John G. Downey

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Downey relocated to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he worked as a druggist. Like many who heard about the California Gold Rush, Downey decided to go West. He stopped along the way at Vicksburg, Mississippi; then Havana, Cuba and finally New Orleans, Louisiana. By 1849, Downey had arrived in California, briefly prospecting in Grass Valley before finding a job at a drug store in San Francisco.

He soon moved to Los Angeles, and he was elected for a one-year term to the Los Angeles Common Council in May 1852 and again in May 1856. He resigned from the council in December 1856.

A Lecompton Democrat who favored slavery in the Kansas Territory, Downey was elected as a member of the lower house California State Assembly for the 1st District, serving from 1856 to 1857. In the 1859 general elections, Downey was elected Lieutenant Governor, overcoming the party split within the Democratic Party between Lecompton and Anti-Lecompton Democrats, as well as seeing off a challenge from the infant Republican Party.

Five days after Downey was sworn in as lieutenant governor, Governor Milton Latham resigned after being elected (by the State Legislature) to fill the federal Senate vacancy left by the death of David C. Broderick, killed in a duel in 1859. Downey assumed the governorship on January 14, 1860.

During Downey's governorship, the Assembly and Senate passed the "Bulkhead Bill," a highly controversial bill heavily supported by San Francisco capitalists. It would have placed the city's waterfront in the hands of private companies within monopolies. Despite support for the bill among San Francisco's wealthy, local merchants and the public alike were in staunch opposition. In a move that stunned many former wealthy supporters, Downey vetoed the Bulkhead Bill. He said,

Downey's veto was widely popular both in San Francisco and throughout California, and it marked the peak of his popularity. Visiting the city shortly afterward, Downey was greeted as a hero. But, supporters of the Bulkhead Bill never forgave the governor. During a later visit to San Francisco, Downey described a protester as a "bulkheader." The man responded with a fist fight, broken up only when Downey supporters physically restrained his opponent.

At the 1860 presidential election, the Democratic Party again splintered. Anti-Lecomptons favored Stephen A. Douglas, while Lecomptons supported John C. Breckinridge. Previously part of the Lecompton faction, Downey sided with Anti-Lecomptons, supporting Douglas in his failed bid against Abraham Lincoln.

By the outbreak of the American Civil War, Downey pledged support to the Union, responding to requests by U.S. Secretary of War Simon Cameron for California troop assistance. But Downey's support for the Unionist cause remained vague. According to Victorian historian Theodore H. Hittell,

With the Civil War in its first stages by the 1861 general elections, Downey's earlier support generated by his veto of the Bulkhead Bill had all but evaporated. Downey's Democratic Party again splintered violently over slavery and the Union. Despite turning away from the Lecompton "Breckinridge" faction, Downey failed to gain the nomination of the Anti-Lecompton "Unionist" Democrats during the state Democratic convention. This effectively ended his political career. During the election, the Republican Party capitalized on the Democratic split and won the elections. Californians voted for Leland Stanford over Breckinridge Democrat John R. McConnell and Unionist Democrat John Conness.

After his term as governor expired in 1862, Downey returned to Southern California. In 1871, he helped co-found Farmers and Merchants Bank, the first successful bank in Los Angeles, with Isaias W. Hellman, a banker, philanthropist and future president of Wells Fargo.

In 1879, Downey joined some public-spirited citizens led by Judge Robert Maclay Widney, in laying the groundwork for the University of Southern California, the first university in the region. When Widney formed a board of trustees, he secured a donation of 308 lots of land from three prominent members of the community: Ozro W. Childs, a Protestant horticulturist; Hellman, a German-Jew; and Downey. The gift provided land for a campus as well as a source of endowment, the seeds of financial support for the nascent institution. Downey Street on the USC campus is named after him.

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