Bill, the compromise provided for: (1) California’s admission into the Union as a free state; (2) the organization of Utah and New Mexico as territories that could decide locally whether to allow slavery when they applied for statehood; (3) the termination of the sale of slaves (but not the ending of slavery itself) in Washington, D. C., and a stronger federal fugitive slave law. On September 9, 1850, the Omnibus Bill became law, granting California statehood.
World History
