DAVID C. BRODERICK.

I

T is a remarkable absurdity for an American biography to commence with the humbleness of the birth of its subject. In this land, it is doubtful if the scion of any family can show a coat-of-arms with quarterings sufficient to entitle him to Maltese knighthood, or satisfactory to an Austrian chamberlain. Almost all family lines, pretentious or honest, will be found not only "waxed at the other end," but nearer still to the gentle propositus, "by some plebeian vocation." There is something ridiculous in the long, barren lines of Ebenezers and Ezekiels hung about the loins of Mayflower progenitors that, like the strings of dried fruit in a New England kitchen, form the pride of the inglorious but not mute Puritan genealogical minds. It is not how long the trailing root has crept below the shallow soil, but how high the oak towers above, that measures our admiration of ancestral qualifications.

Nor is gentility south of Mason and Dixon's line substantial enough to bear the pruning of a heraldic visitation. American agrarianism has proved too much for primogeniture and landed chiefs; and Sir Bernard Burke would look with no small degree of suspicion at even the most flourishing family tree, however illustrated by Virginian generosity or the punctiliousness of South Carolinian honor.

David Colbrith Broderick. therefore, need not piteously and in forma pauperis claim additional credit for obstacles surmounted by him as a poor man in a land

where all start alike comparatively equally light in purse and family influence.

One fact, however, might be noted: he was of Irish extraction. No Yankee angularity marred and narrowed his soul at the outset in life; no Calvinistic superstition or bigotry barred his mind to generous impressions; no New England twang marred or prejudiced his tongue. He was not obliged to carry the pro-slavery burden about, like a hereditary hump, to be guarded from insult and injury. He could therefore assume the character of a national man with more sincerity than most of those who were his coadjutors in political life. Not stunted by New England barrenness, nor rendered perverse by Southern impetuosity, Broderick may well be considered fortunate in his breeding, in spite of the apparent disadvantages of imperfect education and a youth of toil.

He was born in the city of Washington, under the very shadow, as it were, of the Capitol, on the fourth day of February, 1820. His parents were Irish-his father a stonecutter. In Broderick's sixth year, the family moved to New York city, where they settled permanently.

Broderick received but little instruction in those days. Even before his father's death, which occurred in his fourteenth year, he had learned to assist in the occupation his parent pursued. In his seventeenth year, he was apprenticed regularly to the trade, and followed it systematically for some years.

At that period, as well by reason of the necessity which proud poverty must meet to battle with the world, as from the fact that he was an elder brother, and as such had boyish battles to fight, and boyish airs of command to affect, he acquired what might be termed an honest arrogance, not founded in conceit or egotism, but which was a characteristic of physical temperament rather than of his mind. It became part of his manner, as year by year the circumstances which elicited it were changed in character but not in force. But Broderick was a veritable leader of men. Neither want of polish or wealth could deprive him of his place in society, or prevent his standing forth a Saul among his brethren.

Accident, more than any personal taste, made him a publican. In 1841, he kept a place called "Subterranean Hall;" and the year after, another, known as "Republican Hall." This employment, however, must have been a mere makeshift, such as every man in California, however prosperous, has at times been obliged to seize-a sudden and disagreeable refuge from the storms of poverty. He was meanwhile rapidly working his way through the temporary crust of ignorance, and making himself respected and understood among his fellows.

At that time, the Democratic party in New York and elsewhere was gradually falling into two ranks, marked by the energy of different generations-the Old Hunkers and the Young Democracy. To the latter, Broderick was joined; and with it, in the local politics, he soon became identified.

He also was prominent in the Fire organization, and was actively engaged as foreman in the Howard Engine Company No. 34, corner of Christopher and Hudson streets, in his District.

To the routine mind of the East that bends roundshouldered over its ledger, and stares through its wellto-do spectacles with disfavor at organized ruffianism, as embodied in a volunteer Fire Department, there is something inexplicable in the idea that it should form a power in the State; that there should step forth from its ranks men of moral courage, of heroic wills, of promptness in speech and action, rendering their possessors no mean antagonists in forensic dispute. Yet it was from such sources that no small part of the power of the senatorial ex-mason sprung, and by it that his character was somewhat tinctured. His command over men was not the suave, polished, silvery-tongued utterance of cloistered scholarship, nor the crafty hammering of the special legal pleader: it was rather the hoarse, startling outcry that thrilled through the fireman's trumpet, and that found its result in the instantaneous comprehension of his hearers, and their almost involuntary acquiescence therein.

In 1842, Broderick's mother died; and two years

after, his only brother, Richard, who had just been appointed to the United States Naval School, was killed by the chance explosion of an old bomb that had been thrown among the refuse iron of a foundry on Charleston street, New York. Thus Broderick was without a relative in this country; and the solitariness of his bereaved condition cast a melancholy almost bordering on moroseness over his whole manner and character.

It was during these years that he gathered the clements of political strength that never after deserted him. Party friends, better fortuned as to literary and historic learning, then opened their social circles and library doors to him, and the opportunities thus offered were seized and intelligently used by him to measurably repair the gaps left by early neglect. Though, so to speak, of a rude and unkempt turn as to bookish training, yet Broderick was not a man utterly void of any culture of even the highest order. However he may have found the favorable time and circumstances, he read and appreciated the highest and most æsthetic poets of his time with an understanding that would have done honor to the mellowest scholarship of the old country.

Such a man, with an earnest eye for knowledge, alive to the thoughts and passions of great ones gone by, does far more satisfactory honor to the book from which he receives instruction, to the page of history which he searches, or to the bard in whom he finds the expression of his heart, than the lazy saunterer through sterile textbooks, leaning on the crutches of grammatical discipline, pushed and lifted along by weary instructors, until in due time the barren academic degree drops into his lap like a rotten windfall, for which he himself has not striven, and which he has not deserved.

The parthenon of Broderick's intellect was never finished. It was continually shooting up into new columns that gave promise at some future day of approximate perfection; and had his life been as long as those of the average of English or even American statesmen, we may well consider that its progressive and expanding condition would have brought an old age tempered with

all the refinement, as well of books as of polite conversation and communion.

In the year 1846, Broderick made his first long political stride forwards. He was nominated for Congress by the Young Democracy of his District; and though defeated, the fight only showed the partisan strength and personal popularity then grasped by him.

In June, 1849, Broderick arrived in California, and was for some time employed in the Assay Office or Mint carried on by Samuel W. Haight on Clay street. Mr. Broderick, though working as an operative in Mr. Haight's establishment, became a candidate for the seat in the State Senate left vacant by the election of the Hon. Nathaniel Bennett to the Supreme Bench, and was elected, and served as well the partial as the succeeding full term.

His experience and tact in the matter of a volunteer fire department became very acceptable to the new city in those days of conflagrations; and he, together with George W. Green, an ancient friend of the Atlantic side, organized the first fire company in San Francisco, (Empire Company, No. 1,) and became its foreman, with Mr. Green for assistant.

He received a flattering evidence of his success as a practical legislator at this time. On the resignation of Governor Burnett, and Lieutenant Governor McDougal becoming acting Governor, Mr. Broderick became President of the Senate, a position which he filled well, and on the resignation of McDougal, a short time previous to the expiration of his term, Mr. Broderick became virtually Governor of the State.

When Broderick was a State Senator, the election of United States Senator became a duty of that Legislature, and Broderick received a warm Democratic support from his colleagues; but the caucus held showed one more vote for Mr. Weller, and Broderick cast his vote at the election for his rival.

Broderick now became a private citizen, and by steadiness, tact, and ability, acquired a fortune sufficient to