Wilmington Journal

In San Francisco,
Official Report of Major-General Volney E. Howard to Governor Johnson.
The "Revolution"

In a lengthy report to Gov. Johnson, of California, of the proceedings in San Francisco, Major-General Volney E. Howard has made a

The circumstances connected with this movement are such as to leave no doubt on my mind that the insurgents aim at nothing less than an entire overthrow of the State government and secession from the Federal Union. If it had been their purpose to disband in a short period, they would not have committed piracy by robbing a vessel of a small quantity of arms upon the bay. They would not subsequently have levied actual war upon the State by surrounding the armories by a large military force and seizing the State arms, and making prisoners of the men guarding them—especially when they knew that your orders were that I should act on the defensive, and that I had no power or means to pursue any other line of conduct. It must be obvious to all men of ordinary discernment, that this lawless association has proceeded from one crime and outrage to another, until they have arrived at the conclusion that there is no safety for their leaders but in revolution and a separate government on the Pacific—they have committed treason, murder, piracy, and the felony of kidnapping.

They have violently and with force of arms trodden down the authority of the executive and the judiciary. They have, at the point of the bayonet, resisted the execution of the writ of habeas corpus—for ages justly considered the bulwark of personal liberty. They have assembled around the jail of the county of San Francisco large numbers of armed men, and planted a cannon against the front, and thus compelled the surrender of two persons therein detained in the custody of the law, whom they have since put to death without a legal trial or the forms of judicial proceedings. They have, without a warrant or any other process of law, forcibly searched the houses of honest and peaceable citizens at the dead hour of night, outraging families and terrifying defenceless females. For nearly six weeks they have trampled down, by an armed military despotism in San Francisco, every constitutional right secured to the citizens by Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. They have robbed us of the heritages earned for us by the labors and sufferings of the sages and patriots of 1776. They have erected in the heart of the commercial metropolis a fortification filled with armed men to overawe the citizens and the civil authorities. By day and night they paraded in the streets large bodies of armed men, and San Francisco presents continually the appearance of a city in the possession of a foreign foe—and it is so practically. It is well known that the Vigilance Committee have armed and hired a large body of foreign mercenaries to shoot down the officers and citizens of the State in discharge of the duties cast upon them by the laws and their oaths of office.

Men who have committed such crimes as those against the State, are naturally hurried by fear and desperation. Before them is the abyss of revolution and secession; behind the halter. They dare not return under a government of honest judges, with a prospect of fair jurors, who will administer the laws without the commission of perjury. It is a fact worthy of notice, that during this whole excitement, licentious as the press is, the District Judges in San Francisco—the highest judicial officers in the city, both as to civil and criminal jurisdiction—have not even been assailed. Their purity is not questioned. To escape from the consequences of trial before these officers, members of the Vigilance Committee, through their mouth pieces—the press, have constantly clamored for their resignation.

They have demanded the resignation of the Mayor, Sheriff, and all other city and county officers, on the avowed ground that the Vigilance Committee could not disband with safety, until these offices were filled with creatures of their own. Failing in this object, they see no safety but in revolution. Knowing that the Executive dispatched by the last steamer a requisition on the President of the United States for the necessary means to put down the insurrection, and perfectly aware that the President under the constitution and the acts of Congress has no discretion, but is bound to furnish not only arms but to employ all the land and naval force of the United States for that purpose, they perceive that their punishment is inevitable; that it is a mere question of time, unless they can throw off the authority of the Union and tear California from the constellation of States. They see that under the laws of this State there is no limitation of the time within which they may be prosecuted for murder; that so long as California is in the Union and they may exist and remain within its limits, they are liable to prosecution and the ignominious penalty of the gallows. They have no safety, therefore, but in drawing all their fellow citizens after them into anarchy and disunion. They seek to pull all down to a common infamy of crime.

It is doubtless true that up to the time of the refusal of Gen. Wool to grant arms to the State, had he complied with the requisition, that they would have disbanded within four days, and order would have been restored without the firing of a gun. But the knowledge that the State was comparatively destitute of arms, is the key to all the recent high handed measures, outrages and crimes. They use their momentary power to gloat over, insult and trample upon the people of the State.

If crime is not punished in San Francisco, it is not for the want of able and upright judges. It is owing to the corruption of the juries. It will be admitted that the jury system in San Francisco has not always been remarkable for purity. But whose fault is it? That of the very merchants and shop-keepers who now mainly constitute the Vigilance Committee. They decline or shirk the duty of serving on juries on any frivolous pretext. It is well known that a distinguished judge in that city not long since adjourned his court for the day, alleging that he was sickened with hearing business men commit perjury in swearing to excuses to evade serving on juries.

As to the election frauds—bribery and ballot-box stuffing—there is no doubt that it has been a monstrous evil in San Francisco. These crimes have been resorted to to a frightful extent by all political parties; but the punishment has fallen exclusively upon the offenders in one. Some of the most notorious perpetrators of election frauds are prominent members of, and sympathizers with the Vigilance Committee. They are honored and protected members of that treasonable association. Since they have created a new punishment unknown to the law—that of banishment—why do they not mete out equal justice to all parties.

Neither can these men escape scrutiny into their motives. They are not purely those of the public good. There are in the Vigilance Committee some merchants of wealth and business integrity. There are a host of others on the verge of bankruptcy.—They are men unable to make remittances before this commotion began, and who are now urging its prolongation, because it affords them a plausible excuse for not sending, per mail, funds which they are unable to remit. No one wishes to take out an attachment or foreclose a mortgage against an influential member of the Vigilance Committee. As to him the courts are practically closed. Capital is timid, and shrinks from insurrection, civil commotion and the conflict of arms, but a man who trades on borrowed capital, and in an untried hour, is little more affected by the losses of his creditors and landlord, than the barricade Frenchman whom he hires to devastate the city. An ocean of flame burns nothing that he can call his own. What right have such men to kidnap one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, a gentleman who is the soul of honor and truth? How dare these traitors thrust Dr. Ashe into their dungeon, erected at the expense of their creditors—a gentleman who has committed no offence, and upon whose integrity the mildew of calumny has never before rested?

No one who has closely observed the proceedings of the Vigilance Committee for the last few days can doubt that it has sunk into a mere political machine. The leading spirits outside and in belong to a certain political combination, are well known and marked for their former political associations and affinities. They cannot disguise their selfish and unholy ambition. Their purpose is various; some wish for a separation from the Union—others to continue the association until after the November election for mere party purposes. They think they see in it a patent lever for controlling the elections in California.

I am well aware that "33 Seal" have published an official denial of these projects. Traitors never admit their treason in the outset. It is quite as easy for "33" to deny the purpose until the plot is ripe; but it is well known that many of its prominent members have advocated a new government on the streets, and that others have avowed the purpose of keeping up the organization until after the election, because it was such a capital thing with which to beat their opponents. When the proper time arrives these things will be fastened upon them by irrefragible proof.

The honest yeomanry and miners in the country have hearts, and the sentiments and the souls of honest and free men. Call them to the rescue, with their rifles and such arms as they possess—they will respond to the call, redeem the country from this deep disgrace, which is a stain upon every citizen, however humble. The sober people have right hearts and stout arms. They have made the country what it is in peace and war, and will never fail to redeem it in the hour of danger and public calamity. Let them deal with the traitors.

Volney E. Howard.