It’s interesting following this three-ring circus — otherwise
known as the movement to recall Gov. Gray Davis. We’ll see in a
couple of months if the Gray One will be given his termination
notice. We’ll see who might replace him — muscleman Arnold
Schwarzenegger or smut peddler Larry Flynt or whoever else is brave
enough for the thankless job.
It’s interesting following this three-ring circus — otherwise known as the movement to recall Gov. Gray Davis. We’ll see in a couple of months if the Gray One will be given his termination notice. We’ll see who might replace him — muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger or smut peddler Larry Flynt or whoever else is brave enough for the thankless job.
Yeah, it’s all a crazy circus, and Davis’s style of governing has pretty much brought this upon himself. But we’ve had unpopular governors before here in the Golden State, yet we’ve always seem to do pretty well.
Let’s take a look at Peter Hardemann Burnett — the state’s very first governor — who resided in Santa Clara County about 150 years ago. He lived in the port community of Alviso (now a district of San Jose) at the most southern end of San Francisco Bay.
Born on Nov. 15, 1807, in Tennessee, Burnett led quite an interesting life in helping with the development of the American West. After working unsuccessfully as a trader in Tennessee, he moved to western Missouri, where he ran a general store for several years. However, that enterprise went belly-up. He had a family to support and he had only 62 cents to his name. So, quite desperate, he decided to try law.
Burnett worked as a Missouri district attorney during a time when the Christians and the Mormons were fighting violent skirmishes against each other in the late 1830s. He acted as the defense counsel for several Mormon leaders including Joseph Smith, the founder of the religion, who were under indictment. Burnett asked the judge for a change of venue to a more tolerant county. However, while transporting the prisoners, the Mormon leaders managed to escape their guards.
In 1843, Burnett followed the Oregon Trail with other pioneers. He went for two reasons. One, was he hoped to gain enough money in this region to pay off his large debts. The other reason was he hoped the change of climate might improve the health of his wife, Harriet, who had been ill. Burnett wryly commented that the journey would bring resolution to the woman’s sickness because “the trip would either kill or cure her.”
Arriving in that Northwest, Burnett would play a prominent role in organizing the territorial government. He was elected a member of the legislature in 1844 and 1848 and also became a judge of the territory’s Supreme Court. During his time in Oregon, the racist Burnett submitted a bill that all free Negroes be forced to leave the state. Those failing to leave, he proposed, would be arrested and flogged every six months until they did.
It was Burnett who left Oregon, however. Gold was found at Sutter’s Mill on California’s American River in 1848, and that metal lured him with promises of unsurpassed riches. Burnett and his wife joined the thousands of other miners in California’s gold fields, but had little luck there. So he began working for the Sutter estate in the Sacramento area, attempting to sort out complicated legal tangles caused by squatters on Sutter’s land.
In 1849, he saw the necessity of the people of California to form a constitutional government to prepare for the approaching day when Congress would authorize the territory as a new state. He became one of the most vocal persons in California to form a new state government here and worked intensely in bringing together an official constitutional convention at Monterey.
Under this new constitution, Burnett was elected California’s constitutional governor, Harriet serving as the first lady. An Independent Democrat, he gave his inaugural address on Dec. 20, 1849, in San Jose, at that time a small village which served as the state’s first capital. (The administration offices were located in what is now Cesar Chavez Plaza in downtown San Jose.) California was admitted into the Union as the 31st state in September 1850, making Burnett the first state governor. The population at that time was 92,597 people.
Preluding Grey Davis’s lack of popularity among his constituents, Burnett’s governing leadership was not well received by the people of California. OK, they had no recall movement at that time, but Burnett’s brusk style gained him the disdain by many including his fellow politicians and the newspapers.
In 1851, after Burnett’s first annual address to the legislature was harshly criticized, he abruptly gave notice of his resignation of the governorship. He returned to law practice in Alviso, later becoming a supreme court judge in 1857. From 1863 until 1880 he was president of the Pacific Bank of San Francisco.
He also spent much of his time writing his memoirs as well as religious and political works. He published “The Path which Led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church” (1860); “The American Theory of Government, considered with reference to the Present Crisis” (1861); “Recollections of an Old Pioneer” (1878), a classic first-hand look at the early political and constitutional history of the Pacific coast; and “Reasons Why We Should Believe in God, Love God, and Obey God” (1884).
Burnett died May 17, 1895, in San Francisco. He was buried in the cemetery at the Mission Santa Clara and a memorial honors him there.
If it were possible to connect with him in whatever realm he might now find himself, it would be interesting to chat with California’s first governor about the current crisis of leadership the state faces. What advice might Burnett give Gov. Davis? Resign like he did? Stay in the fight?
Perhaps the best advice he could give Davis is: your responsibility is to the state first, not your political career. And, if you can’t provide the solid leadership the state requires during its time of need, do the honorable thing and step aside.
