The petition, arriving on the eve of Civil War, was ignored. He is credited with saving the state from division and remaining loyal to the Union. Some pro-union Californians volunteered to fight with the Second Massachusetts Cavalry and traveled on their own to enlist. They reached Tucson by July and later marched to the Rio Grande but the Confederates had already withdrawn from the area. Still, their presence is given credit for preventing any further excursions by southern troops into western territories.
General Ulysses S. The war had ended, peace had been proclaimed, some solution must be reached. There was but one. So profound was the national influence of this vital decision that Dr. It was secretly argued that by making the State very large, as was advocated by [U. Senator] Gwin, it would not be necessary to divide it by an east-and-west line, thus adding one state to the South. The present eastern boundary was carried by the narrowest circumstance. The closing scenes of the convention, highly dramatic in themselves, were enacted on Saturday, October 13, Candidates for various offices took the field; political speeches began to multiply in the land, and in an incredibly short time events took on the aspect of an ordinary campaign.
November 13th, the day appointed for the general election, proved to be stormy, which accounts for the light vote polled. A fortnight before, Governor Riley had prophesied that the Constitution would be ratified by the almost unanimous vote of the qualified electors of the country. The forecast was safe, since, of a total vote of 12,, only were against the Constitution. For the office of Governor Peter H.
Burnett received more than double the vote of his leading opponent, Winfield S. Winn, Edward Gilbert and George W. Wright were elected to represent California in the lower house of the Congress. Of more significance, doubtless, was the fact that on the following Thursday, December 20, , the State government of California was formally established.
Governor-elect Burnett being installed with appropriate ceremonies, and Governor Riley laying down his authority. While General Riley did not always succeed in maintaining perfect consistency in the discharge of his ill-defined duties as acting Governor of California, he unquestionably rendered services of the highest value alike to commonwealth and Nation in perfecting the State organization and bringing, as it were, this new member to the very threshold of the Union.
If at times he was somewhat overcautious and withal a strict constructionist as to his own instructions from Washington, we must commend the firmness of his administration, the statesmanlike tact he displayed in leading on the people and his clearly evinced patriotism. New states are regularly formed by enabling acts of Congress out of territories of the United States, organized under its authority or acquired in an organized condition from foreign states.
It is well known that previous to the Constitutional Convention at Monterey, California was not an organized Territory of the United States, also that the convention did not meet at the free instance of the people, but at the call of a de facto Governor.
It is therefore clear that the organization of the California State Government was wholly without exact precedent. This fact has been perceived by Mr. We elect our Governor, and all the subordinate officers of the State; we are a State to all intents and purposes.
Being a State we send our Senators and Representatives to the Congress of the United States, not as a State going out of a territorial into State Government, but as a State that has sprung full-grown into existence; and when we officially notify the Congress of the United States that we are a State, we do it through our duly elected Representatives, who appear there to demand admission into the Union.
Southern leaders were almost beside themselves at the imminent prospect of losing the richest country of the Mexican cession. The excitement, which had been increasing with every day of added debate, was still further intensified by the arrival of the California Representatives. California became the 31st state on September 9, California situated its first capital in San Jose. The city did not have facilities ready for a proper capital, and the winter of - was unusually wet, causing the dirt roads to become muddy streams.
The legislature was unsatisfied with the location, so former General and State Senator Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo donated land in the future city of Vallejo for a new capital; the legislature convened there for one week in and again for a month in Again, the facilities available were unsuitable to house a state government, and the capital was soon moved three miles away to the little town of Benicia, inland from the San Francisco Bay.
A lovely brick statehouse was built in old American style complete with white cupola. Although strategically sited between the Gold Rush territory of the Sierra Foothills and the financial port of San Francisco, the site was too small for expansion, and so the capital was moved further inland past the Sacramento River Delta to the riverside port of Sacramento in
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