Chapter 106: King of California

After the New York consortium was confined, Liang Yao quickly rushed back to San Francisco.

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

Undoubtedly, Liang Yao and Robinson served as chairman and vice chairman of the Citizens Party respectively. As a member of the Whig Party, Ge Wen could not hold any position in the Citizens Party.

But Liang Yao and Robinson still allowed Ge Wen to listen in.

In this era in America, not everyone has the right to vote. 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. Almost everyone's wealth will fluctuate greatly tomorrow.

For example, Liang Yao, when he wakes up, his net 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 wealth of California citizens in a short period of time. The great fluctuation of wealth of California citizens is a problem. Another more realistic problem is that there is no census bureau in California at present.

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

This bold idea was quickly supported by most representatives of the Civic Party. After all, checking nationality is more convenient and faster than counting wealth.

Some Civic Party members even think that this is an initiative that is more advanced than the eastern states.

Liang Yao's original intention of making this suggestion was not to consider whether this method is advanced, but because all Chinese immigrants in California have American nationality.

However, many gold diggers from Europe and other regions who poured into California did not have American nationality.

In this way, the proportion of Chinese voters will increase greatly and become an important political force in California.

On the third day after the end of the conference, the election was held as scheduled, and the first to start was the governor's election.

After the election began, the gold diggers who did not become American citizens in time could not help but beat their chests and stamp their feet, regretting it.

The reason they regretted it was not because they did not have the right to vote, but because those who had the right to vote could use their votes to exchange for 10 pounds of flour or 5 pounds of beer.

These things are not cheap in California.

In the gubernatorial election, Robinson was successfully elected as the first governor of California with 93% support without any suspense.

Liang Yao's support rate for the vice governor was 5 percentage points higher than Robinson.

Strauss, who had just returned to San Francisco, defeated Stanford by a narrow margin and was elected mayor of San Francisco.

Stanford did not gain nothing, as he became the state attorney general as he wished.

Sutter was successfully elected mayor of Sacramento.

Even Deng Wenshun in Los Angeles became the mayor of Los Angeles.

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

He is now the true king of California.

After the election, Liang Yao did not indulge in joy, and he was not overwhelmed by the victory in front of him.

He knew very well that he had not yet achieved complete victory, and what would greet him next would be a storm from Congress.

The consortium and aristocracy in New York would never be willing to give up and would inevitably launch a crazy counterattack.

Congress and the federal government had no right to interfere in the affairs of the states, but that was for the more mature states in the east, and California was a new state with gold.

In the eyes of the congressmen, California, which had just been established, was as weak and vulnerable as a child who had just inherited a huge fortune.

The flag of the United States rose slowly in the square of San Francisco, and California became the 31st star on the Stars and Stripes.

Next to the Stars and Stripes, the state flag of California, the Bear Flag, was fluttering in the wind, and the words California Republic from the Bear Flag Uprising in 1846 were retained on the state flag.

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

But 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.

The California Republic existed for only 25 days from its independence in June 1846 to its declaration of joining the United States in July 1846.

Liang Yao did not intentionally put the words "California Republic" on the bear flag, and the words "California Republic" were also retained on the California flag of later generations.

Because Californians believe that although the California Republic 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 California state flag with deep emotion, and then went to the military fortress to hand it over to Griffin.

Griffin had no attachment to California, and the guns and military supplies in the fort were left intact to Liang Yao. Liang Yao had to pay some gold for these things.

Liang Yao ordered an inventory of the military supplies in the fort. There were 1,280 rifles in stock alone, 18 cannons, and countless ammunition.

However, most of these muskets in stock were muzzle-loading smoothbore guns, and the cannons were also muzzle-loading smoothbore guns, which were not the most advanced weapons of this era.

But it is better to have them than not. With these weapons in stock, Liang Yao was able to equip a full infantry regiment.

What made Liang Yao feel relieved was that although the United States had occupied California for only a few years, this military fortress that controlled Jinshan Bay was not only well-built, but also very strong.

At the same time, thousands of miles away in Washington.

Fremont walked into Congress with a trepidation.

He thought that Ge Wen should have arrived in California by now, and Liang Yao should have completed the election in California.

The two Texas senators greeted Fremont warmly, then sat down next to Fremont and started talking to him.

Fremont was from Georgia, that is, a southerner, and had participated in the Mexican-American War. This identity easily brought him closer to the two Texas senators.

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

The gentry in Texas have much more land grants from the Mexican government than in California.

Although the 73-year-old Congressman Calhoun is terminally ill, he insists on attending the meeting.

Calhoun was pushed into Congress in a wheelchair. The sick old man still had saliva at the corners of his mouth, and it was a question whether he could speak.

But this did not prevent Calhoun from becoming the protagonist of this meeting. Almost all the congressmen focused their attention on Calhoun.

Calhoun seemed to enjoy the feeling of being the center of attention, and a proud and satisfied smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.

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