The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-07-10
AFFAIRS IN CALIFORNIA-REv0LU
AND THE CAUSE.

The present state OF things In California DEM
onstrates at once the capacity of the Ameri-
can people for self, government, and the criminal
indifference with which they at times abandon
its exercise. That State has Constitution,
a code of laws, Governor, Legislature, Judi
ciary; it has laws for the punishment of Grim
inals, tribunals and officers to enforce them.
1t has freedom of speech, and of the press /;
the ballot box, universal suffrage-and yet, to-
day, it is in a state Of revolution. Constitu-
ton, Laws, Governor, Legislature, Courts, the
whole machinery of established government,
are ignored, to use an expressive term; all
their functions are forcibly suspended; in the
twinkling of an eye, society throws itself upon
its reserved right of selfprotection. A Vigil
ance Committee, representing the people, and
with no other authority than that derived from
public opinion, becomes the supreme embodi-
ment and executioner of what is called, Popu-
lar Sovereignty. 1t arrests whomsoever it
deems criminals, tries them, condemns them,
banishes some, imprisons others, hangs others;
setting aside all the ordinary safeguards of per-
sonal rights. The people sanction and sustain
its action. Its power, absolute as it is in appear
ance, is wisely used-crime alone is punished !;
innocence is protected. Law -abiding citizens
feel increased security the rights of property
are sacredly guarded. The Committee seeks
no selfish end, has no resentments to crafty,
no ambitions to reward. 1t yields power only
SO long as it may be necessary, in its judgment,
to save society from ruin. This accomplished,
it will cease 70 act, and the machinery of const-
tutionsl government go into operation. Should
it, in its acts, or in the term of its existence,
transcend the necessities of the crisis, as rec
ognised by the people of which it is the of.
spring, it would Immediately fall under the
force of the laws now held in allegiance. No
one supposes that this revolutionary state will
continue; it will cease as instantly as it began,
and that, without coercive interpostion on the
part of the constituted authorities.
We do not undertake to Justify the people in
this conduct, but, looking at the facts, we
cannot help seeing in them a marvellous illus
traiion of the capacity of the American people
for sefgovernment. A revolution like this, in
any other country, would have been associated
with the subversion of all order of society, and
the destruction, not suspension, of the estab-
lished government. Here, the People, the
source of all power, finding an extraordinary
evil, to which the ordinary machinery of gov
eminent is, in their judgment, insufficient, go
beyond this machinery, and, having accom-
plished their object, fall back upon the formu-
las established by themselves, for the ordinary
conditions Of the social state.
But, who does not tremble at the assumption
of such power? Who is prepared to justify it,
as rule of conduct? Who does not see that
such examples will be appealed to by factions,
bent on sinister designs, FESTIVE under legal
restraint, anxious to suppress, by violence, in
terests in conflict with their own? Who does
not see that what the people do in these ex.
| IRENE cases, will be referred to as justifca-
ton for any formidable mob that may choose,
on pretence of protecting the public welfare,
to assail established institutions or rights?
Grant that the People of California have
shown by this orderly Revolution, conducted
wisely and periodically, if you will, for the
extirpation of evils threatening the exist
ence of the government and society itself,
that they have the full capacity of selfgovern-
ment, do they not see, that in allowing those
evils to reach that alarming growth, they have
been criminally delinquent in the exercise OF
the right of selfgovernment? Had they been
conscientious and energetic in the discharge
of their duties as citizens, according to the
forms prescribed by themselves, there would
have been no necessity for disregarding those
forms, setting aside all law, and resorting to
| Unconstitutional measures to relieve them
selves. But they were devoted to the pursuit
of weather. bound by vassalage to party-or
careless into whose hands power might fall
| They would not take the trouble to look after
the primary meetings, the conventions, the
nominations, but suffered unprinciplsd sdven
turers, who make politics trade and fatten on
corruption, to have their own way, until thu
machinery of government, good enough, i
worked by honest hands, fell under the contro
of Scoundrelism, and then, when its poweri
were abused so scandalously as to threaten the
| life of society, and the Scoundrels through
| long connivance had so surrounded themselves
| with bulwarks of fraud and force as to be mac
cessible by ordinary means, the People saw tina
Revolution and Vigilance Committee wer.
necessary If they we're, whose conduct mad.
them SO? The People themselves were tn,
first criminals. They had abused, or rather