appropriated to erect a statue in his honor on the spot in the Peach Orchard where he was wounded. But the statue was never cast or placed.
Rumor has it that Sickles stole the money.
34
DAVID C. BRODERICK
The Only Senator Killed in a Duel (1820â1859)
âTo sit in the Senate of the United States as a Senator for one day, I would consent to be roasted in a slow fire on the plaza.â
â David C. Broderick
Over the course of its two-hundred-plus years of history, the United States has been served by hundreds of senators. A few score of them have died in office. But only one serving U.S. Senator was ever killed in a duel: that bastard out of California, David C. Broderick.
The son of an immigrant Irish stonecutter who came to America in order to work on the U.S. Capitol building, Broderick was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in New York City. While still a young man, he became the proprietor of a public house where customers discussed politics over beer and made political deals in the back room.
Broderick headed west in 1849, and once he landed in California began a highly lucrative business casting gold and silver coins. He had a talent for making his coins just a bit light, so that a $10 gold piece would be full of about $8 worth of actual gold, and so on. Within a year he was a millionaire. He employed both his new-found wealth and the political acumen he had learned from his time running that pub in New York to get himself elected to the California State Senate as a Democrat. Within another year he was serving as that body's president.
And he had already established himself as the uncrowned king of San Francisco.
Broderick ruled the city with an iron fist, receiving kickbacks from every officeholder in need of his political muscle to get elected. He could be vindictive, even cruel, and he had a terrible temper.
By the mid-1850s the California Democratic Party faced a huge rift between Southern Democrats (many of whom wanted to see slavery introduced into the state) and the Free Soil Democrats. In 1857 Broderick's unchallenged leadership of the Free Soilers led to his election to the U.S. Senate, fulfilling one of his lifelong dreams. He was only thirty-six years old.
For two years Broderick served in the Senate. He returned home in 1859 during the Congressional late summer recess and helped defeat his former friend David Terry's bid for reelection as chief justice of the State Supreme Court. They were after all political opponents: Terry was a Southerner and a pro-slavery Democrat.
STUPID BASTARD
One month shy of the thirtieth anniversary of his killing of Broderick, Terry assaulted an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. This justice, a former friend (as Broderick had been) of Terry's named Stephen J. Field had not only just ruled against Terry and his wife in a suit they had filed against her supposed first husband, a silver millionaire, but had jailed the two for contempt of court. So when Terry encountered Field and his U.S. Marshal bodyguard on a train trestle in Lathrop, California, on August 14, 1889, he lost his famously bad temper. Terry advanced on Field and before anyone could intervene, slapped him hard across the face. The marshal shot him, and he died on the spot.
At the state convention in Sacramento later that year Terry made some cutting remarks regarding Broderick's character. Broderick was livid when he read Terry's speech in a newspaper, and sent off an incendiary note in reply. In no time Terry had challenged Broderick to a duel and the latter had accepted.
These two political titans fought at Lake Merced, outside of San Francisco's city limits on September 13, 1859. Broderick's pistol discharged prematurely. Terry's shot pierced Broderick's lung. Broderick lingered for three days before dying on September 16, 1859, not forty years old.
35
SIMON CAMERON
Secretary of War Profiteering (1799â1889)
âAn honest politician is one who when he is bought stays
Rumor has it that Sickles stole the money.
34
DAVID C. BRODERICK
The Only Senator Killed in a Duel (1820â1859)
âTo sit in the Senate of the United States as a Senator for one day, I would consent to be roasted in a slow fire on the plaza.â
â David C. Broderick
Over the course of its two-hundred-plus years of history, the United States has been served by hundreds of senators. A few score of them have died in office. But only one serving U.S. Senator was ever killed in a duel: that bastard out of California, David C. Broderick.
The son of an immigrant Irish stonecutter who came to America in order to work on the U.S. Capitol building, Broderick was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in New York City. While still a young man, he became the proprietor of a public house where customers discussed politics over beer and made political deals in the back room.
Broderick headed west in 1849, and once he landed in California began a highly lucrative business casting gold and silver coins. He had a talent for making his coins just a bit light, so that a $10 gold piece would be full of about $8 worth of actual gold, and so on. Within a year he was a millionaire. He employed both his new-found wealth and the political acumen he had learned from his time running that pub in New York to get himself elected to the California State Senate as a Democrat. Within another year he was serving as that body's president.
And he had already established himself as the uncrowned king of San Francisco.
Broderick ruled the city with an iron fist, receiving kickbacks from every officeholder in need of his political muscle to get elected. He could be vindictive, even cruel, and he had a terrible temper.
By the mid-1850s the California Democratic Party faced a huge rift between Southern Democrats (many of whom wanted to see slavery introduced into the state) and the Free Soil Democrats. In 1857 Broderick's unchallenged leadership of the Free Soilers led to his election to the U.S. Senate, fulfilling one of his lifelong dreams. He was only thirty-six years old.
For two years Broderick served in the Senate. He returned home in 1859 during the Congressional late summer recess and helped defeat his former friend David Terry's bid for reelection as chief justice of the State Supreme Court. They were after all political opponents: Terry was a Southerner and a pro-slavery Democrat.
STUPID BASTARD
One month shy of the thirtieth anniversary of his killing of Broderick, Terry assaulted an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. This justice, a former friend (as Broderick had been) of Terry's named Stephen J. Field had not only just ruled against Terry and his wife in a suit they had filed against her supposed first husband, a silver millionaire, but had jailed the two for contempt of court. So when Terry encountered Field and his U.S. Marshal bodyguard on a train trestle in Lathrop, California, on August 14, 1889, he lost his famously bad temper. Terry advanced on Field and before anyone could intervene, slapped him hard across the face. The marshal shot him, and he died on the spot.
At the state convention in Sacramento later that year Terry made some cutting remarks regarding Broderick's character. Broderick was livid when he read Terry's speech in a newspaper, and sent off an incendiary note in reply. In no time Terry had challenged Broderick to a duel and the latter had accepted.
These two political titans fought at Lake Merced, outside of San Francisco's city limits on September 13, 1859. Broderick's pistol discharged prematurely. Terry's shot pierced Broderick's lung. Broderick lingered for three days before dying on September 16, 1859, not forty years old.
35
SIMON CAMERON
Secretary of War Profiteering (1799â1889)
âAn honest politician is one who when he is bought stays
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