The Rivals: William Gwin, David Broderick, and the Birth of California

“This is the story of two men—of how they achieved great power and how through their implacable rivalry they destroyed each other,” writes Arthur Quinn. Anticipating California’s admission to the union, both came to the state in 1849 seeking a seat in the U.S. Senate. William McKendree Gwin, an aristocratic Southerner, and David Broderick, a veteran of the bare-knuckle politics of New York, struggled for control of California’s Democratic Party during the 1850s. Their feud, personal as well as political, ended in violent death for one and disgrace for the other.