of these suave, urbane, occasionally fire-eating and always well-dressed
gentlemen from this most aristocratic section of the Union. The
Southerners, born leaders of men, and with politics the paramount
interest in their lives, controlled both San Francisco and California."

J. W. Forney, a politician and reporter of the time, is more emphatic
and declares that "California was a secession rendezvous from the day it
became a part of the Union."

That the State was strongly Southern in sympathy is proven by the fact
that of fifty-three newspapers published within her borders only seven
advocated the election of Lincoln to the Presidency in 1860. A stronger
proof still is found in the character and conduct of the public men of
California during all the period under consideration. With one or two
exceptions, of whom honorable mention later, every official of any
importance, state or national, favored the South and voted in her
interest. This condition was partly due, without doubt, to the political
leadership of Senator Wm. M. Gwin. A Tennessean by birth, he was
forty-six years of age, when he landed in San Francisco, June 4, 1849.
Almost immediately active in politics he became the most brilliant and
unscrupulous leader California has ever had. He held the reins of power
and of national patronage until the war brought chaos to the old order
and always Wm. M. Gwin was a faithful servant of the old aristocratic
South of John C. Calhoun. He was ably seconded in his efforts to hold
California to the pro-slavery cause by David S. Terry, Chief Justice of
the State, and a fiery Texan, fearless and fierce in every conflict
which might affect adversely Southern Chivalry. After these
distinguished leaders there followed in monotonous succession Senators,
Representatives, Governors, Legislators, representing doubtless their
constituents in opposition to every movement looking to the abolition,