volume 18 (California, volume 6), chapter 25.

_Gen. W. T. Sherman, Memoirs, chapter 4 (volume 1)._

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CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1877-1880. Denis Kearney and the Sand Lot Party. The new state constitution.

"Late in 1877 a meeting was called in San Francisco to express sympathy with the men then on strike at Pittsburg in Pennsylvania. ... Some strong language used at this meeting, and exaggerated by the newspapers, frightened the business men into forming a sort of committee of public safety. ... The chief result of the incident was further irritation of the poorer classes, who perceived that the rich were afraid of them, and therefore disposed to deal harshly with them. Shortly after came an election of municipal officers and members of the State legislature. The contest, as is the custom in America, brought into life a number of clubs and other organizations, purporting to represent various parties or sections of a party, and among others a body calling itself' 'The Working men's Trade and Labor Union,' the Secretary of which was a certain Denis Kearney. When the election was over, Kearney declared that he would keep his union going, and form a working man's party. He was a drayman by trade, Irish by birth, brought up a Roman Catholic, but accustomed to include his religion among the established institutions he reviled. He had borne a good character for industry and steadiness till some friend 'put him into stocks,' and the loss of what he hoped to gain is said to have first turned him to agitation. He had gained some faculty in speaking by practice at a Sunday debating club called the Lyceum of Self Culture. ... Kearney's tongue, loud and abusive, soon gathered an audience. On the west side of San Francisco, as you cross the peninsula from the harbor towards the ocean, there is (or then was) a large open space, laid out for building, but not yet built on, covered with sand, and hence called the Sand Lot. Here the mob had been wont to gather for meetings; here Kearney formed his party. At first he had merely vagabonds to listen, but one of the two great newspapers took him up. These two, the Chronicle and the Morning Call, were in keen rivalry, and the former seeing in this new movement a chance of going ahead, filling its columns with sensational matter and increasing its sale among working men, went in hot and strong for the Sand Lot party. ... The advertisement which the Chronicle gave him by its reports and articles, and which he repaid by advising working men to take it, soon made him a personage; and his position was finally assured by his being, along with several other speakers, arrested and prosecuted on a charge of riot, in respect of inflammatory speeches delivered at a meeting on 'the top of Nob Hill, one of the steep heights which make San Francisco the most picturesque of American cities. The prosecution failed, and Kearney was a popular hero. Clerks and the better class of citizens now began to attend his meetings, though many went from mere curiosity, as they would have gone to a circus; the W. P. C. (Working man's Party of California) was organized as a regular party, embracing the whole State of California, with Kearney for its President. ... The Sand Lot party drew its support chiefly from the Democrats, who here, as in the East, have the larger share of the rabble: hence its rise was not unwelcome to the Republicans, because it promised to divide and weaken their old opponents; while the Democrats, hoping ultimately to capture it, gave a feeble resistance. Thus it grew the faster, and soon began to run a ticket of its own at city and State elections. It carried most of the city offices, and when the question was submitted to the people whether a new Constitution should be framed for California, it threw its vote in favor of having one and prevailed. ... Next came, in the summer of 1878, the choice of delegates to the convention which was to frame the new Constitution. The Working man's Party obtained a substantial representation in the convention, but its nominees were ignorant men, without experience or constructive ideas. ... However; the working men's delegates, together with the more numerous and less corruptible delegates of the farmers, got their way in many things and produced that surprising instrument by which California is now governed. ...

1. It restricts and limits in every possible way the powers of the State legislature, leaving it little authority except to carry out by statutes the provisions of the Constitution. It makes 'lobbying,' i. e., the attempt to corrupt a legislator, and the corrupt action of a legislator, felony.

2. It forbids the State legislature or local authorities to incur debts beyond a certain limit, taxes uncultivated land equally with cultivated, makes sums due on mortgage taxable in the district where the mortgaged property lies, authorizes an income tax, and directs a highly inquisitorial scrutiny of everybody's property for the purposes of taxation.

3. It forbids the 'watering of stock,' declares that the State has power to prevent corporations from conducting their business so as to 'infringe the general well-being of the State'; directs the charges of telegraph and gas companies, and of water-supplying bodies, to be regulated and limited by law; institutes a railroad commission with power to fix the transportation rates on all railroads and examine the books and accounts of all transportation companies.

4. It forbids all corporations to employ any Chinese, debars them from the suffrage, forbids their employment on any public works, annuls all contracts for 'coolie labour,' directs the legislature to provide for the punishment of any company which shall import Chinese, to impose conditions on the residence of Chinese, and to cause their removal if they fail to observe these conditions. It also declares that eight hours shall constitute a legal day's work on all public works. When the Constitution came to be submitted to the vote of the people, in May 1879, it was vehemently opposed by the monied men. ... {353} The struggle was severe, but the Granger party commanded so many rural votes, and the Sand Lot party so many in San Francisco (whose population is nearly a third of that of the entire State) that the Constitution was carried, though by a small majority, only 11,000 out of a total of 145,000 citizens voting. ... The next thing was to choose a legislature to carry out the Constitution. Had the same influences prevailed in this election as prevailed in that of the Constitutional Convention, the results might have been serious. But fortunately there was a slight reaction. ... A series of statutes was passed which gave effect to the provisions of the Constitution in a form perhaps as little harmful as could be contrived, and certainly less harmful than had been feared when the Constitution was put to the vote. Many bad bills, particularly those aimed at the Chinese, were defeated, and one may say generally that the expectations of the Sand Lot men were grievously disappointed. While all this was passing, Kearney had more and more declined in fame and power. He did not sit either in the Constitutional Convention or in the legislature of 1880. The mob had tired of his harangues, especially as little seemed to come of them, and as the candidates of the W. P. C. had behaved no better in office than those of the old parties. He had quarreled with the Chronicle. He was, moreover, quite unfitted by knowledge or training to argue the legal, economical, and political questions involved in the new Constitution so that the prominence of these questions threw him into the background. ... Since 1880 he has played no part in Californian politics, and is indeed so insignificant that no one cares to know where he goes or what he does."

_J. Bryce, The American Commonwealth, chapter 90 (volume 2), and appendix to volume 1 (containing the text of the Constitution of California)._

CALIFORNIA: End----------

CALIGULA.

See CAIUS.

CALIPH, The Title.

The title Caliph, or Khalifa, simply signifies in the Arabic language "Successor." The Caliphs were the successors of Mahomet.

CALIPHATE, The.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST.

CALIPHS, The Turkish Sultan becomes successor to the.

See BAGDAD: A. D. 1258.

CALISCH, OR KALISCH, Treaty of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813.

CALIXTINES, The.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1419-1434.

CALLAO: Siege, 1825-1826.

See PERU: A. D. 1820-1826.

CALLAO: A. D. 1866. Repulse of the Spanish fleet.

See PERU: A. D. 1826-1876.

CALLEVA.

One of the greater towns of Roman Britain, the walls of which, found at Silchester enclose an area of three miles in circuit.

_T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5._

CALLIAS, Peace of.

See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.

CALLINICUS, Battle of.

Fought in the wars of the Romans with the Persians, on the banks of the Euphrates, Easter Eve. A. D. 531. The Romans, commanded by Belisarius, suffered an apparent defeat, but they checked an intended advance of the Persians on Antioch.

_G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 19._

CALLISTUS II., Pope, A. D. 1119-1124. Callistus III., Pope, A. D. 1455-1458.

CALMAR, The Union of.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1018-1397, and 1397-1527.

CALPULALPAM, Battle of (1860).

See MEXICO: A. D. 1848-1861.

CALPURNIAN LAW, The.

"In this year, B. C. 149, the tribune L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, who was one of the Roman writers of annals, proposed and carried a Lex Calpurnia, which made a great change in the Roman criminal procedure. Before this time and to the third Punic war, when a magistratus had misconducted himself in his foreign administration by oppressive acts and spoliation, there were several ways of inquiring into his offence. ... But these modes of procedure were insufficient to protect the subjects of Rome against bad magistratus. ... The remedy for these evils was the establishment of a court under the name of Quaestio Perpetua de pecuniis repetundis, the first regular criminal court that existed at Rome. Courts similarly constituted were afterwards established for the trial of persons charged with other offences. The Lex Calpurnia defined the offence of Repetundæ, as it was briefly named, to be the taking of money by irregular means for the use of a governor. The name Repetundæ was given to this offence, because the object of the procedure was to compel the governor to make restitution. ... The court consisted of a presiding judge ... and of a body of judices or jurymen annually appointed. The number of this body of judices is not known, but they were all senators. The judge and a jury taken from the body of the judices tried all the cases which came before them during one year; and hence came the name Quaestio Perpetua or standing court, in opposition to the extraordinary commissions which had hitherto been appointed as the occasion arose. We do not know that the Lex Calpurnia contained any penalties. As far as the evidence shows, it simply enabled the complainants to obtain satisfaction."

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, chapter 2._

CALUSA, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: TIMUQUANAN FAMILY.

CALVEN, Battle of (1499).

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499.

CALVIN AND THE REFORMATION.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535; and GENEVA: A. D. 1536-1564.

CAMARCUM. The ancient name of the town of Cambrai.

CAMARILLA.

A circle of irresponsible chamber counsellors--courtiers--surrounding a sovereign with influences superior to those of his responsible ministers.

CAMBALU, OR CAMBALEC.

See CHINA: A. D. 1259-1294.

CAMBAS, OR CAMPA, OR CAMPO, The.

See BOLIVIA: ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS; and AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.

CAMBORICUM. A Roman town in Britain.

"Camboricum was without doubt a very important town, which commanded the southern fens. It had three forts or citadels, the principal of which occupied the district called the Castle-end, in the modern town of Cambridge, and appears to have had a bridge over the Cam, or Granta; of the others, one stood below the town, at Chesterton, and the other above it, at Granchester. Numerous roads branched off from this town. ... Bede calls the representative of Camboricum, in his time, a 'little deserted city,' and tells us how, when the nuns of Ely wanted a coffin for their saintly abbess, Etheldreda, they found a beautiful sculptured sarcophagus of white marble outside the city walls of the Roman town."

_T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5._

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CAMBRAI: A. D. 1581. Unsuccessful siege by the Prince of Parma.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1581-1584.

CAMBRAI: A. D. 1595-1598. End of the Principality of governor Balagni. Siege and capture by the Spaniards. Retention under the treaty of Vervins.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.

CAMBRAI: A. D. 1677. Taken by Louis XIV.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.

CAMBRAI: A. D. 1679. Ceded to France.

See NIMEGUEN, THE PEACE OF.

CAMBRAI: End----------

CAMBRAI, The League of.

See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.

CAMBRAI, Peace of.

See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.

CAMBRIA. The early name of Wales.

See KYMRY, and CUMBRIA; also, BRITAIN: 6TH CENTURY.

CAMBRIDGE, England, Origin of.

See CAMBORICUM.

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts. The first settlement.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1629-1630.

CAMBRIDGE, Platform, The:

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1646-1651.

CAMBYSES, OR KAMBYSES, King of Persia, B. C. 529-522.

CAMDEN, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (FEBRUARY-AUGUST).

CAMERONIAN REGIMENT, The.

In 1689, when Claverhouse was raising the Highland clans in favor of James II., "William Cleland, who had fought with distinguished bravery at Bothwell, and was one of the few men whom Claverhouse feared, made an offer to the [Scottish] Estates to raise a regiment among the Cameronians, under the colonelcy of the Earl of Angus, and the offer was accepted. Such was the origin of the Cameronian regiment. Its first lieutenant-colonel was Cleland; its first chaplain was Shields. Its courage was first tried at Dunkeld, where these 800 Covenanted warriors rolled back the tide of Celtic invasion; and since that, undegenerate though changed, it has won trophies in every quarter of the world."

_J. Cunningham, Church History of Scotland,