John Bigler

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
John Bigler
John McDougall
Succeeded byJ. Neely Johnson
2nd Speaker of the California State Assembly
In office
February 1850 – May 1851
Preceded byThomas J. White
Succeeded byRichard P. Hammond
Member of the California State Assembly from the 12th district
In office
1850 – 1852
Personal details
Born
John Bigler

(1805-01-08)January 8, 1805
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedNovember 29, 1871(1871-11-29) (aged 66)
Sacramento, California, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
SpouseElizabeth Bigler
ChildrenVirginia
ProfessionEditor, lawyer, politician

John Bigler (January 8, 1805 – November 29, 1871) was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat. A

U.S. Minister to Chile
from 1857 to 1861.

Biography

Bigler was born in early 1805 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Beginning work in the printing trade at an early age, Bigler, as well as his younger brother, William, never received a formal education, yet Bigler took it upon himself to educate his younger brother. In 1831, both brothers moved to Bellefonte in Centre County to buy the local Andrew Jackson-affiliated Centre Democrat newspaper, where older John assumed editorial duties. Bigler worked as editor until 1835, when he sold the publication to study law.[1]

When news of the California gold rush reached the East Coast in mid-1848, Bigler, now a middle-aged lawyer, decided to leave for the West Coast to join a law practice. Travelling overland with an ox train, Bigler reached Sacramento in 1849, only to quickly discover that there were no open positions in law. Bigler began to work at a series of odd jobs, including becoming an auctioneer, a wood chopper, and a freight unloader at the town's docks along the Sacramento River.[2] Upon hearing of the territory's first general election in the same year, Bigler decided to turn to politics, and entered the California State Assembly as a Democrat, one of nine members representing the Sacramento district.

Political career

Upon being elected to the first session of the

Speaker of the Assembly in February 1850. Now one of the most powerful legislators in the state, Bigler enjoyed widespread name recognition. During the Sacramento Cholera Epidemic of October 1850, Bigler contracted cholera as a direct result of his remaining in the city and assisting doctors and undertakers.[2]

In May 1851, Bigler was nominated by the Democratic Party convention in Benicia as the party's choice for governor in California's first general election after achieving statehood. Bigler's challenger, the Whig Party's Pierson B. Reading, derided Bigler as an unpolished, gruff Yankee Northerner, while Reading articulated himself as an educated pioneering gentleman of the South.

Bigler ran on an explicitly anti-Chinese platform.[3]: 27 

Bigler won the election by little more than a thousand votes, which remains today as the closest gubernatorial election in California history.[2]

Governorship

Portrait of Bigler by William F. Cogswell.
Bond for "War Indebtedness" used to pay for "Expeditions against the Indians", signed by Governor John Bigler on 31 March 1854

Upon assuming the governorship on January 8, 1852, Bigler established his priorities to protect the state's highly profitable mining interests from leasing or outside monopolies, declaring in his first inaugural address that these mining interests should be "left as free as the air we breathe."[4] Bigler also prioritized the industrialization of California, encouraging industrial investment on behalf of the state government. On 3 May 1852, he approved issuance of bonds used to pay expenses for "Expeditions against the Indians" entitled, "Bond of the State of California for War Indebtedness", signed by Governor John Bigler, State Comptroller Samuel Bell and State Treasurer Selden A. McMeans on 31 March 1854.English: Exhibit in the Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California, USA. This work is in the public domain because its maker died more than 70 years ago. Photography was permitted in the museum without restriction.

Anti-Chinese laws

Bigler also enacted a policy to prevent

California Supreme Court later ruled the law unconstitutional.[2]

As

American Know-Nothing Party
.

Opposition to the constriction of Chinese immigration was voiced by

Norman Asing, a leader in San Francisco's Chinese community, in an open letter published in 1852.[7][8]
He argued that "...we are not the degraded race you would make us" and that "...when your nation was a wilderness, and the nation from which you sprung barbarous, we exercised most of the arts and virtues of civilized life;" therefore, the Chinese should be free to contribute productively to the US.

Free Soil period

Pressure was also mounting on the Democratic Party itself in California in regards to slavery. By the 1853 general election campaign, large majorities of pro-slavery Democrats from Southern California, calling themselves the Chivalry (later branded as

Lecompton Democrats), threatened to divide the state in half should the state not accept slavery. Bigler, along with former State Senator and Lieutenant Governor David C. Broderick from the previous McDougall Administration, formed the Free Soil Democratic faction, modeled after the federal Free Soil Party that argued against the spread of slavery. The Democrats effectively split into two camps, with both the Chivalry and Free Soilers nominating their own candidates for the 1853 election.[9] Despite the party split, Bigler was able to overcome Whig Party challenger William Waldo and win a second term of office, the first governor of the state to win a second term. No other elected California governor would win a first and second term until Hiram Johnson
in 1914.

Moving the capital

During Bigler's tenure, the state government struggled to find a permanent location for a capital or a capitol building. State Senator

Sacramento, while Vallejo would remain the permanent capital. However, after flooding problems in Sacramento, and dire weather conditions in Vallejo, the Legislature and Bigler agreed to relocate the capital to nearby Benicia
. Conditions in Benicia also proved poor for state bureaucrats. Sacramento offered its services again as a capital, and on February 25, 1854, Governor Bigler signed a law making Sacramento the capital of California. With the exception of a temporary move to San Francisco in 1862 while Sacramento was again flooded, the capital has stayed there since.

Bigler's popularity peaked around 1854 to 1855. For the 1855 general election, the Democratic Party renominated Bigler in his bid to gain a third term of office. However, his monopoly on anti-immigrant sentiment began to lose ground. Growing economic troubles due to the slow collapse of gold mining in the Sierras and other gold discoveries in Australia, as well as failures to solve growing state financial debt led to popular discontent with infrastructure and fiscal management within his administration. Bigler's administration had attained a general perception of fiscal extravagance among the public.

American Know-Nothing Party, led by its nominee, former Whig J. Neely Johnson
, defeated Bigler by a moderate margin during the 1855 election. Bigler is the first California governor to be defeated through a general election.

Post governorship career

Following his defeat in the 1855 elections, Bigler's career turned to diplomacy. In 1857, at the insistence of his brother,

U.S. Senate never confirmed the nomination, and thus Bigler never took the position.[12]

In 1867, Bigler was appointed railroad commissioner for the Central Pacific Railroad. In 1868, he founded the State Capitol Reporter and served as its editor until his death in Sacramento on November 29, 1871, at the age of 66. He is interred in the Sacramento Historic City Cemetery.[13][14]

Lake Tahoe/Lake Bigler

At the height of his popularity in 1854, the Democratic majority

Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland, a French botanist who had accompanied Prussian explorer Alexander von Humboldt in his exploration of Mexico, Colombia and the Amazon River.[15] Lake Bonpland's usage never became popular, with the lake's name changing from "Mountain Lake" to "Fremont's Lake“ several years after. By 1853, the name "Lake Bigler" began to be applied to maps of the lake after the then-popular California governor. The state legislature officially changed the name the following year."[16]

An 1860s map of "Lake Bigler" during the name controversy

Lake Bigler's usage never became universal. In just a year, different maps referred to the lake not only as Bigler, but also as "Mountain Lake" to "Maheon Lake." By 1861, at the start of the

Sacramento Union
jokingly suggested the name "Largo Bergler" for Bigler's widely perceived financial incompetency in his final term and contemporary Southern sympathies.

The debate took a new direction when

Sacramento Union joined the political argument in 1862. As Knight completed a new map of the lake, the mapmaker asked DeGroot for a new name of the lake. DeGroot suggested "Tahoe," a local tribal name he believed meant "water in a high place." Knight agreed, and telegraphed to the Land Office in Washington, D.C., to officially change all federal maps to now read "Lake Tahoe." Knight later explained his desire for a name change, writing, "I remarked (to many) that people had expressed dissatisfaction with the name "Bigler", bestowed in honor of a man who had not distinguished himself by any single achievement, and I thought now would be a good time to select an appropriate name and fix it forever on that beautiful sheet of water."[17]

"Lake Tahoe," also like "Lake Bigler," did not gain universal acceptance.

Mountain Democrat began a notorious rumor that "Tahoe" was actually an Indian
renegade who plundered upon White settlers. To counter the federal government, the California State Legislature reaffirmed in 1870 that the lake was indeed called "Lake Bigler."

By the end of the 19th century, usage of "Lake Bigler" had nearly completely fallen out of popular vocabulary in favor of "Tahoe." The California State Legislature officially reversed its previous decision in 1945, officially changing the name to Lake Tahoe.

References

  1. ^ Douglas Macneal. "15 Historical Sketches of Our 200 Years". Centre County Government. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
  2. ^
    OCLC 6109910
    .
  3. ISBN 978-1-350-23394-2
    .
  4. ^ Bigler, John (1852-01-08). "Inaugural Address". State of California. Archived from the original on 2009-04-30. Retrieved 2009-01-21.
  5. ^ Norman Asing. "Becoming American: The Chinese Experience". PBS. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
  6. OCLC 13193702
    . Retrieved 2007-05-09.
  7. ^ Norman Asing (May 5, 1852). "To His Excellency Gov. Bigler". Daily Alta California. Milestone Documents. Retrieved 7 June 2013.
  8. ^ "Chinese: Norman Asing/Sang Yuen". We Are California. Archived from the original on 5 February 2012. Retrieved 7 June 2013.
  9. ^ California Research Bureau (June 1853). "Studies in the News". California State Library. Archived from the original on 2007-06-29. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
  10. ^ The Office of the Assembly Chief Clerk (May 2000). "California's State Capitols" (PDF). Second Edition. State of California. Archived from the original (.PDF) on 2007-06-11. Retrieved 2007-05-09. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ^ a b Theodore H. Hittell (1897) [1885]. History of California. Vol. IV. San Francisco, CA: N.J. Stone & Company.
  12. ^ "JoinCalifornia - John Bigler". www.joincalifornia.com.
  13. ^ Self Guided Tour (PDF). Historic City Cemetery, Inc. January 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-12-09. Retrieved January 29, 2011.
  14. ^ "Sacramento Historic City Cemetery Burial Index" (PDF). Old City Cemetery Committee. 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 5, 2018. Retrieved April 6, 2011.
  15. ^ a b "Where does the name "Tahoe" come from?". rubiconbay.net. Archived from the original on 2007-03-15. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
  16. ^ California State Library. "John Bigler". State of California. Archived from the original on February 18, 2006. Retrieved January 21, 2009.
  17. ^ "History of Lake Tahoe". South Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce. Archived from the original on 2007-05-02. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
  18. Virginia City Territorial Enterprise
    , February 12, 1864
  19. ISBN 0-486-42832-X
    .

External links
Party political offices
First Democratic nominee for Governor of California
1851, 1853, 1855 		Succeeded by
California Assembly
Preceded by
First Legislature
 California State Assemblyman, Sacramento District
1849–1851
(with eight others) 		Succeeded by
Numbered districts established
Preceded by
District created
 California State Assemblyman, 12th District
1851–1852
(with Daniel J. Lisle, Charles Robinson) 		Succeeded by
Four members
Political offices
Preceded by
John McDougall
Governor of California

1852–1856 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Bigler&oldid=1220280927"