Chapter 40: At the Convention

 

Mac reached Monterey on Monday, September 3. General Bennet Riley, military governor of California since April 1849, had organized the meeting of delegates in the old Spanish colony.

Mac found Lansford Hastings at the largest hotel in town.

“Caleb McDougall,” Hastings shouted. “Just the man I’d hoped to see. The convention sessions started today, and I need a clerk. You ready?”

Shaking Hastings’s hand, Mac said, “Yes, sir. I haven’t done any legal work in over three years, but I expect I can handle it.”

Hastings clapped him on the back. “Good man. Do you have a room?”

“Not yet. And I should buy another suit.”

“Let’s find you a bed here in the hotel. I want you close by.”

The hotel clerk assigned Mac to share a room with William Shannon. Shannon was an attorney a few years older than Mac, a delegate to the convention representing Coloma. Mac and Shannon had met before in Sacramento.

After finding a tailor who promised to have a suit altered to fit by the next morning, Mac dined with Hastings and Shannon.

“I hate to be immodest,” Hastings said, “but the group of men gathered for this convention is as talented as any governing group assembled since the federal Constitution was written in Philadelphia.”

Shannon nodded. “Not only lawyers like ourselves, but also ranchers, merchants, surveyors, and military officers. Men born throughout the United States, and in Europe, and a few men native to Spanish California. Despite my birth in Ireland, County Mayo, here I am—a delegate to the formation of a new state.”

Mac smiled to himself. His father would have no confidence in a man from County Mayo. British nobility might influence Andrew McDougall, but otherwise it would take a Cabot or Lodge born and bred in Boston to impress the man.

Hastings puffed on his cigar. “We’ve decided to pursue statehood,” he informed Mac. “No reason for California to remain a territory.”

“Doesn’t Congress have to decide whether we merit statehood?” Mac asked.

“President Taylor is on our side. California will be a state.” Shannon flashed a wide grin. “Our job is merely to create the institutions to support it.”

“We’re starting with a blank slate,” Hastings added. “We can design the government to suit our aspirations.”

“Most men now in California are miners,” Mac said. “Are any of the delegates prospectors?”

“I represent a mining district,” Shannon said. “And I own a claim. You’re a miner also, though you are not a delegate. Surely men like us can do right by our fellow prospectors.”

“But the future of California isn’t in the mines. It’s in the land.” Hastings seemed very sure of himself.

“The men I know are all after gold.” Mac eyed Hastings while lighting his own cigar.

“Well, then, sir, you counsel me if I don’t remember the needs of the miners.” Hastings moved on to other topics, apparently bored with the discussion of prospectors.

September 5, 1849. I am settling into my role as clerk. Much of the work is tedious. I attend debates, take notes, then compare my notes with the official record of the Secretary of the Convention.

 

Mac went to the committee meetings Hastings told him to attend. The first debate he witnessed dealt with which state constitution to use as a model for California. The debate ended when Hastings pronounced, “There is but one Constitution containing the wisdom of the ages laid down by our founders. That, my good friends, is the Constitution of the United States. We must use that great instrument as our guide.”

As the days passed, Mac became more interested in the issues discussed among the delegates. The largest argument was over slavery. The delegates came from both slave-holding and free states—both factions knew their decisions would affect the balance of power in the States.

“I never knew any colored men in either Ireland or New York,” Shannon told Mac. “But I saw the deplorable conditions in which slaves were kept in Rio de Janeiro when we sailed around the Horn to California. No one deserves such treatment.”

“As a Northerner, I agree,” Mac said. “I’ve known many Negroes who managed their freedom as well as most white men. We had a free Negro couple with us on our overland trip in forty-seven. Tanner was as handy with tools as any man I have known. He saved many a wagon along the way. He’s here in California now.”

On September 10, a week after the sessions started, Shannon launched the debate on slavery. He moved to include a section in California’s Constitution reading, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in the State.”

Morton McCarver, a pro-slavery delegate, tried to amend Shannon’s language with an addition, “Nor shall the introduction of free Negroes, under indentures or otherwise, be allowed.”

The arguments raged. Ultimately, Shannon’s motion passed without McCarver’s amendment. But the Negro question came up repeatedly during the remaining weeks of the convention, in one form or another.

Late on Wednesday, September 12, Mac returned to the hotel to find a note from Mrs. John C. Frémont. She invited him to a soirée at the Frémont home in Monterey the following evening.

“So Captain Frémont has arrived,” he said to William Shannon as they climbed the stairs to their room.

“Oh, yes. He’s one of the delegates. His wife recently came to California and has joined him in Monterey.”

“I wonder why I was invited to their gathering. I haven’t met either of them.” Mac’s copy of Frémont’s report to Congress about Oregon was dog-eared and torn. He and Captain Pershing had referred to it almost daily on the trail. If Mac had any hero other than his grandfather, it was John Frémont. He was eager to meet the great explorer.

“Who knows? Jessie Benton Frémont is quite a hostess. She will probably invite every delegate and clerk to some event through the course of the convention.”

Once in his room, Mac quickly penned an acceptance to Mrs. Frémont and gave the hotel’s messenger boy a coin to deliver it the next morning.

At the appointed time, Mac walked to the Frémonts’ comfortable suite in an old Mexican building the Army had appropriated. He was ushered into a drawing room that would rival his parents’ in Boston.

When his name was announced, a lovely, dark-haired woman walked toward him. “Mr. McDougall,” she said, “I am Jessie Frémont. I had the pleasure of meeting an acquaintance of yours on my travels from the States earlier in the year. Miss Susan Abbott? She is visiting me and encouraged me to include you this evening.”

Behind Mrs. Frémont Mac caught sight of Susan Abbott’s blonde curls. He bowed to Mrs. Frémont. “Delighted, ma’am.”

Mac met other delegates and their assistants at the gathering, including his hero John Frémont. He managed not to stammer when he told the captain how valuable his report had been to their wagon company.

“My report?” Frémont laughed. “It bears my name. But I confess my wife wrote much of it. You must tell her how much it helped you.”

“Do not confuse the young man, John,” Mrs. Frémont said, taking her husband’s arm. “You were the one who traveled across our nation. I simply took your words and made them more readable.” She turned to Mac. “And the maps, Mr. McDougall? Were they helpful.”

“We could not have survived in the wilderness without them,” he said.

“Charles Preuss, a German cartographer, was with us.” Frémont chuckled. “An excellent mapmaker, but a very fussy man. And particular in his diet.”

“John,” Mrs. Frémont admonished. “You said the man was a genius.”

“Only with maps, my dear. Only with maps.” The captain patted his wife’s hand, then said to Mac, “I understand you are clerking for Lansford Hastings.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Another of our explorers of the West.” Something in Frémont’s tone made Mac wonder what the man thought of Hastings.

“Now, John.” Mrs. Frémont seemed to be cautioning her husband.

“The man is a charlatan, Jessie,” Frémont said. “I do not mean to denigrate your employer’s ability as a lawyer, Mr. McDougall, and he is an able politician. But he sent emigrants on a route to California that killed many of them. You’ve heard of the Donner party?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No more need be said.” Frémont’s tone was harsh.

“Have you spoken with Miss Abbott yet?” Mrs. Frémont asked Mac, clearly intending to change the subject. “You must renew your acquaintance.” She led him to a corner where Susan Abbott held court among several young delegates and clerks.

“Miss Abbott,” Mac said with a bow. “I understand I have you to thank for my invitation this evening.” Mac hadn’t been in the East for over two years, but he assumed her pale green dress was the height of fashion. The silk and lace were finer than the gray frock she’d worn when they dined with her grandfather in Sacramento.

“Why, Grandfather told me you’d decided to attend the convention.” She held out her hand. Mac took it and bowed. “I knew then I must accept Mrs. Frémont’s invitation to visit. She was kind to extend it to me so we could refresh our acquaintance from the voyage.”

“I am delighted to be here,” Mac said. “I have known of Captain Frémont’s exploits since before I went to Oregon. He is an intrepid surveyor.”

“And his wife a courageous woman.” Susan smiled. “An example for women hoping to civilize the West.”

“Is that your intent, Miss Abbott? To civilize the West?”

“If not before I arrived, then certainly now,” she replied. “You cannot deny the roughnecks of Sacramento and the gold fields need taming. Gamblers and drunkards on every corner. Why, even here in Monterey some of the delegates are less than refined.”

Mac refrained from asking whether she thought him one of them.