hubert howe bancroft - Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History ...

318 PARTY CHANGES.
resisting the change to a paper currency, and thereby
accomplish their political ends. The importance of
national banks was not, however, denied by the advocates
of gold currency. The act of congress apportioned
to California but $3,000,000 for a circulating
medium, whereas there was fully $35,000,000 in gold
employed as money. The three millions could not
take the place of thirty millions, but it could be used
to develop the resources of the country as far as it
would go, and being cheaper than gold could be used
more profitably for such purposes. That proposition
was not disputed, but the hard-money advocates would
not consent to bankrupting the state by a sudden
change of the currency. So hard pressed were they,
however, by the politicians, that the people's nominating
committee was overawed by it, and driven,
unwisely, to adopt a resolution offensive to the better
class of democrats who had hitherto voted with them,
that no candidate before them could be nominated
who had not voted for Lincoln and Johnson at the
election in 1864.
Public meetings were held in San Francisco, and
resolutions passed declaring that a public and unconditional
endorsement of the specific-contract law would
be required of every candidate for any legislative
office. An independent call was made for a reorganization
of the union party, and signed by about two
thousand citizens of good standing, who named delegates
to a union county convention and solicited them
through the press to act as such, by this means obviating
any primary election. Upon those men, selected
by responsible citizens, devolved the duty of appointing
a union county committee for the year; of appointing
delegates to the judicial convention for that
year, under the amended constitution, and of nominating
candidates for the state senate and assembly.
They repudiated the doings of the county committee
above spoken of, and known as 'the boys,' and declared
their wish that in the nomination of candidates for