Declaring himself "Emperor" and military regalia, his hand on the hilt of a ceremonial
sabre.|Emperor Norton in full dress uniform and military regalia, his hand on the hilt of a ceremonial sabre, 1875 By 1859, Norton had become completely discontented with what he considered the inadequacies of the legal and political structures of the United States. In July 1859, he issued a brief manifesto addressed to the "Citizens of the Union". It outlined in the broadest terms the national crisis as Norton saw it and suggested the imperative for action to address this crisis at the most basic level. The manifesto ran as a paid ad in the
San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin. Norton issued numerous decrees on matters of state, including a decree on October 12, 1859, to formally abolish the United States Congress. In this same decree, Norton repeated his order that all interested parties assemble at Musical Hall in San Francisco in February 1860 to "remedy the evil complained of." In an imperial decree issued in January 1860, Norton summoned the Army to depose the elected officials of the US Congress: Norton's orders were ignored by Army and Congress. A decree in July 1860 ordered the dissolution of the republic in favor of a temporary monarchy. Norton issued a mandate in 1862 ordering both the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant churches to publicly ordain him as "Emperor," hoping to resolve the many disputes that had resulted in the
Civil War. The failure to treat Norton's adopted home city with appropriate respect was the subject of a particularly stern edict that often is cited as having been written by Norton in 1872, although evidence is elusive for the authorship, date, or source of this decree: Norton explicitly forbade any form of conflict between religions or their sects, and he issued several decrees calling for the construction of a suspension bridge or tunnel connecting Oakland and San Francisco. Long after his death, similar structures were built in the form of the
San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and the
Transbay Tube, and there have been efforts since the 1930s to name the Bay Bridge after Emperor Norton or at least to add "Emperor Norton Bridge" as an honorary name for the bridge.
Norton's imperial acts By 1865 — and for the remainder of his life — Norton lived in a small room on the top floor of the Eureka Lodgings, a 3-story rooming house at 624 Commercial Street between Montgomery and Kearny Streets. The building that housed the Eureka was lost in the
earthquake and fires of April 1906. On this site now stands a 4-story apartment building at 650–654 Commercial. When he wasn't reading newspapers and writing proclamations, Norton spent most of his days as Emperor walking the streets, spending time in parks and libraries, and paying visits to newspaper offices and old friends in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. In the evenings, he often was seen at political gatherings or at theatrical or musical performances. He wore an elaborate blue uniform with gold-plated epaulettes, at some time given to him secondhand by officers of the United States Army post at the
Presidio of San Francisco. He embellished that with a variety of accoutrements, including a beaver hat decorated with a peacock or ostrich feathers and a rosette, a walking stick, and an umbrella. In the course of his rounds, he took note of the condition of the sidewalks and cable cars, the state of repair of public property, and the appearance of police officers. He also often had conversations on the issues of the day with those he encountered. Caricaturist
Edward Jump often depicted Norton with two noted stray dogs named
Bummer and Lazarus, giving rise to the rumor that the dogs were Norton's pets. There is no evidence to support this. Special officer Armand Barbier was part of a local auxiliary force whose members were called "policemen," although they were private security guards paid by neighborhood residents and business owners. He arrested Norton in 1867 to commit him to involuntary treatment for a mental disorder. The arrest outraged many citizens and sparked scathing editorials in the newspapers, including the
Daily Alta, which wrote "that he had shed no blood; robbed no one; and despoiled no country; which is more than can be said of his fellows in that line." In response to this widespread backlash, Police Chief Patrick Crowley ordered Norton released and issued a formal apology on behalf of the police force,) by
George Frederick Keller published in
The Wasp mocking them for the weapons they carried, December 6, 1879 During the 1860s and 1870s, there were occasional anti-Chinese demonstrations in the poorer districts of San Francisco, and riots took place, sometimes resulting in fatalities. Starting in the late 1870s, those riots were fomented at rallies on Sunday afternoons at the sandlots across from City Hall. The rallies were led by
Denis Kearney, a leader of the anti-Chinese
Workingmen's Party of California. At a sandlot rally held on April 28, 1878, Emperor Norton appeared just before the start of proceedings, stood on a small box and challenged Kearney directly, telling him and the assembled crowd to disperse and go home. Norton was unsuccessful, but the incident was widely reported in local papers over the next couple of days. Norton issued his own money in the form of scrip, or promissory notes, which were accepted from him by some restaurants in San Francisco. The notes came in denominations between fifty cents and ten dollars, and the few surviving ones are collector's items that routinely sell for more than $10,000 at auction.
Foreign relations Throughout his reign, Norton commented on the policies and actions of foreign governments, issuing proclamations and sending letters to foreign leaders in attempts to establish congenial and fruitful relations with them and their countries and, if he felt it necessary, to coax better behavior. Responding to instability in Mexico, Norton expanded his title to "Emperor of the United States and Mexico" in 1861. In 1862, the
French Empire invaded Mexico after the latter was unable to pay war reparations following the disastrous
Reform War. Two years later, in 1864,
Napoleon III, then
Emperor of the French, installed the Habsburg
Maximilian I as his puppet ruler. Norton had stopped calling himself "Emperor" of Mexico and added the secondary title "Protector of Mexico" by early 1866. Contrary to the oft-repeated claim that he dropped the title shortly thereafter, Norton continued to identify and sign himself "Protector of Mexico" for the rest of his life. Norton wrote many letters to
Queen Victoria, including a suggestion that they
marry to strengthen ties between their nations. That proved futile because the queen never responded. Norton also sent at least one letter to
Kamehameha V, the
King of Hawaii at the time, regarding an estate in the
Kingdom of Hawaii.
Later years and death '' shortly after his death, January 17, 1880 Norton was the subject of many tales. One popular story suggested that he was the son of Emperor
Napoleon III and that his claim of coming from South Africa was a ruse to prevent persecution. To have been an illegitimate son of Napoleon III, he would have had to have been conceived when the French Emperor was only eleven; the Emperor's actual illegitimate sons,
Eugène and
Alexandre, became minor French aristocrats. His legitimate son,
Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial, died fighting in the
Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. Rumors also circulated that Norton was supremely wealthy and was feigning poverty because he was miserly. It quickly became evident that Norton had died in complete poverty, contrary to rumors of wealth. Five or six dollars in small change was found on his person, and a search of his room at the Eureka Lodgings turned up a single gold sovereign, worth around $2.50. His possessions included his collection of walking sticks, his rather battered sabre, a variety of headgear, including a
stovepipe, a
derby, a red-laced Army cap, and another cap suited to a martial band-master. There was an 1828 French franc and a handful of the Imperial bonds that he sold to tourists at a fictitious 7% interest. Initial funeral arrangements were for a pauper's coffin of simple redwood. However, members of a San Francisco businessmen's association, the Pacific Club, established a funeral fund that provided for a handsome rosewood casket and arranged a dignified farewell. The next day, the
San Francisco Chronicle reported, under the headline "Le Roi Est Mort," that some 10,000 people had come to view the emperor's body in advance of the 2 p.m. funeral. Notwithstanding the later legend of a "two-mile-long cortege," the
Chronicle reported in the same article that people lined the streets for only the first block or two. The emperor's casket was attended by "only three carriages," with no mourners on foot, and there were "about thirty people" at the burial service in the
Masonic Cemetery. In 1934, Norton's remains were transferred to a grave site at
Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery in
Colma, California. ==In popular culture==