at this time in California the law against duelling: was plain enough, and stringent enough, but chivalrous lawmakers paid no further attention to it than to employ it as a scapegoat in their unlawful murders. Duellists were disqualified by law from holding office; the majority of duellists were office-holders; officeholders fought duels and yet retained office. Whence it appears, following their example, that the highest crime recognized by law may be perpetrated with impunity by the highest officers of the law, wdiile the most righteous acts of citizens, if done outside of the prescribed forms of law, cannot be too severely denounced and punished. No duellist has ever suffered the punishment prescribed by law in California.
Midsummer 1859 saw Terry a defeated candidate before the democratic convention for renomination to the supreme bench. Broderick was a rough man, and a violent politician of New York hybrid republican proclivities, madly determined his head should be higher set, either in the affairs of state or else upon a stake; and it was to him and his party that Terry owed his defeat. In a speech at Sacramento, delivered before the convention held in Benton's church the 24th of June, while professing resignation yet smarting under defeat, Terry said, "Who have we opposed to us? A party based on no principle, except the abusing of one section of the country and the aggrandizement of another; a party which has no existence in fifteen states of the confederacy, a party whose principles never can prevail among free men who love justice and are willing to do justice. What other? A miserable remnant of a faction sailing under false colors, trying to obtain votes under false pretences. They have no distinction they are entitled to; they are followers of one man, the personal chattels of a single individual, whom they are ashamed of. They belong heart and soul, body and breeches, to David C. Broderick. They are yet ashamed to acknowledge their master, and are calling themselves,
