Editing Henry Huntly Haight (section)

==Political career==
===Early politics===
Haight later joined his father in St. Louis, Missouri where he studied and later practiced law. While in St. Louis, the younger Haight became politically active and edited a "Free Soil" publication. Upon discovery of gold in California in 1848, he decided to head further west.<ref name="Bottoms 2013 p55-59">{{cite web|first1=Michael |last1=Bottoms |title=The Apostacy of Henry Huntley Haight: Race, Reconstruction, and the Return of the Democracy in California, 1865-1870 |work=An Aristocracy of Color: Race and Reconstruction in California and the West, 1850-1890 |pages=55–59 |year=2013 |url=https://renamehaight.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/d-michael-bottoms-chp-2-aristocracy-of-color-apostacy-henry-haight.pdf |access-date= 2018-03-01}}</ref>

In 1856, Haight supported [[John C. Fremont]]'s campaign for president. By 1859, Haight became chair of the state Republican Party. He led [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s campaign in California, although in 1861, he told a friend he regretted supporting Lincoln.<ref name="Bottoms 2013 p55-59"/>

In 1863, shortly after President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, Haight announced he had joined the Democratic Party. He campaigned against Lincoln in 1864, and was involved in a small controversy for allegedly disrespecting the President.<ref name="Bottoms 2013 p55-59"/>

===Gubernatorial election of 1867===
[[File:The reconstruction policy of Congress, as illustrated in California High Res.jpg|thumb|left|A cartoon satirizing California Republican gubernatorial nominee George C. Gorham and idea that Africans, Asians, and Indians should have voting rights. Used by the Democratic Party to gain office.]]
Haight never held public office of any kind before he was elected Governor of California. In [[1867 California gubernatorial election|1867]], California Democrats nominated Haight for governor. Earlier at their convention, the Democratic Party adopted an anti-Reconstruction platform, particularly against "indiscriminate suffrage." Upon his nomination, Haight expanded on the party's platform. 
<ref>{{cite web |url= https://alamedausd-ca.schoolloop.com/file/1310911403421/1376459767278/6481735887612291621.pdf |title= Haight Community to Consider Renaming Their School |publisher= Alameda Unified School District |access-date= 2018-02-05}}</ref>

At his July 9 speech at San Francisco's Union Hall, Haight denounced Reconstruction and its potential impact in California. He claimed Congress's policies put white Americans "under the heel of negroes" and warned that indiscriminate suffrage would allow Chinese to vote in California. Haight deemed Chinese people unworthy of voting as they would be manipulated by their railroad employers. As "pagans," "serfs" and members of a "servile, effeminate and inferior race," their suffrage rights would "pollute and desecrate" the democratic "heritage" of white Americans. Haight called for increased immigration from Europe to prevent Asian migration. "But if we are powerless to prevent the swarming of millions of Asia from pouring in upon us, we can at least keep in our hands the government of the country."<ref>Speech of H. H. Haight, Esq., Democratic candidate for Governor, Delivered at the Great Democratic Mass Meeting at Union Hall, Tuesday evening, July 9, 1867, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.</ref>

In September 1867, white Californians elected Haight in a landslide. Haight, with 9,000 votes more than George Gorham, carried the entire Democratic ticket into office.<ref name="Bottoms 2013 p55-59"/>