From that time till the month of May, 1856, the Vigilance Committee did not interfere; and to any one familiar with the history of San Francisco during this period, it will appear extraordinary that the people should have remained so long inactive under the frightful mal-administration of criminal law to which they were subjected.
The crime which at last roused the people from their apathy, but which was not more foul than hundreds which had preceded it, and only more aggravated, inasmuch as the victim was one of the most universally respected citizens of the State, was the assassination, in open day and in the public street, of Mr. James King, of William, by a man named Casey.
The causes which had gradually been driving the people to assert their own power, as they did on this occasion, differed very materially from those which gave birth to the Vigilance Committee of ’51, when their object was merely to root out a gang of house-breakers.
To explain the necessity of the revolution which took place in San Francisco in May, ’56, would require a dissertation on San Francisco politics, which might not be very interesting; suffice it to say, that the power of controlling the elections had gradually got into the hands of men who “stuffed” the ballot-boxes, and sold the elections to whom they pleased; and the natural consequences of such a state of things led to the revolution.
In the Alta California of San Francisco of the 1st of June [1857] is a short article, which gives such a complete idea of the state of affairs that I take the liberty to transcribe it. It was written when the Vigilance Committee, having, a day or two before, hanged two men, were still actively engaged making numerous arrests; and it is remarkable that just at this time the authorities actually hung a man too.
The Alta announces the fact in the following article:—
“A man was executed yesterday for murder, after a due compliance with all forms of law.
“That he had been guilty of the crime for which he suffered there can be no doubt; and yet it is entirely probable that, but for the circumstances which have occurred in San Francisco within the past three weeks, he never would have paid to the offended law the penalty affixed to his crime.
“It is a very remarkable fact in the history of this execution, that the condemned man, at the time of the murder of Mr. King, was living only under the respite of the Governor, and that that respite was obtained through the active interposition of Casey, who little dreamed that he would suffer the death-penalty before the man whom he had labored to save.
“This is the third execution only, under the forms of law, which has ever been had in San Francisco since it became an American city. Murder after murder has been committed, and murderer after murderer has been arrested and tried. Those who were blessed with friends and money have usually succeeded in escaping through the forms of law before a conviction was reached. Those who failed in this respect have, with the exceptions we have stated, been saved from punishment through the unwarranted interference of the executive officer of the State. So murder has enjoyed in San Francisco almost a certain immunity from punishment; and the consequence has been that it has stalked abroad high-handed and bold. Over a year ago, we understood the district attorney to state, in an argument before a jury in a murder case, that, since the settlement of San Francisco by the American people, there had been twelve hundred murders committed here. We thought at the time the number stated was unduly large, and think so still; but it has been large enough, beyond doubt, to give us the unenviable reputation we have obtained abroad.