The Rivals: William Gwin, David Broderick, and the Birth of California

by Arthur Quinn

A history of California from the 1849 Gold Rush to the Civil War focuses on the struggle between two bitter antagonists--William Gwin and New Yorker David Broderick--which culminated in a duel that left Broderick dead and Gwin disgraced. 15,000 first printing.

Genres: Biography

320 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 1994

Reviews

[Jeffrey Bloomfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arthur Quinn, who frequently writes about the history of the western expansion of the 1830s - 1890s, especially in California, here tackles one of the real violent political feuds of the 1850s, which culminated in one tragic death, and in one wrecked career. After the success of the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848, we ended up getting the entire southwest of the continental United States, carved out of the Northern section of the Republic of Mexico. Although we paid $15,000,000.00 dollars to Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (possibly as "conscience money") the angry Mexicans probably enjoyed seeing how the acquisition of this territory was adding to the regional splits in Washington, D.C. and the entire country over anti-slavery and pro-slavery groups, all of whom looked at out flanking each other by using these lands for more anti-slave or pro-slave territories and states. Normally it took decades for the population of territories to grow fast enough to merit admission as states, and in the late 1840s the sole territory of the western part of the U.S. that really zoomed in population (outside of Texas and those touching the Mississippi River or Valley) was "Deseret" (today Utah), which was full of Mormons, and so was considered currently undesirable as a state at this time. California was (in 1848) a beautiful portion of the newly acquired territories, but seen mostly as rich for agriculture and little else (although we were glad to get the impressive San Francisco Harbor. In fact, had things remained tranquil, our national expansionists might have concentrated on the far more promising "Kingdom of Hawaii" at the time. Indeed, in 1854, the U.S. concluded their first treaty of importance, renting Pearl harbor from that kingdom.

But in 1848 gold was discovered in California. Suddenly the world poured into that territory, and by 1850 it had nearly a million people in it's population. From being a sleepy village with a big port, San Francisco became a vital city with a very important port. And the territory of California became too important for the leaders in the North and South and West to ignore. During the war California had briefly experienced being independent for nine weeks, as the "Bear Flag Republic" (a fact they are still proud of - their current state flag is the "Bear Flag Republic" flag). But the bulk of the population actually wanted to be part of the United States. The result of all this was that the major issue of the current Whig administration of Zachary Taylor became the admission of California. How to admit it at all was the issue. In the end, after debate, fighting, the death of President Taylor in July 1850, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Stephen Douglas hammered together several acts of legislation as "the Compromise of 1850". It was the last great Compromise before the Civil War. But while it put off the war for a decade, it only satisfied California: The state was admitted as a free state, but to do this a fugitive slave law was passed to stop the successful fleeing of slaves up North, and the slave trade forbidden in the District of Columbia. There was also a promise for a southern route for a transcontinental railroad. The South was not fully satisfied, because California was to be a potential unbalancing device in the equal balance of slave and free states in the U.S. Senate (and for the rest of the 1850s the South would try to find a substitute pro-slavery territory to turn into another Southern state, first in Kansas, and then in Cuba). But the Californians were in for a shock - the two Senate seats in Washington were to be split, one a Whig-anti slave candidate (John Charles Fremont) and one a pro-Slavery southern Democrat (William Gwinn of Mississippi). Traditionally when a state enters the Union, one term for one Senator is a normal six years, and one is called "the short term" (or only four years). Fremont drew the short term.

In the long run this wasn't too bad - General Fremont was a self-important idiot, best as the leader of several exploration parties out west (giving him his reputation as "the Pathfinder"). While in the U.S. Senate, Fremont made an occasional brief speech but did not do much more than that. Unfortunately Gwinn was more polished, and made common cause with his fellow Southern Democrats. Soon he was involved in all kinds of pro-Southern/pro-Slavery issues, such as the "Gadsden Purchase" from Mexico in 1853, which was f0r that Southern railroad project. Gwin was willing to do this, as it was making him the first important far western figure in the U.S. Senate. In 1856 Fremont's Senate term was ending, but he would shortly become the Republican Party's first candidate for President. Gwin tried to influence the Democrats in California to run another pro-Slavery Senator, but hit a wall he never expected. It seemed that outside some of the Southern portion of the state, Gwin had little influence. in elections. San Francisco, had been having problems in the 1850s, with several hangings by Vigilante Committees, but it was usually controlled by a political machine based on New York City's Tammany Hall. It's chief, an ex-Tammany member, was an Irish-American named David Broderick. Broderick manipulated himself over Gwin's manipulations, into the Senate seat.

Oddly enough Broderick had said very little about abolition, but due to his increasingly big rivalry for power with Gwin in California's Democratic Party and state politics, he became outspoken about the subject. Gwin had found that while he had not done badly in the Pierce Administration, he was in clover with Buchanan and his followers, because Buchanan had sought a set of regional leaders who were Democrats (except for the one effective Democratic leader who hated him, Stephen Douglas), and hoped by giving Gwin most of the state patronage Gwin would be the leader of California and the Southwest, and be all for the slave states. This annoyed Broderick, who kept Gwin out of local state patronage as a result. The result was Broderick coming up on top of the increasingly annoyed Dr. Gwin.

The result was that California was leaning towards the Union, not to the South. Still Gwinn got re-elected in 1858, and hoped for better days. Maybe, except Buchanan was so inept as President that he was letting events get beyond his control. Gwin was slowly wondering if his efforts would be worthwhile in the end. Then in 1859 some remarks by Broderick seemed aimed at a prominent California jurist of pro-Southern views, Chief Justice David Terry of the California Supreme Court. This was a serious error. Terry was a noted duelist with a short-fuse temper. He sent a challenge to a duel to Broderick. Broderick could have refused, but did not do so. The two met on the field of honor, and Broderick was mortally wounded. He would be the third major political figure (after Alexander Hamilton and Commodore Stephen Decatur) to be killed in a duel, and the first Congressional one to die that way since Congressman William Cilley of Maine in the early 1840s.

Gwin had nothing to do with this outcome - he knew Terry but had not set him onto killing Broderick. But Broderick's confrontation in California and the U.S. Senate floor were with Gwin. The public heard rumors (some still mentioned today) that Broderick was set up to be silenced. Terry found he could not be safe in California, and resigned his seat on the bench (it is not mentioned in the book, but in 1889 Terry would be shot and killed while apparently attacking fellow Californian, and Associate Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, Stephen J. Field - shot by Field's guard, Federal Marshall Nagel, from which the Supreme Court "Ex Parte Nagel" is based).

The raid on Harper's Ferry, execution of John Brown, Secession crisis, and coming of the Civil War finished Gwin. During the war he resigned from the U.S. Senate (the reverse of Andrew Johnson: here a pro-slavery Senator from a free state who resigns from the Senate, instead of the Johnson's pro-Union Senator from Tennessee who opted to remain in the Senate). He went to France, then planning the backing of Maximillian on the "Cactus Throne" of Mexico, and interested Emperor Napoleon III with plans for the development of silver and gold mines in the state of Sonora, possibly with the assistance of the Confederate States. Nothing really ever came of it, but after 1865 many considered Gwin a traitor. Still he had friends in California, and before his death in 1880 was given a large dinner in San Francisco by them. But in the newspapers the next day he read very nasty and sniffy comments about the memories of patriotic Californians for the martyred Broderick. Quinn ends the book with the aging Gwin wondering if he would always be associated with his one time opponent Broderick.

Between the two they did create modern California, but one can say the state was created despite there split over the slavery issue. Broderick had his critics too (as Quinn points out) for reliance on corruption and Tammany Hall models for his power base. But the abolition issue saved Broderick from his being considered a corrupt hack, and his "martyrdom" ensured he would be a national hero posthumously. In some periods of our history Gwin might have been a greater success, as he was smart, and his schemes showed some visions. But in the 1850s he was too smart for his own good. Quinn's book show both flawed figures for the reader to examine, and how they managed to get embroiled so much with each other that in the end the public could only separate them by the violent death of Broderick.

[Stuart Woolf · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

This book isn't terrible, but 120 pages in, the rivals still haven't met yet. Both do a lot of calculating, of the politically opportune variety, in the interim. (How Quinn was able to channel the private thoughts of these men is anybody's guess.) I put the book down because it read like a tale of two ambitious students trying to out-cheat each other: you don't exactly care who wins.

I also felt the book was lacking in the complexity a subject like legislating requires. We are instead given the cartoon version of history, and the portraits of various figures are one-dimensional, stock characterizations.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"'Riley, whenever you see a man with three names and he writes them all in full, depend upon it, he's a damn chit.'" (advice for Bennet Riley, quoted as regards Thomas Butler King, 23)

"All this, like out of a fairy tale in which he is Prince Charming, St. George, and King Midas all in one." (of Fremont, 78)

"Gwin, like Californians ever since, seemed at times to gorget that Oregon and Washington existed." (139)

"'I fear him most of all because of this extreme finesse and the great ability which I see in him.'" (Maximilian of Gwin, 296)