| Description |
1 online resource (547 pages). |
| Series |
The California Gold Rush anthology |
|
The California Gold Rush anthology.
|
|
BiblioBoard Core module.
|
| Note |
Includes index. |
|
Volume 12 |
|
Original document: Book. |
| Bibliography |
Bibliography: pages 476-518. |
| Summary |
The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance arose in an environment of violence, crime and corruption. San Francisco, a boom town where the population grew exponentially overnight, needed order and justice. The Committee of Vigilance, orℓVigilante Committee, took on that role, capturing, trying and punishing suspected criminals. General T. Sherman wasℓstationed in California in the 1850s andℓwrote that they "controlled the press, they wrote their own history, and the world generally gives them the credit of having purged San Francisco of rowdies and roughs; but their success has given great stimulus to a dangerous principle, that would at any time justify the mob in seizing all the power of government; and who is to say that the Vigilance Committee may not be composed of the worst, instead of the best, elements of a community? Indeed, in San Francisco, as soon as it was demonstrated that the real power had passed from the City Hall to the committee room, the same set of bailiffs, constables, and rowdies that had infested the City Hall were found in the employment of the 'Vigilantes.'" |
| Note |
GMD: electronic resource. |
| Subject |
Committee of Vigilance (San Francisco, Calif.)
|
|
San Francisco (Calif.) -- History.
|
|
