The Nevada journal., 1858-02-19
The following letter was received
Immediately after our last number went
For the Nevada Journal
SACRAMENTO, Feb. 10th, 1855

~ Pl Coo.
For the Nevada Journal
SACRAMENTO, Feb. 10th, 1858.
MR. EDITOR Il visited the Assem-
bly, for a few hours to-day. and listened
for short time to the debate upon the
bill of Mr.. Lee of Ell Dorado, the
popularity called Vigilance
Bill" | was unable to listen to the
whole debate, as the San Francisco boat
left at ? O. o'elock, and 1 was compelled to
leave on the boat.
Mr.. Mccoy of Santa Clara, took the
floor after the house had resolved Itself
into committee of the whole upon the
special order of the day. and spoke
about an hour in opposition to the bill.
He is slow and deliberate speaker, but
highly effective, and often eloquent.
He referred to the state of things
well-known to exist for period of some
years in San Francisco before the out
break, and drew very strong picture
of the ballot-box stuffing, by which men
who had not even been known as candi-
dates, and they infamous, were elected
of the host of political lunch eaters,
that governed the city for years, where
by all law was overridden, juries pack
ed, and crimes of all species passed
unpunished He stated the fact that
thirteen hundred murders had been COM
mitted in San Francisco, and but four of
the murderers brought to suffer the ex-
treme penalty of the law. That the
tools of the murderers were in office,
and thus the authors of these outrages,
disgraceful to authorities, had an unfail-
lug screen. Such a state of things he
thought palliated the organization and
acts of the committee, though they did
not fully justify them. chad not been
and was not now vigilance" man.
He deprecated the introduction of the
bill as divided and distracting the Der
ocratic party, He also exposed the
tyranny of the bill-its opposition to
the principles of republican liberty, and
as fayoring the way to the ascendancy
of the Republican party. He showed
that the bill repealed the homestead
law, and in the matter of venue, grand
juries, and in other features, reversed
the whole criminal practice, which had
been built up as protection to the inno-
cent as we'll as the punishment of the
guilty. He held up to merited contempt
and censue the provision by which a
man might be dragged, without means
to get his witnesses from Shasta to San
Diego, to answer an Indictment suddenly
trumped mp against him.
Mr. Buel of Ell Dorado, followed up
on the same side. He repudiated the
idea that this bill was test of democra-
cy He was opposed to the bill, and
also the Vigilance Committee. But the
people had something to say about these
tests. Besides, even if the people gen
orally were opposed to the Vigilance
Committee, they would not sanction
such an outrage as the bill before the
House
Thinking your readers might like to
know the tone of Legislature upon this
point, send you the above. Violent
speeches have been made in favor of the
law. But the general opinion is that it
cannot pass. There is too much good
sense in the Legislature. apparently, to
pass an odous law like the proposed
one-odious not, perhaps, to many that
vote against it because it is directed
against the Vigilance Committee, but
because its provisions are so framed that
our liberties are more in danger from
the law than from such committees.