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Tuesday, September 13, 1859
At sunrise on a farm near Lake Merced, the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court shoots and kills
a United States Senator.
Senator David C. Broderick and Supreme Court Justice David Terry, both members of the Democratic
party, are on opposite sides of the great national debate. Senator Broderick, a
stonemason's son, is a populist and an abolitionist. Justice Terry, a strapping Southerner who carries
a Bowie knife, is associated with the ascendant Chivalry wing of the Democratic Party.
During the summer, Senator Broderick had been depressed by the direction of his party and his own
declining political fortunes. He had even predicted his imminent death to friends. On the morning of
June 26, he set this prophecy in motion at the International Hotel while reading a newspaper report
of a speech made Justice Terry in which he called the Senator an abolitionist, disloyal to the Democratic
Party. Senator Broderick threw the newspaper at a nearby friend of the Chief Justice calling Justice Terry
a miserable wretch who was part of a miserable, corrupt Supreme Court. When Senator Broderick's outburst was
relayed to Justice Terry, the Justice wrote the Senator, "I now take the earliest opportunity to require of
you a retraction of those remarks."
Notes were exchanged until Justice Terry demanded satisfaction. Broderick accepted and presented
articles for the duel: 5:30 AM Monday September 12 1859, a farm near Lake Merced, dueling pistols at
ten paces.
By Monday, these articles were public knowledge. The State Constitution prohibited dueling.
On the morning of the duel, the sheriff was waiting at the remote, sandy location and arrested both men.
A judge released them on their own recognizance.
They meet again on Tuesday at the same spot along with their seconds and some seventy-five spectators.
They remove their overcoats and their seconds toss the coins.
Justice Terry wins the first toss and chooses his French dueling pistols as the weapons.
Senator Broderick wins the second toss and chooses to stand with his back to the sun.
The count begins. The men raise their weapons. Senator Broderick's gun fires prematurely, the bullet
lodges harmlessly in the earth. The count ends. Justice Terry fires, hitting the Senator in the chest
and piercing a lung. The senator will die three days later at a Black Point home.
Edward Baker will eulogize the Senator at his funeral in Laurel Hill Cemetery and set in motion
the transformation of the stonemason's son from a Democrat into a martyr of the Republican Party.
Newspapers will denounce Justice Terry and Chivalry and call him murderer and assassin.
The following year Abraham Lincoln will carry California by 614 votes.
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