The 1859 California gubernatorial election was held on September 7, 1859 to elect the
governor of California.
Since the beginning of the 1850s, issues regarding
slavery had effectively split the state
Democratic Party. Initially divided by pro-slavery Chivalrists and anti-slavery Free Soilers, by 1857, the party had split into the
Lecompton and Anti-Lecompton factions. Lecompton members supported the
Kansas Lecompton Constitution, a document explicitly allowing slavery into the territory, while Anti-Lecompton faction members were in opposition to slavery's expansion. The violence between supporting and opposition forces led to the period known as
Bleeding Kansas. Splits in the Democratic Party, as well as the
power vacuum created by the collapse of the
Whig Party, helped facilitate the rise of the
American Party both in state and federal politics. In particular, state voters voted Know-Nothings into the
California State Legislature, and elected
J. Neely Johnson as governor in the 1855 general elections.
During the 1859 general elections, Lecompton Democrats voted Latham, who had briefly lived in the
American South, as their nominee for
governor. Anti-Lecomptons in turn selected
John Currey as their nominee. The infant
Republican Party, running in its first gubernatorial election, selected businessman
Leland Stanford as its nominee. To make matters more complicated, during the campaign, Senator
David C. Broderick, an Anti-Lecompton Democrat, was killed in a
duel by slavery supporter and former
state Supreme Court JusticeDavid Terry on September 13.[1]
^Dubin, Michael J. (2003). United States Gubernatorial Elections, 1776-1860: The Official Results by State and County. Jefferson: McFarland & Company. pp. 14–15.
ISBN9780786414390.