1850 American Gold Tycoon.

Chapter 108 California King

After grounding the New York consortium, Liang Yao hurried back to San Francisco.

Before the official election in California, Liang Yao and Robinson convened the Citizens Committee Congress in San Francisco. The Congress unanimously passed a resolution to reorganize the Citizens Committee and established the first local political party in California: the Citizens Party.

There is no doubt that the Civic Party has Liang Yao and Robinson as the chairman and vice-chairman respectively.Girvan, a member of the Whig Party, could not hold any position in the Citizens' Party.

But Liang Yao and Robinson still allowed Ge Wen to listen from the sidelines.

Not everyone in the United States of this era has the right to vote, and each state has relatively strict requirements for voters, which can also be said to be a threshold.

For example, the threshold for voters in New York State is to own at least one property.

And wealth is the most unstable thing in California, and almost everyone's wealth will have huge fluctuations tomorrow.

For example, Liang Yao, when he wakes up, his worth can increase by tens of thousands of dollars.

Of course, there are also people who are unlucky in the gold rush and lose all their wealth overnight.

How to define whether a California citizen has the right to vote has become a big problem facing the Citizens' Party.

It is impossible to count the properties of California citizens in a short period of time. The property of California citizens fluctuates greatly. Another more realistic problem is that there is currently no statistical office in California.

In the end, Liang Yao proposed a practical solution, that is, as long as California citizens with American nationality can have the right to vote and participate in voting.

This bold idea quickly won the support of most of the representatives of the Civic Party. After all, it is more convenient and quicker to check the nationality than to count the property.

Some members of the Civic Party even felt that this was an initiative more advanced than that of the eastern states.

The original intention of Liang Yao to put forward this suggestion was not to consider whether this method is advanced, but because all Chinese immigrants in California have American citizenship.

And many gold prospectors who poured into California from Europe and other areas did not have American citizenship.

As a result, the proportion of Chinese voters will increase significantly, becoming a decisive political force in California.

On the third day after the convention, elections were held as scheduled, starting with the gubernatorial race.

After the election began, the gold diggers who did not naturalize in the United States in time couldn't help but beat their chests and regretted it.

The reason they regret it is not because they do not have the right to vote, but because those who have the right to vote can use their votes in exchange for 10 pounds of flour or 5 pounds of beer.

These things don't come cheap in California.

In the gubernatorial election, Robinson was elected the first governor of California with 93% approval rate without any suspense.

Liang Yao's approval rating for deputy governor was 5 percentage points higher than Robinson's.

Strauss, who had just returned to San Francisco, narrowly defeated Stanford and was elected mayor of San Francisco.

Stanford is not completely without gains, he became the state attorney general as he wished.

Sutter was elected mayor of Sacramento.

Even Deng Wenshun, who was in Los Angeles, became the mayor of Los Angeles Town.

So far, the three largest settlements in California: San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles are all under Liang Yao's control.

He is now the veritable King of California.

After the election, Liang Yao was not immersed in joy, he was not dazzled by the victory in front of him.

He is very clear that he has not yet achieved complete victory, and what will greet him next will be a storm from Congress.

The consortia and nobles in New York will never be willing to let this go, and will inevitably launch a crazy counterattack.

Congress and the federal government have no right to interfere in state affairs. That is for the more mature states in the east, and California is a new state with gold.

In the eyes of the old men in Congress, California, which has just been established as a state, is as weak and deceitful as a child who has just inherited a huge fortune.

The flag of the United States was hoisted in the plaza in San Francisco, and California became the thirty-first star in the Stars and Stripes.

On the side of the Stars and Stripes, the bear flag, the state flag representing California, is flying in the wind. The state flag retains the words of the Republic of California during the bear flag uprising in 1846.

And this uprising was led by Fremont, whose original idea was to follow the example of the Lone Star Republic, let California separate from Mexico and establish an independent new country in the California area.

It's just that this idea was very unrealistic at the time, so Fremont gave up the idea of ​​​​independence and announced that California would join the United States of America.

加利福尼亚共和国从1846年6月独立建国到1846年7月宣布加入美利坚合众国仅仅只存在了短短25天。

The inscription of the Republic of California on the bear flag was not intentional by Liang Yao, and the inscription of the Republic of California was also retained on the flag of California in later generations.

Because Californians believe that although the California Republic has only existed for 25 days, this period of history is a very important period of California history. Without the California Republic, there would be no California.

Liang Yao looked at the state flag of California with emotion, and then went to the military fortress to hand over to Griffin.

Griffin had no nostalgia for California, and left the guns and military supplies in the fort to Liang Yao intact.It's just that Liang Yao has to pay some gold for these things.

Liang Yao ordered an inventory of the military supplies in the fortress. There were 1280 rifles in stock, 18 artillery pieces, and countless ammunition.

It's just that most of these muskets in stock are front-loading smoothbore guns, and the artillery is also front-loading smoothbore guns, which are not the most advanced weapons of this era.

But it was better than nothing. Liang Yao had enough weapons in stock to equip a full infantry regiment.

To Liang Yao's relief, although the United States occupied California for a few years, the military fortress controlling Jinshan Bay was not only well-built, but also very strong.

Meanwhile, Washington, thousands of miles away.

Fremont walked into Congress with trepidation.

He thought to himself that Ge Wen should have arrived in California at this time, and Liang Yao should have completed the election in California.

The two senators from Texas greeted Fremont warmly, and then sat next to Fremont and chatted with Fremont.

Fremont is a Georgian, that is, a southerner, and also participated in the Mexican-American War. This identity can easily bring him closer to the two Texas senators.

Today Congress will conduct a final discussion on whether to accept the land grant from the Mexican government in California. The two senators from Texas are also very concerned about the outcome of this meeting.

Texas squires have far more land grants from the Mexican government than California.

Calhoun, 68, was terminally ill, but he insisted on attending the meeting.

Calhoun was wheeled into Congress in a wheelchair. The sickly old man was still drooling, and it was a question of whether he could speak.

But this does not prevent Calhoun from becoming the protagonist of this meeting, and the eyes of almost all congressmen are on Calhoun.

Calhoun also seemed to enjoy the attention, with a smug and satisfied smile on his lips.

(End of this chapter)