Charles S. Fairfax's Sine die Address of May 15, 1854

by Charles S. Fairfax

At the commencement of the present year it became my privilege as well as my duty to address you, on the occasion of being elected to preside over this body. Now that the hour has arrived for the final adjournment of this House, before we separate I must be permitted to return to you my thanks, for the kind, generous and forbearing treatment, I have received from the beginning to the end of the session. During the present term of the Legislature we have boon called upon to consider many matters of vital importance and original character ; during these deliberations opposing opinions have often fiercely contended for supremacy in these halls. But the storms soon faded away. Friendship and mutual esteem with their genial influence put aside the cloud and restored the sunshine of harmony, to an assemblage collected to discuss the interests of California, and not to consider speculative or individual ends. The result has proved most beneficial. The important business of the session has been transacted and we are about to part—to sunder the cherished ties which many of us have formed during the past few months, and return to render an account of our stewardship to our several constituencies, who will, undoubtedly, freely sanction what they conceive right, and as readily condemn whatever may appear to them to be wrong.

The ruffled passions and angry feelings engendered by fierce contention and heated debates, will soon be forever calmed, and remembered among the things that were, and give way to more pleasant remembrances of attachments here formed, which will be erased only by death.

The State no longer needs our services—our homes invite us to our domestic duties, and I pronounce this House adjourned sine die.

Journal of the Assembly, Legislature of the State of California. May 15, 1854