were looking toward the gubernatorial elections to be held in the coming fall.^«
Republicans and Administration Democrats met in Sacramento on June 17 and nominated Frederick F. Low as their candidate for governor. "Copperhead" and compromise Democrats likewise met in Sacramento on July 8 and there chose for their nominee the former governor, John G. Downey.
Owen was of the opinion that a Republican governor was essential at this time in order to preserve peace in California. He feared a civil war such as that which had been waged in Kansas, in the event Downey was elected. He also feared, that should the Copperhead and compromise Democrats carry the election, California would become a Confederate recruiting ground and San Francisco a port for the fitting out of Confederate privateers.-^ Suffice it to say, the RepubHcans won the election by a majority of almost twenty thousand. ^^
Early in 1864 candidates for the November Presidential election were already being considered. Owen was in favor of retaining Lincoln in office. Attempts on the parts of some Republicans to gain the nomination of John C. Fremont received no support from Owen. Fremont was characterized by the editor as an ambitious demagogue. Nevertheless, insurgent Republicans and a few Democrats met in their own convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on the last day of May 1864, and nominated Fremont. Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson were nominated in a "Union" party convention at Baltimore, Maryland, on June 7, 1864; and General George B. McClellan of peninsular campaign fame was the choice of the Democrats in convention at Chicago.
Owen, having dismissed Fremont in a few brusk words, proceeded to vent his editorial spleen upon McClellan. He bitterly accused him of striving for an immediate end of hostilities with the South and the subsequent recognition of the independence of the Confederacy by the Federal Government.^^ He further took him to task for not resigning his commission of a United States Army major general. This McClellan did on election day, November 8, 1864.
On June 1 6, the Mercury reported that on the previous Tuesday evening (June 14) a theater "was densely packed. . .with loyal citizens of Santa Clara County for the purpose of ratifying the nominations of the Baltimore Convention."'^ The consequences of the renomination of Lincoln were to Owen evidence that the people of the North were determined to sustain the policies of the Administration and to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion.^^ Union clubs, which had been in existence in Santa Clara County since 1861, now became vigorous sponsors of the candidacies of Lincoln and Johnson.
San Jose voted two to one for Lincoln. An incomplete count by the Mercury gave the vote in San Jose as 819 for Lincoln and 410 for McClellan.
