Famous Givers and Their Gifts

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

"Leland Stanford was at this time just as gentle in his manner and as cordial and respectful to all as in his later years. Yet he was possessed of a courage which, when tested, as occasion sometimes required, satisfied the rough element that he was not a man who could be imposed upon. His principle seemed to be to stand up for the right at all times. He never indulged in profanity or coarse words of any kind, and was as considerate in his conduct when holding intercourse with the rough element as though in the midst of the highest refinement."

Mr. Stanford had prospered so well that in 1855 he purchased the business of his brothers in Sacramento, and went East to bring his wife to the Pacific Coast. He studied his business carefully. He made himself conversant with the statistics of trade, the tariff laws, the best markets and means of transportation. He read and thought, while some others idled away their hours. He was deeply interested in the new Republican party, which was then in the minority in California. He believed in it, and worked earnestly for it. When the party was organized in the State in 1856, he was one of the founders of it. He became a candidate for State treasurer, and was defeated. Three years later he was nominated for governor; "but the party was too small to have any chance, and the contest lay between opposing Democratic factions." Mr. Stanford was to learn how to win success against fires and political defeats.

A year later he was a delegate at large to the Republican National Convention; and instead of supporting Mr. Seward, who was from his own State of New York, he worked earnestly for Abraham Lincoln, with whom he formed a lasting friendship. After Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, Mr. Stanford remained in Washington several weeks, at the request of the president and Secretary Seward, to confer with them about the surest means of keeping California loyal to the Union.

Mr. Blaine says of California and Oregon at this time: "Jefferson Davis had expected, with a confidence amounting to certainty, and based, it is believed, on personal pledges, that the Pacific Coast, if it did not actually join the South, would be disloyal to the Union, and would, from its remoteness and its superlative importance, require a large contingent of the national forces to hold it in subjection.

"It was expected by the South that California and Oregon would give at least as much trouble as Kentucky and Missouri, and would thus indirectly, but powerfully, aid the Southern cause."

In the spring of 1861 Mr. Stanford was again nominated by the Republicans for governor. Though he declined at first, after he had consented, with his usual vigor, earnestness, and perseverance, with faith in himself and his fellow-men as well, he and his friends made a thorough and spirited canvass; and Mr. Stanford received 56,036 votes, about six times as many as were given him two years before.

"The period," says the San Francisco Chronicle, "was one of unexampled difficulty of administration; and to add to the embarrassments occasioned by the Civil War, the city of Sacramento and a vast area of the valley were inundated. On the day appointed for the inauguration the streets of Sacramento were swept by a flood, and Mr. Stanford and his friends were compelled to go and return to the Capitol in boats. The messages of Governor Stanford, and indeed all his state papers, indicated wide information, great common-sense, and a comprehensive grasp of State and national affairs, remarkable in one who had never before held office under either the State or national government. During his administration he kept up constant and cordial intercourse with Washington, and had the satisfaction of leaving the chair of state at the close of his term of office feeling that no State in the Union was more thoroughly loyal."

There was much disloyalty in California at first, but Mr. Stanford was firm as well as conciliatory. The militia was organized, a State normal school was established, and the indebtedness of the State reduced one-half under his leadership as governor.

After the war was over, Governor Stanford cherished no animosities. When Mr. Lamar's name was sent to the Senate as associate justice of the Supreme Court, and many were opposed, Mr. Stanford said, "No man sympathized more sincerely than myself with the cause of the Union, or deprecated more the cause of the South. I would have given fortune and life to have defeated that cause. But the war has terminated, and what this country needs now is absolute and profound peace. Lamar was a representative Southern man, and adhered to the convictions of his boyhood and manhood. There never can be pacification in this country until these war memories are obliterated by the action of the Executive and of Congress."

Mr. Stanford declined a re-election to the governorship, because he wished to give his time to the building of a railroad across the continent. He had never forgotten the conversation in his father's home about a railroad to Oregon. When he went back to Albany for Mrs. Stanford, after being a storekeeper among the mines, and she was ill from the tiresome journey, he cheered her with the promise, "Never mind; a time will come when I will build a railroad for you to go home on."