This incident exhibits the two types of the politician, and the two
classes of men to be found in all communities--the one all "blarney"
and selfishness, the other with real manhood redeeming poor human
nature, and saving it from utter contempt. The senatorial prize eluded
the grasp of both aspirants, but the reader will not be at a loss to
guess whose side I was on. Dr. Gwin made a friend that day, and never
lost him. It was this sort of fidelity to friends that, when fortune
frowned on the grand old Senator after the collapse at Appomattox,
rallied thousands of true hearts to his side, among whom were those who
had fought him in many a fierce political battle. Broderick and Gwin
were both, by a curious turn of political fortune, elected by the same
Legislature to the United States Senate. Broderick sleeps in Lone
Mountain, and Gwin still treads the stage of his former glory, a living
monument of the days when California politics was half romance and half
tragedy. The friend and protege of General Andrew Jackson, a member of
the first Constitutional Convention of California, twice United States
Senator, a prominent figure in the civil war, the father of the great
Pacific Railway, he is the front figure on the canvas of California
history.
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