Natural Glory in the Midst of War: The Establishment of Yosemite State Park

On July 1, 1864, as William T. Sherman marched toward Atlanta and Philip Sheridan fought Jubal Early in the Shenandoah Valley, President Abraham Lincoln diverted his attention from the Civil War to sign a bill creating Yosemite State Park in far-off California. The law removed Yosemite Valley and the neighboring Mariposa Big Tree Grove from the public domain so that California could manage the sites for "public use, resort, and recreation"—a state-owned nature park. The law forbade private property ownership, specifying instead that "leases not exceeding ten years may be granted" and mandating that income from these leases be "expended in … preservation and improvement." The act was the first of its kind and generated a heated controversy over whether the government had the right to create parks. Union nationalism, brought to a fevered pitch by the Civil War, and nineteenth-century notions of civilization explain why the United States established Yosemite. Americans used the word "civilization" to label a society that provided material wealth and opportunities for intellectual growth. Nationalism, in turn, can be defined as loyalty to a nation-state defined by politics, ideology, religion, language, and/or economic system. Free soil beliefs, developed during the debate over slavery's expansion in the 1850s, provided the intellectual framework for opposition to Yosemite. This controversy influenced the 1872 creation of Yellowstone as a national park under federal control. Authors of the Yellowstone legislation believed that California's mismanagement of Yosemite showed the necessity for national—rather than state—control. The growth of the central state after the Civil War, moreover, gave the government the ability to act.¹

Yosemite supporters believed that the park provided important values for an American nation undergoing sectional strife. The Union, for countless northern soldiers, citizens, and politicians, was "the last, best, hope of earth." Following Europe's failed revolutions of 1848, many believed that if the United States collapsed, republican government would be discredited and the world's aristocrats would gloat in triumph. William Brewer, of the California State Geological Survey, feared in April 1861 that "the prestige of the American name is passed away, not soon to return. We are doing and reaping as monarchists have often told us we would do." Making areas of scenic beauty accessible to everyone highlighted the value of republican government. Everyone, not just the wealthy and powerful, needed to experience the sublime scenery provided in parks. Second, park advocates believed that the creation of a public park on the California frontier would help the region transform from barbarism to civilization. Yosemite supporters argued that making the valley's beauties accessible would soothe the mind and spirit—making visitors more civilized.²

Free soil ideology created the framework for opposition to Yosemite. Here, I use political historian Eric Foner's definition of ideology as a "system of beliefs, values, fears, reflexes, and commitments … of a social group, be it a class, a party, or a section." Free soil politicians believed that the disbursement of the public domain to yeoman settlers allowed the poor to achieve prosperity. Encouraging western settlement also brought civilization to a barbaric wilderness. Slavery, however, prevented settlement by yeoman farmers and left the West in a barbaric state. As the Indiana Free Soiler George W. Julian sarcastically explained in 1850, slavery "promote[d] the growth of civilization by turning three millions of human beings into savages." Men such as Julian believed that granting land to yeomen farmers was an effective method of promoting civilization and keeping slavery out of the West. He argued, "The freedom of the public lands is anti-slavery measure.… It will weaken the system of chattel slavery by making war upon its kindred system of wage slavery, giving homes and employment to its victims, and equalizing the condition of the people." Julian supported the Homestead Act of 1862, which granted families 160 acres on the surveyed public domain. Preemption, another method of land distribution favored by free soilers, allowed settlers to claim 160 acres on the unsurveyed or surveyed public domain. When the land became...