CHAPTER V

THE CALIFORNIA ELECTION OF 1867

In the election of 1867 the Democrats regained a commanding majority in the Assembly and came within two seats of equaling their Union-Republican opponents in the Senate. The issues of black suffrage and Chinese naturalization (the latter implying voting rights) virtually destroyed the fragile Union-Republican coalition composed of War Democrats and Republicans. In little more than two years following the end of the Civil War, the Democrats recovered their ante-bellum dominance of state politics. Deliberately exploiting the white workingman’s racial and economic fears, the Democrats established a state government in California that represented an almost total victory for the ideology of white supremacy. In the campaign Democrats made the issues of Chinese labor, voting rights, and immigration the main themes. African American suffrage remained an issue, but the possibility of the Chinese voting created even more alarm in the white population. In the words of Hubert Howe Bancroft, it was “the most bitter and exciting of the many exciting political campaigns witnessed by this politician-ridden state.” California’s blacks again found themselves caught between self-interest and whatever sympathy they felt for the Chinese as another oppressed race. The differences between the two groups, however, were too great to allow united action.[1]

In 1867 anti-Chinese agitation in California reached a new high. One reason was the passage of United States Senator Cornelius Cole’s bill organizing the Oriental Steamship Company in 1865 and its implementation in 1867. The line was to carry the mail monthly between San Francisco and Chinese ports and it represented a long-awaited recognition of the importance of trade with Asia. Merchants and capitalists welcomed this development, but urban workers feared the line would bring still more Chinese laborers to the state. They were already alarmed by the large numbers of Chinese Charles Crocker had hired to work on the Central Pacific Railroad, although the majority of these workers were not newcomers recruited in China, but ex-miners. From 1865 on, Chinese laborers performed much of the unskilled construction and maintenance work for the Western railways; this mutually beneficial arrangement only served to increase the unpopularity of both the Chinese and the railroads. The most damaging charges against George C. Gorham, the Union candidate for governor in the election of 1867, were that he lobbied for a bill to give the Western Pacific Railroad $3,000,000 and that he favored Chinese suffrage.[2]

Although the post-Civil War depression did not reach the West until after the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad, in 1867 some signs of trouble surfaced, especially in the wool manufacturing industries. The state’s ready-made clothing industry flourished during the war; but as the war ended and Eastern manufacturers began to dispose of their oversupply of woolen products, San Francisco’s two woolen mills had to cut their production by half. In May 1867 the San Francisco Daily Alta California said, “We are assured that all the mills would be obliged to cease operations altogether, but for the low price of Chinese labor.” The employers also reduced wages and moved Chinese workers into skilled and semiskilled positions. In 1870 the same pattern occurred in the boot and shoemaking industries.[3]

The San Francisco Daily Morning Call published a series of five “Letters to the People,” in January and February 1867. Signed “Anti-Coolie,” the letters delineated the workingman’s point of view. Describing California’s unemployment and labor surplus, the writer said:

Looking ahead to the elections, “Anti-Coolie” declared, “We want anti-Chinese Congressmen, an anti-Chinese Governor, anti-Chinese legislators, and anti-Chinese officers to fill every position down to constable.” The writer added that no man should be elected who “is not secure” on the question of Chinese immigration. Notwithstanding its anti-Chinese bias, the Call deplored the incident in February 1867 in which white, primarily Irish, workers stoned and beat Chinese laborers grading a lot in San Francisco. “The presence here of a large body of Chinese may work hardships to white labor,” the paper said, “but it does not justify the latter in defying the laws and committing acts of violence and outrage upon helpless and defenceless [sic] people.” Nevertheless, random acts of violence against the Chinese continued, and in April a stocking factory that employed Chinese burned down and arson was suspected.[4]

California’s black population also resented Chinese competition in the labor market. In September 1865, the San Francisco Elevator expressed the hope that the contractors and managers of the Central Pacific Railroad would “see the importance of employing the freedmen on that road in preference to Chinamen. . . .The American people owe the negro labor—they have given them freedom, he now requires labor and protection.” In December the Elevator said that the Colored Convention of 1865 had decided to ask the railroad to hire 20,000 to 40,000 freedmen to complete the line and added:

A comparison between the Asiatic Mongol and the American negro is scarcely worth discussing. The former has but little to recommend him; docile and obedient, but with a knavish cunning which the better enables him to cover his evil propensities; . . . The latter has his all at stake in his own country; ‘to the manor born,’ he is interested in the growth and prosperity of America; . . .[5]

In April 1865, the Elevator had declared:

In July 1865 the Elevator had denied that America “is the white man’s country. It is the country of all American citizens—either by birth or adoption.” Yet in March 1866, the newspaper again revealed anti-Chinese feelings in an article describing the underemployment of blacks as domestic servants in California. Calling the Chinese filthy, dishonest, and “infidel,” the writer admitted few other occupations were open to African Americans and “from generations of servitude, we are compelled to acknowledge the humiliating fact that a majority of our people are better fitted for that kind of labor than any other.” The writer thought Californians “want, or should want, their offspring reared in Christian principles and civilized habits, which cannot de done with the present class of servants.” The Chinese were not citizens, and in California racial solidarity was not a consistent feature of the struggle for survival on the lower end of the economic scale.[6]

A “Letter from the Interior” published in the Alta in June 1867, illustrated a different attitude toward the Chinese. “I have taken occasion to inquire about the general feeling in the mountains on the Chinese question,” the correspondent stated, “and I have found no such hostility to the Celestial as prevails among a large part of the population of San Francisco. The writer noted that the white surface miners, who formerly competed with the Chinese, had “almost disappeared.” “The farmers, wine-growers and owners of quartz mines employ mainly Chinamen, and of course do not wish to see them expelled. . . . The only considerable class who are supposed to have much feeling against the Celestials are the hired laborers in the quartz mines and mills; . . .” The writer added:

I have been told by farmers, miners and politicians, of both parties, that so long as the anti-Chinese movement is a mere matter of buncombe and political clap-trap, the men of all parties in the mountains are willing to let the affair take its course, but that so soon as it looks as if the Mongolians are really to be expelled then the people generally will be found taking a very decided stand in favor of the yellow men.[7]

Unified, superior in numbers, and armed with the vote, the urban white workers pursued a successful course in their activities. As early as 1859 white cigar makers had promoted a boycott of Chinese-made cigars. Western cigar makers were then organized in guilds instead of trade unions, and the guilds functioned as anti-coolie clubs. Another nucleus of anti-Chinese agitation was the political ward club. The latter expanded its anti-Chinese activities and its structure in response to the arrest of Irish workers involved in the violence against Chinese laborers in February 1867. From the legal defense committee came a central committee responsible for forming anti-coolie clubs in each of the city’s twelve wards. The ward clubs accepted both groups and individuals; each simply had to pledge that they would resist the further immigration of Chinese and advocate removing those already in the state. In 1867 the organization that unified the anti-Chinese efforts of the guilds, ward clubs, and trade unions was the Central Pacific Anti-Coolie Association. Though short-lived, it provided a model for thirty years of anti-Chinese activity.[8]

During the 1850s there was continuous trade union activity in San Francisco, Sacramento, and Stockton. Not all the early unions survived, but trade unionism remained vigorous in the later 1860s, and the workers fought to maintain the high wages and shorter hours they had won during the Civil War. Three major groups organized strong unions: the construction, shipbuilding, and metal trades. Despite the absence of Chinese workers employed in these trades, their unions and others such as the masons, painters, plumbers, machinists, blacksmiths, and house carpenters, all affiliated with the Central Pacific Anti-Coolie Association. The workingmen already felt threatened by Chinese competition. Also in 1867 employers banded together to force a return to the ten-hour day. Responding to these threats, the workingmen turned to political activity, for even in San Francisco’s early days the politicians had found it wise to listen to union demands.[9]

In January 1867, an organization called the Industrial League appeared on the San Francisco labor scene. This secret society played a part in the formation of the Anti-Coolie Association and in March called a Workingmen’s Convention. The convention’s platform asked for a mechanics’ lien law, an eight-hour day, and repression of coolie labor. To strengthen their party, the Union Short-hairs wooed the Workingmen’s Party before the San Francisco Union primary election in June. The Union Short-hairs also induced Democrats to vote in this election, although the newly enacted Porter Primary law was supposed to prevent party members from voting in primaries other than their own. Aided by a combination of cunning and corruption, the “Shorts” once more triumphed over the Union Long-hairs. Success was short-lived, however, as most workingmen were Democrats, and the more natural alliance was between urban labor and the Democracy. During the first eight months of 1867, a coalition of anti-coolie clubs, trade unions, and Democrats began to take shape. In 1867 the Democrats were strong enough to dispense with the support of dissident Unionists and held their own primaries and county conventions in preparation for the state convention.[10]

On April 19 the Anti-Coolie Association forced the Chinese issue by asking the Union candidates for governor—John Bidwell, Caleb T. Fay, George C. Gorham, and Frank M. Pixley—for their opinions on the Chinese labor question. Bidwell, who employed Chinese on his ranch, replied, “It ought not be necessary for me to have to say that I am opposed to slavery in any form.” Fay said he opposed Chinese immigration and labor, but Gorham took a surprising stand against the policy of the Anti-Coolie Association. Gorham was a member of the Union Short-hair faction whom Pixley described as a “small, slight gentleman, of pleasing exterior and amiable countenance.” A forty-niner at the age of 19, Gorham served as Governor Frederick F. Low’s private secretary for several months in 1863. Currently, Gorham was clerk of the United States Circuit and District Courts of California.[11]

Replying to the president of the Anti-Coolie Association, Gorham said, “If I understand the avowed object of the so-called anti-Coolie movement, it is an attempt by men of the European race to prevent, by all lawful means, the employment, at the various industrial callings in California, of men of the Asiatic race. I am not in favor of such a scheme.” Gorham pledged to “remedy the evil,” if, “as some believe,” Chinese were being held to low-paid, long-term contracts in the state. He declared himself:

. . .opposed to human slavery, and to all its substitute aliases; Coolieism, peonage, contract systems in which one side makes the bargains for both—these are all abhorrent. But because I am an anti-slavery man, I am not also an anti-slave man. Because I detest the overreaching man who would grind the faces of the poor, I do not also detest the poor.

Gorham wrote that he believed in the Christian religion, “and that rests upon the universal fatherhood of God, and the universal brotherhood of man. . .. No one man of whatever race has any better right to labor, and receive his hire therefore, than has any other man.” The former New Yorker opposed the Anti-Coolie Association on the grounds of policy as well as principle. He pointed out that the United States had sought commercial ties with China and Japan and added, “Now that we have succeeded in breaking down the Chinese wall, let us not hasten to erect an anti-Chinese wall at home.” Gorham predicted that if California had abundant cheap labor, “the state would go forward at such strides as would make prosperity general among all deserving classes.” He concluded by saying, “if we would not have the Chinaman steal, beg or starve, he must be allowed to work.” Speculation about the reasons for Gorham’s pro-Chinese stand range from his need to maintain the support of the owners of the Pacific Railroad, a desire to placate the Union Party Long-hairs, and last, a genuine concern for the Chinese worker. In view of Gorham’s past political dealings, and those that were to come, his concern for the Chinese seems the least credible reason for his stand—yet he must have realized it was a politically risky one.[12]

Gorham was unpopular with regular Unionists, partly because of his role as a lobbyist for the Central Pacific Railroad, and also because of his affiliation with United States Senator John Conness. Despite his failure to secure the election of Frederick F. Low to the United States Senate, Conness still possessed considerable control over Union Party politics. Long-hair Union Party members disliked him because his manipulations in 1865 had caused disunity. Notwithstanding his own and Gorham’s unpopularity, Conness returned to California in May 1867, bent on gaining his own re-election and aiding Gorham’s bid for the governorship. Throughout the campaign the Union and other newspapers criticized both men. The Union ran six anti-Conness letters signed “Nemesis” in which the paper charged Conness with leadership of a “band of conspirators” in the legislature of 1859-60 who engineered the “Parsons bulkhead swindle.” This scheme would have allowed certain corporations exclusive right to build a bulkhead around San Francisco’s entire waterfront, but Governor John G. Downey vetoed the measure. As for Gorham, the Union charged “The people of the State believe that Gorham was the chief manager in procuring the passage of the railroad bill, which would have taken $3,000,000 from the people and have placed a considerable portion of that sum in the pockets of a few individuals, whether they should ever construct a mile of road or not. They believe that Gorham would have pecuniarily benefited by the success of this bill,” and “They believe that he held the same relationship to the Tideland bill, . . . ” Governor Low agreed that the railroad bill was questionable and he vetoed the measure.[13]

To control the nomination for governor, Conness and Gorham needed to dominate the Union Party state convention. They did so by arranging that the county conventions elected delegates favorable to Gorham. The Union State Central committee had recommended that the party primaries comply with the Porter Primary Election law, a law designed to frustrate “bossism.” But Conness and Gorham were able to ignore the law in Sacramento and San Francisco, at least, and with these key delegations pledged to Gorham, they won control of the state convention. Their maneuvers caught the attention of the press. The San Francisco Daily Examiner commented, “This combination of political adventurers and capitalists, by a free use of money, and the skillful manipulation of the Workingmen’s organization succeeded in carrying this city, against three-fourths of the so-called Union party, for Gorham.” The Union scolded, “Party usage required that all should be excluded from participation in the primaries except members of the Union party; but the emergency was great and party usage was again abandoned, the Primary election law repudiated and the doors thrown open for Democrats and ‘citizens registered or unregistered’ to vote.”[14]

The Union Party state convention met in Sacramento on June 12, 1867. The handpicked delegates nominated Gorham for governor over frontrunner John Bidwell by a vote of 148 to 132. Also chosen were Conness men John P. Jones, lieutenant-governor; William H. Parks, secretary of state, and Josiah Howell, controller. The Union Party resolutions included statements favoring Congressional reconstruction and an eight-hour law, and one which read, “the importation of Chinese or any other people of the Mongolian race into the Pacific states or territories is in every respect injurious and degrading to American labor, by forcing it into unjust and ruinous competition, and an evil that should be restricted by legislation and abated by such legal and constitutional means as are in our power.” On the Chinese question, Gorham found himself not only years ahead of California’s voters, but also in opposition to his own party’s platform.[15]

Gorham’s close win over Bidwell spelled trouble for the Union ticket. Two leading Union newspapers immediately began an offensive against Gorham and his running mates that continued beyond election day. The San Francisco Bulletin, while denying personal ill feeling toward Gorham, said he was the cause of dissension in the Union Party. The newspaper also said, “There is no intelligent and upright man in the Union ranks who does not know and regret that Gorham’s nomination was obtained by fraud upon the party, by an immoral combination of Democratic and moneyed influences, and by every kind of intrigue and trading known under the general title of wire-pulling.” Calling John Bidwell the popular choice of the Union Party, the Union said he was defeated because he would not stoop to buying votes at the state convention, and added, “We shall be bitterly disappointed if the State Central Committee . . . obstinately holds out, refuses to make the reforms of the ticket demanded, and thereby makes the success of the Democracy next to assured.” The Union also prophesied, “With the Union party in the State largely in the ascendant, an objectionable ticket has been nominated, under such circumstances that it will be impossible to concentrate upon it the full strength of the party.” Indeed, even before the state convention, Union men in San Francisco and Sacramento revolted against the Conness-Gorham machine and refused to recognize the Short-hair county conventions. They held separate primaries and sent separate delegates to the state convention, yet in each case the Gorham delegation won admission over the Long-hair group.[16]

So deep was the party schism that Bidwell’s supporters abandoned the Union Party immediately after the state convention and on June 17 reorganized the Republican Party. At the convention in Sacramento on July 16 the delegates endorsed the Union nominations, except for those for governor, secretary of state, controller, and printer. They nominated John Bidwell, governor; John G. McCallum, secretary of state; William Jones, controller, and Edward G. Jefferis, printer. The Republican platform declared “We are unqualifiedly opposed to coolie labor, but are in favor of voluntary immigration, and just protection to all free labor from whatever nationality it may come.” The platform also endorsed “impartial suffrage without distinction of color,” and “such limit by law to the hours of labor as the sound judgment of laborers themselves shall fix, . . .” On July 24, however, Bidwell declined the Republican nomination, saying, “A new ticket cannot be substituted, at this late hour, with any certainty of success.” Bidwell thought the “copperheads” would take the state if Union members failed to rally to the party’s support. In Bidwell’s place the Republicans then nominated Caleb T. Fay, and he accepted on August 6, slightly less than a month before the election. Bidwell’s supporters, the Long-hairs, primarily deserted the Union Party over the issues of political corruption and railroad domination; in the next month many more voters abandoned the party in response to the Democrats’ anti-black, anti-Chinese, anti-Radical Reconstruction program, with its emphasis on the exclusion of African Americans and Chinese from civil, political, and economic equality.[17]

The Elevator vowed to support the Union Party because of its loyalty to the federal government and to the “party of progress;” yet the paper objected to the platform’s omission of a plank favorable to black suffrage, saying:

A month earlier, the Union had agreed with the Elevator on the suffrage question, saying, “Sooner or later the adhering as well as the seceding States will have to acquiesce in a general and uniform law of Congress regulating suffrage and making equal in all the States the rights and immunities of citizens of the United States.”[18]

The Alta joined the Elevator in supporting the Union Party, but was less than enthusiastic about Gorham. The Alta wanted a Union victory in order to influence Congressional legislation—“Whether Johnson is impeached or not, we need every vote in both Houses of Congress to sustain the Congressional policy.” A few days later, the Alta stated, “we support the principle and platform of the Union party, and thus support Mr. Gorham incidentally. . . . We stand by the Union party in this contest because that is the best hope of the State and of the Nation; . . .” Despite its professed support of Congressional policy, in 1867 the Alta did not support federally imposed universal suffrage. Describing a bill to provide universal suffrage introduced by Senator Charles Sumner (Republican, Massachusetts), the newspaper declared that such a law would deprive the states of “their traditional right to regulate suffrage, each according to its own discretion.” The Alta added:

“We rejoice,” said the paper, “that the Senate has headed him [Sumner] off, and trust they will keep so.” The Alta was a leading booster of trade with Asia and a firm supporter of the Chinese as a profitable source of cheap labor, but in 1867 the newspaper drew the line at voting rights for the Chinese.[19]

The Democratic convention met in San Francisco on June 19. The crowd attending overflowed into the street. Eugene Casserly was elected chairman and conducted the meetings from a speakers’ platform decorated with Irish and German flags. The delegates nominated Henry H. Haight for governor and William Holden, a man the Alta had once called “a fossil representative of Buchanan Democracy,” for lieutenant governor. Also on the ticket were Robert Watt, controller, and Jo Hamilton, attorney general.[20]

The Democratic platform criticized Congressional reconstruction as “harsh, illiberal, and oppressive” and declared that the right to regulate suffrage belonged “exclusively to the several states of this union.” Another plank read:

As George Gorham later pointed out, the platform was not quite as straightforward on the subject of Chinese immigration: “. . . power to regulate foreign immigration being vested in congress, it is the duty of that body to protect the Pacific states and territories from an undue [Gorham’s italics] influx of Chinese and Mongolians, and it is the duty of the legislature of this state to petition congress to endeavor to obtain the adoption of such regulations as shall accomplish this object, . . .” In a campaign speech, Gorham asked, “What do they mean by this indefinite word undue? Ten thousand a month would not be an ‘undue’ influx to the men who wanted them: and three a month would be too many for you who do not want them here.” The Democratic platform also supported the eight-hour day, but opposed the Registry law enacted at the previous legislative session as “unjust, oppressive, . . . tyrannical,” and “calculated to defeat the rights of the honest voters of the country, . . .” The Registry Act, introduced by Union Party member Horace Hawes (San Francisco and San Mateo), and approved March 19, 1866, provided a comprehensive voter enrollment process with emphasis on establishing the credentials of naturalized voters before allowing them to register. Without doubt, the platform, which also called for reduced government expenses, was well designed to appeal to urban labor and to the prejudices of all classes.[21]

Henry H. Haight was a forty-two-year-old New Yorker who had attended Rochester College and studied law at Yale. He edited a Free Soil newspaper and practiced law in St. Louis, Missouri, before coming to California. Soon after settling in San Francisco in 1850, Haight entered politics. In the 1850s he was by turn a Democrat, a Whig, and a Republican. During the Civil War Haight briefly joined the Union Party, but its growing trend toward abolition offended him and he left the party after the Emancipation Proclamation. Finally, he found a more congenial political home in the restored Democracy. Commenting on Haight’s nomination the Alta said, “This gentleman is of unblemished character, pure morals, fine abilities, and his nomination may be termed a ‘strong’ one.” While the choice of Haight may have offended some veteran Democrats, it was a shrewd one because, as the Alta noted, “. . . the nominee must be free of the taint of secession.” Unless Union men could be attracted to the ticket, “there would be no hope of success,” the paper added while at the same time criticizing the Democratic platform because it opposed the Radical Republican policy of Congress.[22]

In accepting the Democratic nomination, Haight said that he heartily endorsed the party resolutions, that he would attempt to save the state treasury from “plunder,” and make the state’s policies conform to the principles of the national Democratic Party. Haight asserted that republican institutions were not safe when entrusted to the suffrage of Chinese and African Americans. The Union bitterly commented, “The Democracy are in the field with their strongest candidate. No note of party dissatisfaction is heard against him; while on the other side the fact is notorious that the weakest candidate [George C. Gorham] before the people for Governor was nominated by party trickery, and the strongest one [John Bidwell] driven from the field by the same agency.” And the Alta observed:

[The Democratic Party] always stood ready to take advantage of differences in the enemy’s ranks, and this contest proves the shrewdness of its leaders. While there are bickerings, heartburnings and dissension in the Union ranks, and soreheads, factionists, independents, etc., are trying to pull the Union party asunder, the good, old Democratic party is marching in solid column to storm the works of the dominant party, weakened, . . . by disaffection.[23]

As the Alta indicated, Haight and his running mates were thoroughly united in their opposition to blacks, the Chinese, and Congress. In July the Democratic ticket won the endorsement of the Workingmen’s Convention. Haight gathered additional support by denouncing government subsidies to railroads, although as governor he later signed a bill allowing counties to make such subsidies. The Democratic campaign officially opened with a ratification meeting in San Francisco on July 9. During his speech, Haight denied he had ever insulted Abraham Lincoln, a charge made by the Nevada Gazette, and also denied he had sympathized with the secessionists during the Civil War. He devoted most of his speech, however, to the suffrage question, saying:

Manhood suffrage is insisted upon by the Republican leaders to Congress as a doctrine upon which they mean to stand or fall. This is the cant expression to indicate that all men shall vote—Asiatics, Africans, and Indians. We believe that this doctrine, if carried into effect, would be our destruction.

If the Chinese could vote, Haight warned, “About twenty-five cents a head, say, $12,500, would throw the Chinese vote one way or the other, and the price would rise according to competition. The Central Pacific Railroad, with 10,000 Chinese laborers, could outvote the entire voting population of the mining counties through which the road passes.” Haight prophesied that “Gangs of Chinese would be imported for their voting as well as working qualities,” and that when the Chinese and Indians could vote in California, “neither you nor I will desire again to exercise the elective franchise.”[24]

Large crowds greeted Haight on his August speaking tour through the mining counties and in the Bay area. His main themes were white supremacy and the evils of Chinese suffrage and immigration. Judge Samuel B. Axtell, a candidate for Congress, also campaigned for Haight. Axtell took issue with Gorham’s belief in the universal brotherhood of man and said, as paraphrased by the Examiner:

Speaking at Yuba City, William Holden also focused on the “yellow peril” theme. Holden predicted that “when Sumner shall have passed his universal suffrage bill reconstructing the North, and Mr. Gorham shall have procured his ‘abundance of cheap labor,’ and cheap votes, John Chinaman and our sable man and brother will hold the balance of power in the Northern and Pacific states.” Enthusiastic crowds greeted the Democratic speakers; in Mendocino County supporters held a celebration and fired a cannon in William Holden’s honor.[25]

In contrast, George Gorham campaigned largely from a defensive position. Under fire from both the Union and the Democratic press, he equivocated on the tidelands issue, saying the United States Supreme Court had decided they belonged to the state and thus the problem was solved. In a written address to the Union Party, Gorham stated, “I never in my life aided in the passage of any measure by the Legislature for a consideration.” As a private individual he thought he had the right to help the Central Pacific Railroad if he wanted and admitted that he had “pressed the matter” before any legislator he could find. None of Gorham’s explanations satisfied the Union or the Bulletin; the Union continued to urge John Bidwell’s candidacy even after he had explicitly rejected the nomination.[26]

The two black newspapers, the Elevator and the Pacific Appeal, both supported Gorham and the Union Party. In August the Appeal observed that, “The political cauldron is now at its boiling height. The Union (Gorham) candidates, and platform, . . . should be supported entire.” The paper added, “The six thousand colored disenfranchised loyalists of this State view the situation with aching regret that they are powerless in this campaign. If it were otherwise they would turn the hazard of the die on the side of the entire Gorham ticket.” The paper also complained that the Democratic speakers appealed to the passions of the ignorant and uninformed among the masses,” and placed the “Chinese or Mongrel equality questions in advance of everything else, as a scare-crow to hide . . . the necessity of the Reconstruction measures which should be sanctioned by all loyal citizens.” Although Gorham had been a Douglas Democrat, the Elevator admired him because:

Defending Gorham’s moral character, the Elevator asserted, “His malignant vilifiers have not brought one truthful and sustained charge against his honesty and integrity.”[27]

The Examiner, on the other hand, attacked Gorham and the Union Party with characteristic bitterness:

The Examiner contended that the Pacific Railroad owners were “bending every exertion to secure a pliant governor,” and predicted that if Gorham were elected the corporation would control the California legislature and the state’s delegations in Congress. The paper, which called Gorham “G. Coolie G.,” claimed that Chinese merchants had contributed $50,000 to his campaign fund. In return, the paper said, Gorham had pledged himself to repeal all state laws that discriminated against the Chinese. “The consequences which would inevitably result from the repeal of these laws are frightful to contemplate,” the paper lamented. “What would a man’s life or liberty be worth when it could be sworn away by the evidence of a Chinaman?” The Examiner also predicted that if Gorham became governor the Chinese, “under the fostering care of the Black Republican philanthropists,” would soon outnumber the Caucasians. Then there would be pressure to give the Chinese the vote because “It cannot be denied that they are as intelligent as the negro of the South,” and “There is scarcely any one of them that cannot read or write.”[28]

Whatever his reasons, George Gorham had committed a political blunder by his stand on the Chinese issue. By the middle of August, Democratic pressure began to tell, and he went on record against Chinese suffrage. Speaking at a meeting in Sacramento, Gorham declared, “there is not a man in the State of California who advocates the extension of the elective franchise to the Chinese.” Gorham charged that the Democrats were waging a “miserable and cowardly” campaign “to leave out what they themselves call the great overshadowing question [universal suffrage], and pick up this miserable idea and hold John Chinaman up for the American people to kick in self protection.” Frank M. Pixley tried to deny that Chinese and black suffrage were issues at all when he said:

The issue would not go away, however, and on August 17 Gorham wrote to H. J. Tilden, chairman of the Union State Central Committee, “A circular has met my eye in which it is stated that I favor Chinese suffrage. As a final answer to all the din raised on this subject, I wish to say that I am not, and never have been in favor of the extension of the suffrage to the Chinese.” Notwithstanding Gorham’s denials, the Examiner continued to berate him and just before the election reminded its readers, “Let every Irishman remember that George C. Gorham declared in a public speech in this city, ‘that if he had his way, he would have hung every Irishman engaged in the Chinese riot in this city.’”[29]

The Elevator deprecated the logic of Haight’s arguments that if African Americans voted, the Chinese must be given the same privilege. The newspaper said, “There is no analogy between the cases. The negro is a native American, loyal to the Government, and a lover of his country and her institutions—American in all his ideas; a Christian by education and a believer of the truths of Christianity from principle.” But the Chinese, in the opinion of the Elevator, were “foreigners, unacquainted with our system of government, adhering to their own habits and customs, and of heathen or idolatrous faith.” California’s blacks reacted to the Chinese in much the same way as the whites did because they were as different from the Chinese in social and cultural background as whites were.[30]

In the brief time left to him, Gorham’s Republican opponent, Caleb T. Fay, stressed the need for economy in government, saying, “taxes are enormous, economy and retrenchment in public expenditures is demanded by the people.” Fay also supported impartial suffrage, without distinction of color, “as the most effectual guarantee of the rights of labor,” but he stated he would not give “uncivilized” Indians the vote or people “who adopt neither our religion, manners, language, habits or customs, . . .” Fay wrote to Thomas Gray, the president of the Central Council of the Anti-coolie Association, and assured Gray that he was against coolie or contract labor. Just before the election the Union declared its support for Fay, too late to be of any help to the Republican candidate.[31]

Henry Haight drew large crowds throughout the campaign, but he also thought it wise to deny formally some of the Union Party charges against him. He published a “card to the people” that said, “The statement made by Mr. T. G. Phelps, in his San Francisco speech, that I was a Whig in 1847, a Know-Nothing in 1855, and an Abolitionist in 1859, is destitute of truth in all its parts.” Haight stated that he had not been a Whig since he was 21 and that he was never a Know-Nothing or an abolitionist. Haight had also incurred the criticism of the Examiner by his support of the Registry Act. Because the Democratic platform opposed this law, the Examiner wondered, “What will the poor Democracy do about it? Ignore the platform and adopt the candidate, or adopt the platform and ignore the candidate?”[32]

As the election turned out, the Democracy and a great many other Californians adopted the candidate. Voters went to the polls on September 4 and gave the Union Party its first defeat since the beginning of the Civil War. Haight polled 49,905 votes; Gorham, 40,359; and Fay, 2,088. Holden defeated his Union opponent for lieutenant-governor by more than 3,000 votes. All the other Democratic candidates for state office won, as did the Congressional candidates, Axtell and James A. Johnson. Only Democratic Congressional candidate James W. Coffroth lost in his race with Unionist William Higby. The victory gave the Democrats a majority in the Assembly and the right to select a United States senator. In 1865 the Democrats had won four seats in the Senate and nine in the Assembly. The 1867 election gave them ten more seats in the Senate for a total of nineteen to the Union Party’s twenty-one; in the Assembly the Democrats gained thirty-three seats for a total of fifty-two—the Unionists retained twenty-eight seats.[33]

The election results demonstrated how well the Democrats had divined the anxieties of the voters and how skillfully they had played upon them. Haight and his running mates had waged a unified, vigorous campaign, and the Democratic meetings had been well attended, especially in the larger cities. In contrast, the Union Party was divided both physically and ideologically. Gorham lost support by helping to split the party and because both the Union and Democratic newspapers charged him with corruption. For example, on election day the Union asked, “Shall the voters of this State confirm and perpetuate the rule of corrupt and insolent politicians, or undertake to govern honestly and economically? Shall we by this election, sanction the manipulation of primaries and the corruption of conventions by candidates . . .?” The paper also warned against greedy corporations and predicted that “They will have it in their power to make Governors and Legislatures at will, because by means of their great wealth and patronage State conventions can be and will be bought and sold like cattle in the market; . . .”[34]

The Democrats also profited by the endorsement of the Workingmen’s Convention and by the support of large numbers of German and Irish Americans. The San Francisco Bulletin stated that at least 3,000 German-Americans, who were former Unionists, voted the Democratic ticket. Reportedly they voted more as a bloc in this election than the Irish who usually gave the Democrats wholehearted support. The importance of the German-Irish vote can be seen in the San Francisco population figures for 1870. The white population totaled 136,059, of which 61,806 were foreign born. As mentioned in Chapter II, included in the latter figure were 13,602 Germans and 25,864 Irish. Significantly, the Chinese population in the city had risen from 2,719 in 1860 to 12,022—reflecting the movement of the Chinese out of the mining counties. The black population of San Francisco had risen from 1,176 in 1860 to 1,322 in 1870. One report stated that Democratic promises to repeal the Sunday laws influenced the German vote. In the case of the Irish, there seems little doubt that they voted their racial prejudice and economic fear. Just before the election, the Alta estimated there were 21,964 registered voters in San Francisco, of which 5,366 were Irish, 3,082 were German, and 11,326 were native-born Americans. If the Alta can be believed, the German-Irish vote of San Francisco alone could almost have given Haight his 9,500 vote lead over Gorham.[35]

The press lost no time in analyzing the reasons for the Union Party defeat. “First and foremost,” the Examiner commented, the voters decided “this is a white man’s government, made by white men for the benefit of themselves and posterity, and in all time to be ruled by white men.” Between black lines, the newspaper published an obituary notice for the Union Party that read, “Died: in the city of San Francisco, on the 4th day of September, 1867, the Mongrel party, of Chinese fever and black vomit.” In the opinion of the Examiner the Democratic sweep was a “great victory—a glorious triumph.” The Alta criticized the Union Party’s strategy saying: “The first mistake made by the managers was in planning a canvass which seemed to leave popular sentiment altogether out of sight.” The paper labeled the Republicans who left the Union Party “soreheads,” and recognized that “no small share of the defeat is chargable [sic] to the fact that the Union party of California has never closely cohered.” The original Republicans were jealous and suspicious of the liberal democrats who joined them in forming the Union Party, the Alta noted, and the two groups quarreled over “personal advancement.”[36]

The Union called the “ruling idea” in the election “that the people mean to hold their leaders to fair and honorable dealing in political affairs, and that they will condemn any candidates who do not accord with this sentiment.” The Union, the Bulletin, and the San Francisco Chronicle agreed that “Gorham has proved too heavy a load for the Union party to carry, . . .” Calling the election results “absolutely astounding,” the Bulletin also pointed out that thousands of Union voters stayed away from the polls owing to apathy “inspired by disgust.” The paper claimed a Union majority in the state of at least 10,000 voters, but asserted that “Of this number, more than 6,000 did not go the polls, and of the remainder, one moiety voted for Fay and another for Haight.” “Thousands of registered Union votes were not polled in this city,” the Bulletin said, “and the returns from the interior indicate a similar neglect of duty there.”[37]

The Pacific Appeal and the Elevator disagreed about the causes of the Union defeat. The Appeal blamed the national issue of Reconstruction rather than local party issues. The Appeal estimated that more than one-third of the Union Party could not accept the idea of black suffrage and bolted to the Democrats to help them defeat the Congressional Reconstruction measures. According to the paper, “The expression at the last election meant a disapproval of Negro suffrage in this State, and nothing else.” The Appeal also expressed the opinion that “All are aware that the real issue in the nation at present is hinged upon the reconstruction measures of Congress, whose policy is to induce all the loyal states to adopt Negro suffrage, and not Chinese citizenship . . .or Chinese suffrage.” The Elevator’s editor, Philip A. Bell, blamed the Union defeat on the party’s disunity and the unpopularity of some of its candidates. He refused to believe California’s voters had changed so radically and believed “they still adhere to the principles of the Union party, including Negro suffrage; . . .” Nevertheless, Bell feared the Democratic victory might retard the prospects of black suffrage for years and suggested petitioning the California legislature for the right to vote. Peter Anderson, editor of the Appeal, disagreed with Bell’s suggestion. The disagreements over the causes of the Union defeat and the petitioning of the legislature may have been a reflection of the growing feud between the two black editors.[38]

Gorham suffered not only from the defection of the Republicans, but also from the Union newspapers’ criticism of him. Some of these papers devoted more columns to attacking Gorham than they did to criticizing the Democrats and their program. A letter to the Elevator’s editor from “WAIF” in San Jose blamed Gorham’s defeat on his “outspoken advocacy of the brotherhood of man” and his “noble plea” for black suffrage. Without doubt, the racial issue played a decisive role in the Union Party defeat despite the emphasis on Gorham’s political and moral shortcomings by the Union press and reluctance on its part to acknowledge the racial issue.[39]

Just before leaving office, Governor Low sent his second biennial message to the legislature, recommending testimony rights for the Chinese, ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and praising Congressional Reconstruction plans as opposed to those of President Johnson. Only three days later, Haight gave his inaugural address, indicating sharply different policies from those of Low. It was evident that Haight would actively lead the Democrats in their pro-South, anti-Radical Reconstruction, anti-Chinese program. On one subject, Haight and Low agreed. In 1883 Low told historian Hubert Howe Bancroft that “no Chinese would be able to understand the democratic process well enough to vote intelligently or honestly,” and Chinese suffrage would “create a great mass of votes for sale and increase—if such a thing were possible—the corruption in our politics.”[40]

Haight’s long message dealt primarily with Reconstruction. He admitted the Civil War had “extinguished” the right of secession and ended slavery forever. Yet in his view the Congressional Reconstruction policy treated the Southern states as conquered territory, something Congress had pledged to refrain from at the beginning of hostilities. “Either they were and are in the Union as States,” Haight reasoned, “and their citizens are bound to obey the Constitution and entitled to protection under it, or they were and are out of the Union and their people are not bound to obey the constitution, and not entitled to protection under it.” The governor called the reconstruction measures “a violation of the fundamental principles of the Constitution and of liberty; . . .” He marveled that any white man could be found who allowed a policy that subjected Southern whites to the “domination of a mass of ignorant negroes just freed from slavery.”[41]

Previewing his major argument against the Fifteenth Amendment, Haight declared, “It has always been a political and legal axiom that the Federal Government is one of enumerated and delegated powers. It can exercise no powers except those expressly conferred . . .” Therefore, Haight told the legislature, “The policy or propriety of admitting the blacks to the right of suffrage belongs to each State to determine for itself.”

The governor stated that if Congress had been able to control voting rights “both negro and Chinese suffrage would probably have been forced upon the people of California against the will of the vast majority.” Such a policy, he added, would have inflicted “evils absolutely intolerable” upon Californians. Haight denied that the blacks or the Chinese needed the ballot for protection, saying, “. . .it is for the good of both of those races that the elective franchise should be confined to whites.” He feared that the introduction of the “antipathy of race” would lead to “strife and bloodshed.” He denied his opposition to Chinese and African American suffrage was based on prejudice or ill will, insisting that it came from a “conviction of the evils which would result to the whole country from corrupting the source of political power with elements so impure.”[42]

Haight also advised against encouraging more Asiatic immigration because those “races are confessedly inferior in all high and noble qualities to the American and European.” The governor thought that it was “the dictate of wisdom to seek the best material to populate a country” and that “We ought not to desire an effete population of Asiatics for a free State like ours.” Commercial ties could be mutually beneficial, “but all attempts to make a national composite of such elements will be disastrous,” he warned. Haight also discussed the eight-hour law, economy in government, and the Registry Act. At this time Haight, aware of Democratic resentment against the act, said:

The present Registry law contains some unjust discriminations against the naturalized citizens, confers too much power upon Boards of Registration, and is obscure in some of its provisions. No means should be neglected to insure the purity of the ballot-box for that is the foundation of all political power; and therefore, a Registry Law, just and simple in its provisions—one which would not disenfranchise legal voters—would be acceptable to all classes.[43]

Once more a California governor had expressed his opposition to the Chinese and added fuel to the long smoldering resentment that white labor harbored. With Haight leading the Democratic ticket, on which Lieutenant-Governor William Holden prominently represented the Chivalry or Southern wing, the Democrats swept the state and established a government firmly attached to the ideology of white supremacy. As in the campaign of 1865, other issues were subordinated to the national issues of Reconstruction and the local issue of “bossism” as practiced by Senator John Connesss.

The Union Party quickly broke up after the 1867 election and its members joined the Democrats or the reorganized Republicans. Many Unionists undoubtedly deserted the party over the racial issue on which Gorham and the party platform equivocated. Others found Gorham’s railroad connections and his sponsor, John Conness, distasteful to them. The legislature did not re-elect Conness to the United States Senate, but chose Eugene Casserly instead. Casserly resigned after serving slightly more than fours years of his term.[44]

In 1867 the Democrats successfully tied the question of black suffrage to the possibility of Chinese voting rights and citizenship. Few Californians were ready to share the ballot with the Chinese in the state. Haight proved an eloquent spokesman for the Democrats and his anti-black, anti-Chinese stance filled the party’s need for winning issues; two years later he confirmed this stance in his message condemning the Fifteenth Amendment—the measure black editor Philip A. Bell called “a beacon of our hopes.”[45]

Notes: Chapter V