Tennessees Partner

Tennessee's Partner

The Project Gutenberg Etext of Tennessee's Partner
by Bret Harte (#50 in our series by Bret Harte)
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg file.
Please do not remove this header information.
This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to view
the eBook. Do not change or edit it without written permission. The
words are carefully chosen to provide users with the information
needed to understand what they may and may not do with the eBook.
To encourage this, we have moved most of the information to the end,
rather than having it all here at the beginning.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get eBooks, and further
information, is included below. We need your donations.
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541
Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file.
Title: Tennessee's Partner

Author: Bret Harte
Release Date: November, 2003 [Etext #4674] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 26,
2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Tennessee's Partner by Bret Harte
******This file should be named tennp10.txt or tennp10.zip******
Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, tennp11.txt
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, tennp10a.txt
Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US unless
a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not keep eBooks in
compliance with any particular paper edition.
The "legal small print" and other information about this book may now
be found at the end of this file. Please read this important information,
as it gives you specific rights and tells you about restrictions in how the
file may be used.
*** This etext was produced by David Schwan
.
Western Classics No. Three

Tennessee's Partner

"Both were fearless types of a civilization that in the seventeenth
century would have been called heroic, but in the nineteenth simply

'reckless.'"

Tennessee's Partner By Bret Harte, Including An Introduction By
William Dallam Armes.

The Introduction

When Marshall's discovery caused a sudden influx of thousands of
adventurers from all classes and almost all countries, the conditions of
government in California were almost the worst possible. Though the
Mexican system was unpopular and the Mexican law practically
unknown, until other provision was made by congress, they had to
continue in force. But the free and slave states were equal in number;
California would turn the scale; there was a battle royal as to which pan
should descend, a battle that the congresses of 1848 and 1849 left
unsettled on adjourning.
Under these circumstances, it might be supposed that the worst
elements would get the upper hand, crime become common, and
anarchy result. Precisely the opposite happened. The de facto
government was accepted as a necessity, and under its direction
"alcaldes" and "ayuntamientos" were elected. But the mining-camps,
which were in a part of the country that had not been settled by the
Mexicans and were occupied by men who knew nothing of their system
or laws, were left to work out their own salvation. The preponderating
element was the Anglo-Saxon, and its genius for law and order asserted
itself. Each camp elected its own officers, recognized the customary
laws and adopted special ones, and punished lawbreakers. Naturally
theft was considered a more serious crime than it is in ordinary
communities. As there were no jails or jailors, flogging and expulsion
were the usual punishment, but in aggravated cases it was death. Even
after the state government had been organized, indeed, the law for a
short while permitted a jury to prescribe the death penalty for grand
larceny, and, in fact, several notorious thieves were legally executed.
The testimony of all observers is that the camps were surprisingly
orderly, that crime was infrequent, and that its punishment, though
swift and certain, leaned to mercy rather than rigor. Bayard Taylor, for
example, who was in the mines in '50 and '51, writes: "In a region five

hundred miles long, inhabited by a hundred thousand people, who had
neither locks, bolts, regular laws of government, military or civil
protection, there was as much security to life and property as in any
state of the Union."
As these "miners' courts" were allowed after the organization of the
state to retain jurisdiction in all questions that