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{{Short description|American judge (1825–1872)}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|image = JNeelyJohnson.jpg
|name = J. Neely Johnson
|order1 = 4th
|office1 = Governor of California
|term_start1 = January 9, 1856
|term_end1 = January 8, 1858
|lieutenant1 = [[Robert M. Anderson (politician)|Robert M. Anderson]]
|predecessor1 = [[John Bigler]]
|successor1 = [[John B. Weller]]
|office2 = [[List of justices of the Supreme Court of Nevada|Justice of the Supreme Court of Nevada]]
|term_start2 = 1867
|term_end2 = 1871
|predecessor2 = [[Cornelius M. Brosnan]]
|successor2 = [[John Garber (judge)|John Garber]]
|state_assembly3 = California
|district3 = [[California's 11th State Assembly district|11th]]
|term_start3 = January 3, 1853
|term_end3 = January 2, 1854
|predecessor3 = ''Multi-member district''
|successor3 = ''Multi-member district''
|birth_date = {{Birth date|1825|8|2|mf=y}}
|birth_place = [[Gibson County, Indiana]]
|death_date = {{death date and age|1872|8|31|1825|8|2}}
|death_place = [[Salt Lake City, Utah|Salt Lake City]], [[Utah Territory]]
|spouse = [[Mary Johnson (first lady)|Mary Zabriskie]]
|children = {{hlist|William|Bessie}}
|profession = [[Jurist]], [[lawyer]], [[politician]]
|party = [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig]]<br />[[Know Nothing]]
|religion =
|signature = Signature of John Neely Johnson.png
|footnotes =
}}
'''John Neely Johnson''' (August 2, 1825 – August 31, 1872) was an American lawyer and politician. He was elected as the fourth [[governor of California]] from 1856 to 1858, and later appointed justice to the [[Nevada Supreme Court]] from 1867 to 1871.<ref>{{cite web | title=The Nevada Supreme Court | publisher=Nevada State Library and Archives | url=http://nsla.nevadaculture.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=945%3Athe-nevada-supreme-court&catid=134%3Aarchives-archival-records&Itemid=418 | archive-url=https://archive.today/20130415100246/http://nsla.nevadaculture.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=945:the-nevada-supreme-court&catid=134:archives-archival-records&Itemid=418 | url-status=dead | archive-date=15 April 2013 | access-date=17 February 2013 }}</ref> As a member of the [[Know Nothing|American Party]], Johnson remains one of only two members of a [[third party (United States)|third party]] to be elected to the California governorship (the other was [[Hiram Johnson]] of the [[Progressive Party (United States, 1912)|Progressive Party]]).

==Biography==
Born in rural [[Gibson County, Indiana]], Johnson never attended college; while born to a prominent family, his plans for his studies were foiled by economic effects of the [[Panic of 1837]]. He apprenticed a printer before moving to Iowa to work with a lawyer, and was admitted to practice law in Iowa.<ref>Melendy and Gilbert. ''The Governors of California: From Peter H. Burnett to Edmund G. Brown'', Talisman Press, 1965.</ref>

In July 1849, Johnson left Iowa for the [[California Gold Rush|Gold Rush in California]], where he briefly employed himself as a gold prospector, and later as a mule train driver. Johnson restarted his law career in [[Sacramento, California]] by founding a law practice with [[Ferris Forman]], and was elected as Sacramento City Attorney in 1850.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.cityofsacramento.org/cityattorney/history/documents/City_Attorney_History.PDF |title=Celebrating the Sesquicentennial of the Sacramento City Attorney's Office |format=.PDF |publisher=City of Sacramento |author=James P. Jackson |year=1999 |access-date=2007-05-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070620161446/http://www.cityofsacramento.org/cityattorney/history/documents/City_Attorney_History.PDF |archive-date=2007-06-20 }}</ref> After two years in the City Attorney's office, Johnson began his political career by running as a [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig]] in the 1852 election, in which Johnson was elected to the [[California State Assembly]] as one of four members representing Sacramento.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/7666 |title=J. Neely Johnson Candidate Biography |publisher=JoinCalifornia |access-date=2007-05-10}}</ref>

During his time in the Assembly, Johnson nearly broke a local editor's nose after accusing the editor of writing an insulting article about him. The editor aimed a pistol at Johnson, but was tackled by onlookers before he could fire.<ref name=biography>{{cite web |url=http://www.californiagovernors.ca.gov/h/biography/governor_4.html |title=Governor J. Neeley Johnson of California |author=California State Library |publisher=State of California |access-date=2007-05-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613154026/http://www.californiagovernors.ca.gov/h/biography/governor_4.html |archive-date=2007-06-13 }}</ref>

In 1854, both the state and federal wings of the Whig Party were on the verge on collapse due to party splits over the [[Kansas–Nebraska Act]]. In the wake of this split, Johnson joined the nativist [[Know Nothing|American Party]], known popularly as the [[Know Nothing]]s.{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

In the [[1855 California gubernatorial election|1855 general election]], the American Party hoped to capitalize on the disintegration of the Whig party, internal Democratic divisions, and growing anti-immigrant and anti-[[Catholic]] sentiment. The party nominated Assemblyman Johnson as its candidate for [[Governor of California|governor]]. Johnson ran against incumbent [[John Bigler]], with Johnson securing the governorship by a comfortable margin. Johnson was described as "the most startled man in the state" upon hearing of his election.<ref name=biography/>

Along with the governorship, Know Nothings also received considerable gains in the [[California State Legislature]], as well as elections to every other major executive post in the state, including the offices of [[Lieutenant Governor of California|Lieutenant Governor]] ([[Robert M. Anderson (politician)|Robert M. Anderson]]), [[California Attorney General|Attorney General]] ([[William T. Wallace]]), [[California State Treasurer|Treasurer]] ([[Henry Bates (politician)|Henry Bates]]), and [[California State Controller|Controller]] (George W. Whitman).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.joincalifornia.com/election/1855-09-05|title=5 September 1855 General Election|publisher=JoinCalifornia |access-date=2007-05-10}}</ref>

==Governor==
Johnson was sworn in as the fourth [[governor of California]] on January 9, 1856. At 30, Johnson is the youngest governor in California history. Johnson inherited a growing state debt from the Bigler administration, and planned to reduce government expenditures to cut the debt. Early in his administration, Johnson agreed with legislation authored by San Francisco Assemblyman [[Horace Hawes]] to unite the city and county of [[San Francisco]] as a single entity to combat widespread corruption and lawlessness. The result of the legislation passed by Johnson was the [[Consolidation Act of 1856]],<ref name="google/books=cg0KAAAAIAAJ">{{cite book |last1=Long |first1=Percy Vincent |title=The Consolidated City and County Government of San Francisco: Read Before the Annual Convention of the American Political Science Association, Held at Buffalo, New York, December 28, 1911 |date=1912 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cg0KAAAAIAAJ |access-date=29 November 2022 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="google/books=AmxCAAAAYAAJ">{{cite book |author1=San Francisco (Calif.) |title=The Consolidation Act and Other Acts Relating to the Government of the City and County of San Francisco |date=1887 |publisher=Wm. M. Hinton & Company |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AmxCAAAAYAAJ |language=en}}</ref> which unified the municipal and county governments, as well as separated the southern portion of San Francisco to later become [[San Mateo County]].

===The Vigilante Committee===
[[Image:San Francisco Vigilante Committee lithograph.jpg|330px|thumb|A [[lithograph]] depicting James Casey and Charles Cora being taken prisoner by armed Vigilante Committee members]]

Since the early 1850s, tensions within [[Politics of San Francisco|San Francisco political circles]] had sometimes erupted in open violence. In 1851, armed citizens formed the [[San Francisco Vigilance Movement]] to correct wrongs they saw being committed or protected by the municipal government. The vigilantes lynched two criminals being held in city jails. Governor [[John McDougall (California politician)|John McDougall]], condemned the actions of the vigilantes, but was not able to stop them because state law enforcement was too weak.

Distrust of city authorities again reached the surface on May 14, 1856, when [[James King of William]], editor of the ''San Francisco Bulletin'' and a vocal critic of corrupt officials, was mortally wounded by [[James P. Casey]], a purported ballot-box stuffer and city politician.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist11/vigilantes.html |title=The Vigilantes |publisher=San Francisco Virtual Museum |access-date=2007-05-10}}</ref> When Casey was in the custody of San Francisco law enforcement, [[William Tell Coleman]], a ringleader in the 1851 Vigilance Committee and another vocal critic of municipal authorities, called for the formation of another Vigilante Committee. Vigilantes erected a barricade along Sacramento Street to repel city officers from removing them. After a week, the Vigilantes marched on the city jail and overpowered its guards to arrest Casey, along with another criminal: [[Charles Cora]], who had fatally shot a [[U.S. Marshal]] the previous year.

Johnson traveled to San Francisco from Sacramento along with his brother William and the newly commissioned chief of the California Militia, Captain [[William Tecumseh Sherman]] to meet the Vigilante Committee ringleaders. Sherman recalled in his 1875 ''Memoirs'' Johnson angrily confronting Coleman and other Vigilante ringleaders in their makeshift headquarters and exclaiming, "Coleman, what the devil is the matter here?" Coleman replied that the San Franciscans "were tired of it, and had no faith in the officers of the law."<ref>{{cite book |last=Sherman |first=William T. |title=Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman |location=New York |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1875 |isbn=0-14-043798-3}}</ref> After personal negotiations between Governor Johnson and the Vigilantes over transferring the criminals to state law enforcement failed, Johnson watched helplessly as both Casey and Cora were hanged by the Vigilantes on May 20.

[[File:J Neely Johnson by William F Cogswell, 1879.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Johnson by [[William F. Cogswell]]]]

Johnson returned to Sacramento with the Vigilantes refusing to disperse, claiming they were San Francisco's rightful law enforcement. With the city's [[San Francisco Police Department|police]] and [[San Francisco Sheriff's Department|sheriff's]] departments outnumbered and trying to establish an armed presence in the streets, [[Mayor of San Francisco|Mayor]] [[James Van Ness]] pleaded to Johnson for military assistance. Johnson responded by instructing Sherman to call the [[California Army National Guard|California Militia]] to San Francisco on June 2, and issued a gubernatorial proclamation declaring San Francisco in a state of insurrection the following day.<ref>[http://www.militarymuseum.org/ConstitutionGuard.html - California Military Museum]</ref> Johnson's proclamation, like McDougall's, was difficult to enforce. Johnson had instructed the California Militia to impose martial law, but without proper arms, the Militia needed more equipment to be provided by federal forces. Johnson ordered [[John E. Wool]] of the [[U.S. Army]]'s [[Department of the Pacific]] based in [[Benicia, California|Benicia]] to dispatch weapons to the state militia. General Wool declined, claiming that the Governor did not have the authority to use arms from federal soldiers because that right laid exclusively with the [[President of the United States|President]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.familytales.org/dbDisplay.php?id=ltr_jew1073 |author=John Wool |title=Letter Governor Johnson |date=5 June 1856 |access-date=2007-05-21 |archive-date=2007-09-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928023243/http://www.familytales.org/dbDisplay.php?id=ltr_jew1073 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Both Johnson and Sherman were furious about General Wool's refusal to lend arms for state militia forces: Sherman resigned from his military commission, vowing never to return to California politics. Meanwhile, the California Militia, under the command of Major General [[Volney E. Howard]] continued to gather arms, but suffered a major setback on June 21, 1856, when Vigilantes seized the arms schooner ''Julia''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sfmuseum.org/bio/sherman.html |title=William Tecumseh Sherman (1820 - 1891) |publisher=Museum of the City of San Francisco |access-date=2007-05-21}}</ref>

The Vigilantes remained San Francisco's de facto law enforcement until August 1856. Vigilantes arrested Chief Justice [[David S. Terry]] of the [[Supreme Court of California]] for stabbing a Vigilante member, and hanged two more individuals. Governor Johnson revoked his proclamation on San Francisco's insurrection on November 3.<ref>{{cite book |author=Judson A. Grenier|title=Officialdom: California State Government, 1849-1879|year=2003| oclc=108243065 }}</ref>

===Rest of term===
The Vigilante Crisis in the summer of 1856 overshadowed the rest of Johnson's term. Despite the fact that a large portion of the [[California State Legislature|State Legislature]] were [[Know Nothing]] party members, Johnson vetoed a bill due to its "bad spelling, improper punctuation and erasures."<ref name=biography/> Johnson also approved funds to build the future [[California State Capitol]]. By 1857, Know Nothings were frustrated with Johnson's inability to deal with the [[San Francisco Vigilance Movement|San Francisco Vigilantes]]. During that year's American Party convention, Johnson lost the party's nomination for the governorship to [[George W. Bowie]]. Bowie would be defeated by [[Lecompton Constitution|Lecompton]] Democrat [[John B. Weller|John Weller]]. Shortly after, the American Party ceased to be a major political force in California and elsewhere throughout the United States, and were absorbed by the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] and sections of the Democratic Party.

==Nevada==
[[File:J. Neely Johnson.png|thumb|right|Johnson later in life]]
Frustrated by his tenure in the California governorship and anxious for a new political start, Johnson relocated to western [[Utah Territory]], which became [[Nevada Territory]] in March 1861. In 1863, Johnson was elected as a delegate to Nevada's first Constitutional Convention. Following its failed ratification vote, a second Constitutional Convention was called and he again became a delegate to, and this time was elected President of the Convention.<ref>William C. Miller; Eleanore Bushnell, eds. A.J. Marsh, S.L. Clemens, Amos Bowman. ''Reports of the 1863 Constitutional Convention of the Territory of Nevada'' (Carson City: Legislative Counsel Bureau, 1972), p. 465, n18.</ref> [[State of Nevada|Nevada]]'s electorate ratified this second attempt, and Nevada was admitted as a U.S. state on October 31, 1864.

In 1867, [[Governor of Nevada|Nevada governor]] [[Henry G. Blasdel]] appointed Johnson to the [[Nevada Supreme Court]]. He served until 1871. After leaving the high court, Johnson contracted a severe case of sunstroke and died in [[Salt Lake City, Utah|Salt Lake City]] on August 31, 1872.<ref>''Sacramento Daily Union'', vol. 43, no. 6682, 2 September 1872, p.2.</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
{{commons}}
* [https://www.joincalifornia.com/candidate/7666 JoinCalifornia - J. Neely Johnson]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070613154026/http://www.californiagovernors.ca.gov/h/biography/governor_4.html J. Neely Johnson biography] at the [[California State Library]]
*[http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/tf7580052d/ J. Neely Johnson Daguerreotype image] from the [[California State Library]]
*[http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf6h4nb21d/ Guide to the John Neely Johnson Papers] at [[The Bancroft Library]]
*{{Find a Grave|14986499}}
*[https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SDU18720902.2.14 JNJ Obituary, ''Sacramento Daily Union'', 1872.]

{{S-start}}
{{s-ppo}}
{{s-new|first}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Know Nothing]] nominee for [[Governor of California]]|years=[[1855 California gubernatorial election|1855]]}}
{{s-aft|after=[[George Washington Bowie]]}}
{{s-off}}
{{Succession box|title=California State Assemblyman, 11th District |before=Four members |after=Three members |years=1853–1854<br />(with three others)}}
{{succession box|title=[[List of Governors of California|Governor of California]]|before=[[John Bigler]]|after=[[John B. Weller]]|years=1856–1858}}
{{S-end}}

{{Governors of California}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, J. Neely}}
[[Category:1825 births]]
[[Category:1872 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century American judges]]
[[Category:19th-century American lawyers]]
[[Category:Governors of California]]
[[Category:Members of the California State Assembly]]
[[Category:Justices of the Supreme Court of Nevada]]
[[Category:Lawyers from Sacramento, California]]
[[Category:People from Gibson County, Indiana]]
[[Category:California Know Nothings]]
[[Category:Know-Nothing state governors of the United States]]
[[Category:Politicians from Sacramento, California]]
[[Category:California Democrats]]
[[Category:California Whigs]]
[[Category:19th-century members of the California State Legislature]]

J. Neely Johnson - Revision history

imported>PequodOnStationAtLZ: expanded infobox