J. Neely Johnson
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| J. Neeley Johnson | |
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| In office January 9, 1856 – January 8, 1858 |
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| Lieutenant(s) | Robert M. Anderson |
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| Preceded by | John Bigler |
| Succeeded by | John Weller |
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| Born | August 2, 1825 Gibson County, Indiana |
| Died | August 31, 1872 Salt Lake City, Utah |
| Political party | American Party (Know-Nothing) |
| Spouse | Mary Zabriskie |
| Profession | Politician, Lawyer, Jurist |
John Neely (or Neeley) Johnson (August 2, 1825 – August 31, 1872) was the fourth Governor of California and later Justice to the Nevada Supreme Court. A member of the short-lived American Party, Johnson remains one of the few members of a third party to be elected to the California governorship.
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[edit] Personal background
Born in rural Gibson County, Indiana in 1825, Johnson studied to become a lawyer, successfully completing his studies at the age of 21 in Iowa. In July 1849, Johnson abandoned law to join the Gold Rush in California. Johnson briefly employed himself as a gold prospector, and later as a mule train driver. Upon settling in Sacramento, Johnson restarted his law career, and at the age of 25 in 1850, was elected as Sacramento City Attorney. [1] After two years of working in the City Attorney's office in the growing inland city, Johnson embarked on beginning a political career. In the 1852 general election, running as Whig, Johnson was elected to the California State Assembly representing Sacramento.[2]
During his time in the Assembly, Johnson famously nearly broke a local editor's nose after accusing the editor of writing an insulting article on the young Assemblyman. The editor pulled out a pistol and aimed it at Johnson, but was tackled by onlookers before he could fire.[3]
By 1854, Johnson's Whig Paty, the main opponent to the dominant Democratic Party in California during the time, was rapidly disintergrating due to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Many Whigs, such as John C. Frémont, became members of the young and growing Republican Party. Others, such as Johnson, joined the Nativist American Party, known popularly as the "Know-Nothings," due to their semi-secret meetings where members frequently responded when asked of their political activities, "I know nothing." The Democratic Party in California also faced political turmoil, as slavery bitterly divided Lecompton Democrats from Anti-Lecompton party members.
During the 1855 general elections, the new American Party, fresh from the Whig disintergration and hoping to capitalize on Democratic divisions and growing anti-Catholic sentiment, nominated Assemblyman Johnson as its candidate for Governor of California, running against incumbent Governor John Bigler, who hoped to garner a third term. Johnson and the American Party's distinct anti-immigrant rhetoric and fatigue from deep Democratic divisions proved popular with the electorate, giving Johnson the governorship by a comfortable margin. Johnson was described as "the most startled man in the state" upon hearing of his election.[4] Along with the governorship victory, Know-Nothings also gained considerable gains in the California State Legislature, as well as getting elected to every other major executive post in the state, such as the offices of Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Treasurer, and Controller.[5]
[edit] Governorship
Johnson was sworn in as the fourth Governor of California on January 9, 1856. Assuming the governorship at the age of 30, Johnson was the youngest governor in California history, a record that still remains unbroken. Upon assuming the office, Johnson inherited a growing state debt left over from the Bigler Administration. Johnson sought nearly immediately to reduce government expeditures in the hope of cutting the debt.
[edit] The Vigilante Committee Crisis
Since the beginning of the 1850s, tensions within San Francisco political circles had often expanded to open violence. In 1851, due to distrust with municipal authorities and allegations of severe corruption, armed citizens took to the streets to form a Vigilance Committee to correct wrongs they saw being committed or being protected by the city government. In one of the committee's first moves, citizens lynched two criminals that had been in the city jails. The Governor at the time, John McDougall, condemned the actions of the vigilantes, but proved powerless to stop due to the infancy of state law enforcement.
Remaining dormant for five years, distrust of city authorities again reached the surface when on May 14, 1856, James King of William, editor of the San Francisco Bulletin and a vocal critic of corrupt officials, was mortally wounded by James P. Casey, a purported ballot-box stuffer and city politician.[6]
As Casey stood in custody with San Francisco law enforcement, William T. Coleman, a ringleader in the 1851 Vigilance Committee and another vocal critic of municipal authorities, called for sympathizers and arms to form another Vigilante Committee. Armed citizens erected a baracade along Sacramento Street to repel city officers from removing their presence. By the next week, Vigilantes marched on the city jail, overpowering its guards to arrest Casey, along with criminal Charles Cora, who had fatally shot a U.S. Marshall the previous year.
Governor Johnson reacted to the news of the Vigilante Committee quickly. Johnson, along with his brother William and the newly commissioned chief of the California Militia, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, travelled to San Francisco from Sacramento to meet the Vigilante Committee ringleaders face to face. Sherman later recalled in his 1875 Memoirs of Johnson angrily confronting Coleman and other Vigilante ringleaders in their makeshift headquarters, exclaiming, "Coleman, what the devil is the matter here?" Coleman replied the San Franciscans "were tired of it, and had no faith in the officers of the law.”[7] After personal negotiations between Governor Johnson and the Vigilantes over transferring the criminals to state law enforcement failed, Johnson watched helplessly as both Casey and Cora were hanged by the Vigilantes on May 20.
Believing the matter done, Johnson returned to Sacramento, still reeling from his lack of authority to stop the hangings. The Vigilantes, however, had refused to disperse, claiming themselves as the city's rightful law enforcement. San Francisco Mayor James Van Ness, with the municipal police and sherrifs overwhelmed by the Vigilantes continued armed presence in the city's streets, pleaded to the Governor for military assistance. Johnson acted, instructing General Sherman to gather available arms and muster the California Milita in San Francisco on June 2, and issuing a gubernatorial proclomation declaring San Francisco in a state of insurrection the following day.[8] But Johnson's proclomation, like those of McDougall's five years earlier, faced enforcement problems. Johnson had instructed the California Militia to impose martial law. Yet due to the lack of proper arms, the Militia needed equipment provided by federal forces. Johnson ordered John E. Wool of the U.S. Army's Department of the Pacific based in Benicia to dispatch weapons to the state militia. Yet General Wool rejected, claiming that the Governor did not have the authority to use arms from federal soldiers or his soldiers use to any military capacity, claiming that right laid exclusively with the President.[9]
Both Johnson and Sherman were furious over General Wool's refusal to lend arms for state militia forces. Seeing the state government's powerlessness in the face of the situation, Sherman resigned from his military commission, vowing never to return to the realm of California politics. Meanwhile, the California Militia, under the new command of Major General Volney E. Howard, continued to gather arms in the city for its companies that Sherman had begun, but suffered a major setback when on June 21, 1856, Vigilantes seized the arms schooner Julia, depriving the state milita its arms supply and a majority of its muskets.[10]
The Vigilantes remained the defacto law enforcement of San Francisco until August 1856. Between June to their gradual dissolution, Vigilantes had arrested Chief Justice David S. Terry of the Supreme Court of California for stabbing a Vigilante member, as well as hanging two more individuals. Governor Johnson revoked his proclamation on San Francisco's insurrection on November 3.[11]
Despite denouncing the Vigilantes and their rebellion against city authorities, Johnson did agree to an earlier Vigilante demand of uniting the city and county of San Francisco into a single entity to minimize corruption. The result was the passage and signing of the Consolidation Act of 1856, uniting city and municipal authorities.
[edit] Rest of term
The Vigilante Crisis in the summer of 1856 overshadowed much of the rest of Johnson's term. Despite a large portion of the State Legislature made up of Know-Nothing party members, Johnson once vetoed a bill due to its "bad spelling, improper punctuation and erasures."[12] One important accomplishment of the Johnson Administration would be the approval of funds to build the future California State Capitol.
By the 1857 general election, Know-Nothings had grown frustrated with Johnson's inability to deal with the San Francisco Vigilantes. During the American Party's convention that year, Johnson lost the party's nomination for the governorship to George W. Bowie. Bowie would later be defeated by Lecompton Democrat John Weller. Shortly afterwards, the Know-Nothings ceased to be a major political force in California, and later collapsed, swallowed up by the emerging Republican Party and sections of the Democatic Party.
[edit] Nevada
Frustrated by his tenure of the California governorship and anxious for a new political start, Johnson moved to the Utah Territory (modern-day Nevada) shortly after his departure. Following Utah's split and the creation of the Nevada Territory, as well as the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861, discussion began in territorial political circles to draft documents suitable for the federal government to admit the territory as a U.S. state. In 1863, Johnson was elected to the Nevada Constitutional Convention in Carson City. The following year, the former Governor was elected as Convention President.
Due in part to Johnson's efforts, Nevada was admitted as a U.S. state on October 31, 1864.
In 1867, Nevada Governor Henry G. Blasdel appointed Johnson to the Nevada Supreme Court. A Justice until 1871, it would be the longest post Johnson would have in his life.
After leaving the high court in 1871, Johnson's health declined. He died in Salt Lake City on August 31, 1872 at the age of 47.
[edit] Trivia
- J. Neely Johnson Park in downtown Sacramento is named after the Governor.
- Johnson, the youngest Governor in California history, was also one of the youngest to die after leaving the governorsip at the age of 47. John McDougall, the state's second Governor, died around the age of 48, though his exact birthday is unknown due to the lack of records.
[edit] References
- ^ [1] - History of Sacramento City Attorney's Office
- ^ [2] - Join Califonia election history
- ^ [3] - From the Government of California
- ^ [4]
- ^ [5] - Join California, Results of September 5, 1855 General Elections
- ^ San Francisco Virtual Museum
- ^ William T. Sherman (1875). Memoirs. ISBN: 0140437983.
- ^ [6] - California Military Museum
- ^ [7] - Letter from General Wool to Governor Johnson, June 5, 1856
- ^ [8]
- ^ Judson A. Grenier (2003). "Officialdom": California State Government, 1849-1879. California History.
- ^ [9]
[edit] External links
| Preceded by John Bigler |
Governor of California 1856-1858 |
Succeeded by John B. Weller |
| Governors of California | ||
|---|---|---|
| Burnett • McDougall • Bigler • J. Johnson • Weller • Latham • Downey • Stanford • Low • Haight • Booth • Pacheco • Irwin • Perkins • Stoneman • Bartlett • Waterman • Markham • Budd • Gage • Pardee • Gillett • H. Johnson • Stephens • Richardson • Young • Rolph • Merriam • Olson • Warren • Knight • P. Brown • Reagan • J. Brown • Deukmejian • Wilson • Davis • Schwarzenegger |  |
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