Joshua Norton On His Way Out of the Democratic (Or Any Other) Party
Joshua’s Signature on an 1856 Statement Calling Out Local Party Corruption May Signal the Beginning of His Move Towards Independent Politics
AFTER SOME 20 MONTHS of litigation in the rice contract dispute between Joshua Norton and the firm of Ruiz Hermanos, starting in January 1853, the California Supreme Court ruled against Joshua in October 1854.
The Court handed down its sentence in May 1855, ordering Joshua to pay the Ruiz firm $20,000.
In August 1856, Joshua declared bankruptcy.
But, throughout this period and beyond — even as a succession of creditors were suing Joshua to recover their debts and the lower courts were resolving these lawsuits by foreclosing on Joshua’s properties — Joshua remained politically engaged.
In May 1855 — in the immediate wake of the California Supreme Court sentence — Joshua ran as a Democratic candidate for San Francisco tax collector.
In August 1858, he presented himself as an independent candidate for U.S. Congress.
Later, as Emperor, he often attended and participated — as an impromptu speechifier — in public meetings promoting independent candidates and platforms.
But, apparently, Emperor Norton did not affiliate with either the Democratic or Republican parties during his reign from September 1859 until his death in January 1880.
As if to put a punctuation mark on his purposed abstention: The Emperor put a pox on both the Democratic and Republican houses, issuing two Proclamations abolishing both parties — first in 1869 and again in 1876.
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THE AVAILABLE EVIDENCE suggests that, by the time of his independent “run” for Congress in August 1858, Joshua Norton already had washed his hands of the “major” parties as vehicles for effecting meaningful change.
But, he did seek the Democratic nomination for San Francisco taxpayer in May 1855.
What happened between May 1855 and August 1858 that could provide a clue to Joshua’s disillusionment with the Democratic (or any other) party and his pivot towards a politics that was independent of party structures?
Here’s one thing…
In February 1856, Joshua Norton joined nearly 1,000 other members of San Francisco Democratic Party in signing a public statement protesting corruption in the local party; “refus[ing] further allegiance to the General Committee,” i.e., the local party leadership; and pledging to re-establish the local party according to its original ideals.
Here’s the statement and the published signatures as they appeared in the Daily Alta California newspaper in a one-week ad that began running on 26 February 1856. In the image on the right, Joshua Norton’s name is in the second column, a little less than a quarter from the bottom. *
“Address to the Democracy of San Francisco,” open letter of protest and dissent from the leadership of the San Francisco Democratic Party, signed by Joshua Norton, Daily Alta California, 26 February 1856, p. 2. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection
Address to the Democracy of San Francisco
The Undersigned, members of the Democratic party, of the county of San Francisco, having resolved to refuse further allegiance to the General Committee, as at present constituted in this county, deem it due their political brethren throughout this State, to make public the motives by which they are actuated, and the causes which have impelled them to resist and repudiate the authority of the members composing that Committee.
Our object is to re-establish and sustain the principles of Democracy, as expounded by the founders of our Institutions, and to secure hereafter, in its original purity and fullest extent, the right of suffrage to every legal voter at both primary and general elections.
This right we believe is not secured in the county of San Francisco, under the present organization of, and actions of, the General Committee.
We have arrived at this conviction from out solemn belief in the following facts:
First. The ballot-box has been placed almost exclusively under the control of men in whose character and fidelity to the Democracy we do not confide.
Second. The men in whom high trust is reposed, we believe to be under the dominion of persons composing a political oligarchy at war with the views of our party, and more burdensome and obnoxious to freemen than the worst of despotism.
Third. Their influence has ever been exerted, if they have not been mainly instrumental in securing the election of their immediate friends to the principal city and county offices endowed with extraordinary compensation, which compensation has mainly been applied to the support and perpetuation of their own power.
And lastly, and in a word — They have, regardless of the principles of our party, aimed only at the objects of their own wicked ambition, and set at defiance the will of the majority.
In view of all these facts, we claim the right, to which by the principles and usages of Democracy we are entitled, to refuse any longer to recognize the existing County Committee; and we invoke all who profess our political faith, to aid us in freeing the Democratic Party of this county, from the corruptions which have fastened themselves upon it.
We are aware of the importance of the step we are taking, and are prepared to abide the consequences.
Painful as it is to war against those we would fain welcome as fellow worshippers at a common altar, and anxious as we are, in view of the magnitude of interests involved, to secure harmony and concert of action, we have decided that there remains to us but one course of action. We are driven to choose between two evils — either to succumb and yield a slavish obedience to a shameless oligarchy which has usurped and profaned the name of Democracy, and for the sake of "harmony" to convert our faith into a whited sepulchre — or to prove loyal to our principles, and disclaiming all alliance with corruption, stand firm around the pillars of our political faith. We have decided on the latter course, and in making this decision we hereby disclaim all intention of favoring the views or advancing the interest of any man, or clique, or faction, and our sole object to be the purification and success of the Party of which we are members.
Being firmly convinced that the existing Committee, claiming to act for the County of San Francisco, is based on principles sustained by action at war with all the vital principles and usages of true Democracy, we have resolved now and hereafter, to resist to the last, from whatever quarter the attack may come, every invasion and desecration which a selfish ambition may prompt of the sanctuary of our Political Creed.
To this end we propose a new and purer organization of our Party by the people themselves, in such form as the appropriate committees shall propose, and the people sanction.
The group that drafted this statement had been meeting for a few days. Catching wind of this, the Democratic General Committee, during a February 21 meeting session, dispatched one of its members to hand-deliver an olive-branch letter to group, which was meeting at the same time.
In the letter, the General Committee proposed that the dissenting group name one of two Judges and one of two Tally Clerks to staff each poll location for a local party election the following week that would determine the delegates to the Democratic state convention scheduled to meet in Sacramento on March 5.
The relevance of the gesture was that the group’s root complaint was ballot-box stuffing — which was in fact a real problem.
But, the group, being in no mood to compromise, turned the Committee’s emissary away as soon as he arrived at the door.
The Alta published the Committee’s report of the endeavor as follows. *
Report of the San Francisco Democratic General Committee, Daily Alta California, 26 February 1856, p. 1. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection
A couple of things to note right away about the dissenting group’s public statement…
There are 436 listed signatories followed by the phrase “And five hundred and thirty-nine others.” The fact that Joshua Norton’s name makes the cut suggests that, even in the wake of his recent legal and financial troubles, Joshua still retained enough stature to be named — that, or he was among the first to sign. Possibly both.
Too: The lead signatory and the first president of the emergent group that organized in the days and weeks following was Julius Kirke Rose (1820–1902), who previously had been the law partner of Hall McAllister and helped McAllister represent Joshua Norton’s opponents in the rice dispute. If Joshua was aware of this connection when he signed, it might say something about his ability during this period to keep from holding a grudge when political and civic priorities — not to mention, his own reputation and membership in the “club” of San Francisco business leaders — were at stake.
In the group’s statement, the specific uses of the term “the Democracy” — including in the title of the statement — suggest a double meaning: both the people of San Francisco in general and San Francisco Democrats in particular.
During the same period that the statement ran in the Alta, it appeared in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin under the title “Address of the New General Committee.” But, once the group began to meet and organize, it styled itself the “Democratic Central Committee” — the same name sometimes used by the local party leadership committee the group was breaking with.
As the following notices make clear, the San Francisco press had to tie itself into knots to specify which “Democratic Central Committee” it was talking about — the one associated with the establishment or the one associated with the reformers:
No doubt, it was to stem confusion that, when referring to the reform group, the press eventually just adopted the shorthand used by the group’s local Democratic Party opponents: “purifiers” — a riff on the word, “purification,” that the reform group used in its founding statement.
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THE IMMEDIATE IMPETUS for the Purifier movement was to make a play at the Democratic state convention in Sacramento on 5 March 1856.
The Purifiers did elect their own delegates. But, as the Alta noted in its item a few days later (March 9, above), the state party did not recognize or seat them. So, they had little choice but to retreat to San Francisco empty-handed.
Over the next several weeks, the Purifiers continued to meet and pass resolutions — which often were published in the more reform-minded Bulletin. But, it wasn’t until May that the group made another gambit that captured headlines.
The Purifiers targeted Milton Slocum Latham (1827–1882), the Sacramento-based U.S, Customs Collector of the Port of San Francisco, as a case study in the kind of influence peddling the group had set themselves against. Latham was an appointee of U.S. President Franklin Pierce, and the group went so far as to signal, in a 3 May 1856 resolution, its intention to ask Pierce to remove Latham from office. (Latham would be elected Governor of California in 1859, serving for five days in January 1860 before being selected by the California legislature to serve out the remainder of the recently deceased David Broderick’s U.S. Senate term.)
The details of the Purifiers’ anti-Latham campaign are beyond the scope of the present article. But, it’s worth noting that the Alta took a jaded view. Even the more-sympathetic Bulletin thought that, while the Purifiers’ heart was in the right place, it was way out over its skis on Latham. Newspaper editorials and reader letters about the issue suggest that the whole affair left many with the impression that the Purifiers weren’t really against influence peddling but, rather, were upset that influence wasn’t being peddled in their direction.
The group seems to have lost a lot of credibility over this. And, there already were signs of dissension within the group over where and when to apply pressure.
Much of the basic critique of local politics being brought by the Purifiers was accurate — so, there was a moment to be had. But, they squandered the moment on petty attacks and thereafter were heard from very little, quickly becoming a footnote.
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IN MAY 1858 — exactly two years after the Purifiers pitched their complaint against Milton Latham — Henry Lambard Nichols (1823–1915), running on the “People’s” (Independent) ticket, was elected President of the Sacramento Board of Supervisors over the Democrat, John L. Craig. The margin of defeat was 2 to 1.
Using the name of Ned McGowan as a poetic device, the Bulletin declared the result a victory for reform:
“Reform Triumphant at Sacramento,” editorial, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, p. 2. Source: Genealogy Bank
Referring to “ballot-box stuffers” and making a point of putting “Democratic” in quotation marks, the Bulletin concludes:
The good seed planted in San Francisco, is rapidly extending its roots; it will continue to do so, until the great principles of purity, economy and strict accountability in office, shall have spread over the whole State, and the empty politicians and treasury thieves be discomfited and dispersed forever.
It’s a reasonable bet that the Bulletin is paying partial tribute here to the Purifiers of the San Francisco Democratic Party for sounding the alarm on political corruption in 1856.
Perhaps Joshua Norton, who had signed his early support of that effort, was cheering the People’s ticket of Sacramento and was encouraged by their success to make the following announcement of his own Independent candidacy for U.S. Congress in the Bulletin three months later:
Joshua Norton’s ad announcing candidacy for U.S. Congress, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 21 August 1858, p. 2. Source: Genealogy Bank
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A LITTLE MORE than a year later, Joshua Norton declared himself Emperor in a Proclamation that was published in the Daily Evening Bulletin of 17 September 1859.
In his more-detailed second Proclamation of 12 October 1859 — also published in the Bulletin (see below the following excerpt) — Emperor Norton observes…
that the universal suffrage, as now existing throughout the Union, is abused; that fraud and corruption prevent a fair and proper expression of the public voice; that open violation of the laws are constantly occurring, caused by mobs, parties, factions and undue influence of political sects; that the citizen has not that protection for person and property which he is entitled to be paying his pro rata of the expense of Government
…thus making clear that he will be carrying forward into his own reign much of the Purifiers' critique of political corruption.
Proclamation of Emperor Norton, San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 12 October 1859, p. 3. Source: Genealogy Bank
In June 1874, Emperor Norton issued a Proclamation in which he writes that he “only holds and demands the authority to blend the Government into a better and purer Constitution, which object being accomplished, he desires the acceptance of his resignation.
Proclamation of Emperor Norton, The Pacific Appeal, 20 June 1874, p. 1. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection
In the phrase “better and purer Constitution,” one can hear an echo of a phrase that appeared in the Purifiers’ opening statement, in which the Democratic reformers concluded:
Being firmly convinced that the existing Committee, claiming to act for the County of San Francisco, is based on principles sustained by action at war with all the vital principles and usages of true Democracy, we have resolved now and hereafter, to resist to the last, from whatever quarter the attack may come, every invasion and desecration which a selfish ambition may prompt of the sanctuary of our Political Creed.
To this end we propose a new and purer organization of our Party by the people themselves, in such form as the appropriate committees shall propose, and the people sanction.
Joshua Norton — a Purifier until the last.
How many of Joshua’s fellow signatories of May 1856 found their way out of party politics, as he did, and engaged thereafter as political independents?
How many became friends, followers, and supporters of the Emperor Norton?
* Thank you to John Rose of Santa Rosa, Calif., for originally sharing with us newspaper documentation of (a) the statement of protest against the San Francisco Democratic Party leadership signed by Joshua Norton and (b) the party leadership’s effort to make peace with the dissenting group in the days before publication of the statement.
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