Lower California Expedition. Speech Of Mr. Gwin, Of California, In The Senate Of The United States, Jan. 19, 1854, On The Proclamation Of The President Of The United States, Of The 18Th January, 1854, Relative To The Expedition To Lower California FACSIMILE
(High Quality FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION: Gwin, William McKend...)
High Quality FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION: Gwin, William McKendree :Lower California Expedition. Speech Of Mr. Gwin, Of California, In The Senate Of The United States, Jan. 19, 1854, On The Proclamation Of The President Of The United States, Of The 18Th January, 1854, Relative To The Expedition To Lower California :Originally published by Washington : Printed at the Congressional Globe Office in 1854. Book will be printed in black and white, with grayscale images. Book will be 6 inches wide by 9 inches tall and soft cover bound. Any foldouts will be scaled to page size. If the book is larger than 1000 pages, it will be printed and bound in two parts. Due to the age of the original titles, we cannot be held responsible for missing pages, faded, or cut off text.
Invasion of Harper's Ferry-- dangers and duties of the South
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William McKendree Gwin was an American doctor and politician, member of the lower house of Congress, serving in elected office in Mississippi and California. During the Civil War, Gwin was well known in California, Washington D. C. , and in the South as a determined southern sympathizer.
Background
William McKendree Gwin was the second of the seven children of Janies and Mary Gwin.
His father, a native of Wales, made his way through the mountains from South Carolina to the Cumberland settlement in Tennessee in 1791. He was an Indian fighter and a friend of Andrew Jackson.
About 1803 he became an itinerant Methodist preacher, and his son William McKendree, born in Gallatin, Tennessee, United States, on October 9, 1805, was named for the Western leader of that denomination.
Education
Young Gwin received professional training in both law and medicine, taking his degree in the latter subject at Transylvania University (now Transylvania College), Lexington, Kentucky, in March 1828.
The subject of his thesis was “Syphilis. ”The twenty-three closely written pages are preserved in the college library at Lexington.
Career
After his graduation, Gwin moved to Clinton, Mississippi, where he practised medicine until 1833.
In that year he received from President Jackson an appointment as United States marshal for the district of Mississippi.
In 1840 William McKendree Gwin was elected a member of the lower house of Congress, but served one term only.
Financial obligations forced him into private life and he moved to New Orleans, where he received an appointment to superintend the construction of a custom-house in that city. This position he held until Taylor was elected president in 1848, 'vhen, as he declared, “determined not to make money, but to devote all my energies to obtaining and maintaining political power” (letter to brother, Overland Monthly, August 1891, p. 206), he decided to go to California.
Accordingly, upon his arrival in San Francisco in the summer of 1849, he plunged immediately into the discordant political life of the territory.
Traveling extensively and speaking frequently, he urged the formation of a state government.
When the constitutional convention met at Monterey in September 1849, he was chosen to represent the San Francisco district.
His training and experience together with his native tact qualified him for assuming a position of leadership in such a body.
His efforts on behalf of slavery in the convention, which have been greatly exaggerated, were not permitted to interfere with his main purpose—to hasten the formation of a state government and secure his own election to the Senate of the United States. This accomplished, he reached Washington in 1860 before California was admitted to the Union.
Following its admission on September 9, his credentials were accepted, and he continued to represent his adopted state until 1861.
He has been given credit for establishing a mint in California and for initiating plans to survey the Pacific Coast.
Following the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, he was arrested, by order of General Sumner, while on board a vessel in the Bay of Panama, and was taken to New York, where he was held a prisoner at Fort Lafayette from November 18 to December 2, 1861.
He went to Paris in 1863 and was there until June of the following year, during which time he succeeded in interesting Napoleon III in a project for establishing settlers from the South in Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico.
He went to Mexico in 1864 in pursuance of his plan, but Maximilian refused to permit him to carry it into execution, and the scheme failed.
In October 1865, on reentering the United States after a second visit to Mexico, he was arrested again and held a prisoner in Fort Jackson for a period of eight months.
He lived twenty years longer, but his public career was over, and at the time of his death in New York he was practically unknown.
Achievements
In California William McKendree Gwin shared the distinction, along with John C. Frémont, of being the state's first U. S. senators.
Gwin possessed a striking personality and was genial and clever, but in his public career gave occasional indications of a willingness to employ subtle intrigue to further his purposes.
Connections
William McKendree Gwin was married twice: first to Caroline Sampson, who died before 1834, and second, to Mary Bell.
There were two children of his first marriage and four of his second.
