Soon afterwards I found my name mentioned as a candidate for the State
Senate. The idea of returning to the Legislature as a Senator
pleased me. The people of the county seemed to favor the suggestion.
Accordingly I made a short visit to neighboring precincts, and finding
my candidacy generally approved I went to work to make it successful.
At the election of delegates to the county convention, which was to
nominate candidates, a majority was returned in my favor. Several of
them being unable to attend the convention, which was to be held at
Downieville, a distance of about seventy miles from Marysville, sent
me their proxies made out in blank to be filled with the name of any
one whom I might designate. To one supposed friend I gave ten proxies,
to another five, and to a third two. When the members met, just
previous to the assembling of the convention, it was generally
conceded that I had a majority of the delegates. But I had a new
lesson in manipulation to learn. Just before the opening of the
convention my supposed friend, who had the ten proxies, was approached
by the other side, and by promises to give the office of sheriff
to his partner--an office supposed to be worth thirty thousand a
year--his ten votes were secured for my opponent. The one to whom
I had given five proxies was promised for those votes the county
judgeship. So when the convention voted, to my astonishment and that
of my friends, fifteen of my proxies were cast for my opponent, Joseph
C. McKibbin, afterwards a member of Congress, who acted so fearlessly
when the Kansas question came up. I was accordingly beaten by two
votes.

For the moment I was furious, and hunted up the man who had held my
ten proxies, and had been seduced from my support. When I found him
in the room of the convention, I seized him and attempted to throw