This Vigilance Committee drew a large following of citizens; but there was a continuous undercurrent of opposition. General Sherman, commander of the second division of the State militia, backed by the vacillating Governor and representing constitutional authority, was the leader of the opposition sentiment. In June, the Law-and-Order Party under him determined to rise against the Vigilantes. He appealed to General Wool, United States Commander in the Department, for arms, and also to Commodore Farragut at Mare Island. These commanders declined to interfere in State troubles without orders from the Government. Governor Johnson declared the city and county of San Francisco in a state of insurrection, and asked aid from Washington. General Sherman, finding himself powerless, resigned. Chief-Justice Terry, an active opponent of the Committee, having come from Sacramento to enforce the law, now complicated matters by stabbing an officer of the Vigilantes. The Committee held him a prisoner but set him free when his victim recovered. After three months of life, after hanging in all four criminals, well-known desperadoes, banishing many others, and paving the way for a purer administration of law, the Committee disbanded, leaving a small body to settle its affairs. The next election saw a full set of honest officials in power, and for twenty years San Francisco had the name of being one of the best-governed cities in the world. Looking back dispassionately, it appears that the Vigilance Committee had something of the dignity and purpose and procedure of the ancient court of the Areopagus. It was not like the extemporized Sanhedrim that tried Christ, a body which kept the appearance of justice but mocked the reality. It was not a masked band of regulators like the Ku Klux or the White Caps; but it was an irresistible rising of the best citizens in calm debate, in open daylight, with sobriety and decorum and every safeguard of justice. Unlike the anti-Mafia of New Orleans, it put down the mob spirit, but did not engender it. Though acting outside of the constituted authorities, it had the severest reverence for law in the ideal. As President Coleman expressed it, the Committee did not act under lynch law, but under a sort of martial law that obtains in time of siege. Considering the daring wantonness of crime, the subsidized or terrorized condition of the courts of justice, and the immunity of criminals, law-abiding citizens seem to have been justified in reverting to the elemental order of things, as is the man who attacks the thief in the night. But, of course, loyalty from the first to public interests instead of easy optimism and self-absorption, would have held back the occasion for the heroic measures of the historic Committee. Men never learn, save through suffering, that the support of the common welfare is a sacred duty, and that this duty squares exactly with their highest private interests.