Congressional Opposition Quotes
Note the perception of Davis, typical of Southerners at the time, that Southerners were being excluded from California. The logic was this: California had many opportunities in land, gold, and other natural resources. Since California had a Constitutional provision against slavery, no Southerner could enter the new state with his slaves without fear of their being set free. If Southerners bought land or wanted to hunt for gold, they could not bring their slaves to do the heavy work. Therefore, they were excluded from the economic growth of the state. The idea of the whites doing the heavy work themselves of traveling without their family slaves was so foreign to the aristocratic planter class, that it was never considered by them as a possibility. Therefore, they were excluded. However, many of the lower class Southerners of all races saw great opportunities in California where they could compete on an equal footing even though they had no slaves or land.
After the American Revolution one of the great fears of many of the political leaders was a standing army. So there was little concern about the morale of the officers and enlisted men. Further, the national government and the governments of the individual states were broke. Washington and Hamilton wanted the soldiers to be paid their back wages and saw this as the highest priority for the new nation. Most others did not agree, and viewed the new military back wages as equal to the many other obligations. Hamilton, saw this as an active hostility to the military and was very overt about his castigation of Congress. Washington agreed but was far more diplomatic and could never accept the fact that the military did not owe loyalty to the nation and the Congress.
President Andrew Johnson had been impeached by the House of Representatives and was being tried in by the Senate. A majority of the Senators voted for conviction but the vote was 1 short of the two-thirds that were needed. Johnson remained in office. These were two of the charges against Johnson. A Century later Presidents commonly did both of these. George W. Bush made reappointment of Senate rejected nominees into an art form but after the Johnson trial, these were never to be considered reasons for impeachment again.
