Committees of Vigilance
In 1849 William Tell Coleman went to California and eventually settled in San Francisco, where he engaged in the shipping and commission business. Coleman was a leading figure in both the 1851 and 1856 Committees of Vigilance, which usurped civic power in order to drive out the Democratic Party machine and ostensibly to establish law and order. Under Coleman, these committees ignored habeas corpus, conducted secret trials, lynchings, and deportations, and raised a militia. The 1856 Committee of Vigilance disbanded, but after transferring power to the new People's Party, which soon merged with the Republican Party and controlled San Francisco until 1867.
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