Can California Gold Save the Union Again?

Financing blue waves has been part of the state’s history for 160 years

When it comes to modern political fundraising, California is well-known as the golden touch. That’s particularly true for Democratic candidates in the age of resistance against Trump. In 2018, for example, the river of California cash flowing to Democratic office seekers around the country topped $300 million — a first place finish among all 50 states. In the presidential year of 2016, the figure was even higher: $358 million.

Yet California’s blue-wave financing is hardly new. Nearly 160 years ago, the blue-clad armies of the Union slogged to victory in the American Civil War thanks, in part, to the mineral wealth of the Sierra Nevada.

California’s role in helping to save the Union has long been downplayed. Admitted to the Union as a free state as part of the Compromise of 1850, California was far removed from the bloody battlefields and political intrigues that characterize Civil War narratives. California’s participation — from regiments that fought at Gettysburg to a military expedition that pushed Confederate forces out of Arizona and New Mexico — is treated as a sidebar oddity. Its place in financing the war is barely mentioned at all.

Union General Ulysses S. Grant knew better. “I don’t know what we could do in this…