Smith I of Sierra

Smith I (born March 18, 1822 as Smith Charles Miller) was the first king of Sierra, one of the kingdom's founding fathers, a member of the 1858 Sierran Constitution, and the creator of the modern Sierran flag and coat of arms. Hailed and revered as one of the most important figures in Sierra, he has been and affectionately referred officially as His Royal Majesty, Smith I, the Protector of the Sierrans by the government of Sierra and the Sierran people.

He reigned from the first day of Sierra under the 1858 constitution on November 27, 1858 until his death on August 15, 1893 ruling a total of nearly 35 years at the age of 71. Smith was succeeded by his eldest son, Lewis I, who continued on his father's policies and legacy in his reign. During Smith's reign, he was served by five different prime ministers and witnessed the growth of his country through policies favoring domestic expansion,, urban development, and.

In the year 1858, Smith suffered from a flu that developed into a that crippled his health. Recovering, Smith suffered another bout of trouble after sustaining significant injuries from a fall on the stairs of Parliament Building entrance. Bedridden, Smith acquired a fever that ultimately killed him in August 15 that year. Since then, Smith has been revered as one of the greatest and prominent figures in Sierran history.

Birth and early life
Smith was born to a family of five in on March 18, 1822. The youngest, his older brothers, George and Walter, both died before Smith turned 15. His father, Gregory Miller, worked as a while his mother, Anna Miller, owned a general store that included Smith's father's products.

Smith's ancestors came from both and  and immigrated to the  during the late 1600s. Smith's paternal grandfather, James Miller, fought in the as a captain while his mother's side had a long tradition of shop-keeping. His father and mother met in and decided to settle down in the nearby township of Newark in 1811. When the broke out, Smith's father decided to sign up and fight for the United States. During service, Smith suffered minor non-life-threatening injuries from fighting and returned to Newark. They raised their first child, George in 1813 and then Walter in 1819.

Smith attended school at a local where he learned basic  and  from the age of 5 to 11. Later in life, he remarked how deeply unsatisfied he was with learning "so little" at the schoolhouse and often went to his mother's general store to read new books. He dropped out of school at 11 when his father felt that Smith had received enough general education. His father made him an, much to Smith's protest. After a heated argument that ended into a physical brawl, Smith ran away from home at the age of 14. He returned home two months later upon discovering that his two older brothers died from a fatal boating accident. Calling it "the dreariest time of my life", Smith reconciled with his father and stayed at home to work and comfort his aging parents.

When he turned 21, Smith began attending church weekly and became a devout Presbyterian and remained so for the rest of his life. Happier, he mastered his profession in tanning and developed new skills in and. At the same time, Smith's interest in and  reignited his desire to read and study more. While he was unable to attend law school, citing his commitment to remain by his parents' side, Smith served as for the state of New Jersey from 1847 to 1849.

Early political career
When news of came from, his parents encouraged him to leave New Jersey in search for a better life in the West Coast. Torn, he left the care of his parents to one of his friends and left to California in 1849 by ship. He boarded a trip from to  arriving in April 1849, after six months at sea. He immediately set up a shop in San Francisco and started his own newspaper. With his newspaper, Smith conveyed his opinions regarding the local affairs of California and quickly earned a substantial readership audience. Smith's popularity helped him the win the election to become the first mayor of San Francisco City in 1849. Later in 1854, Smith served as state for the.

Marriage
In 1852, Smith met his wife, Rachel Bates at a mutual friend's private party, who coincidentally, was also from Newark, New Jersey. The two became fast friends and Smith proposed within a year. Smith had word sent back to his parents of his wedding who were overjoyed and expressed their desire to move to California. The wedding was held in private at the San Francisco City Town Hall which included President of California in attendance. Following Smith's wedding, Smith secured the funds to have his parents arrive and move to California by 1854.

Constitution of Sierra
When the Californian government openly admitted that it was unable to fulfill its role as a competent government, many Californians demanded a new constitution in order to preserve the nation. Smith joined the Californian Constitutional Convention in 1856 as a founding member and quickly rose to the top of its leadership. With great charisma, reputation, and status (he was serving as state treasurer at the time), Smith was well received by the delegates of the convention. At first, he aligned himself with the pro-American federalist faction but later championed the compromise between American democracy and British monarchism.

Within a year, Smith was chosen as the head of the convention and moderated daily sessions. He served on both the flag and coat of arms committee with his designs for both eventually adopted and mentioned explicitly within the constitution. Smith riveted his colleagues with a vision for a more perfect nation. He urged them to be mindful of time constraints as many Californians grew restless with the amount of time the convention took to agree on consensus. Finally, it was decided that the California Republic be renamed as the Kingdom of Sierra which would incorporate a federal parliamentary-styled.

The decision to choose a monarch naturally followed this decision and Smith was the choice pick by recommendation of the convention's leadership. Smith initially declined but decided to accept his nomination to become king. He agreed to forswear all allegiance to any partisan politics and to uphold the law of Sierra and the rights of the people. During the later stages of the constitution drafting process, Smith was unanimously declared the candidate for kingship. Once the new constitution was ratified, the Kingdom of Sierra was declared on November 27, 1858 alongside Smith's coronation as its first king.

Nomination and coronation
Immediately upon the conclusion and approval of the final draft for the constitution, Smith was brought to the balcony of the San Francisco City Town Hall around noontime holding the constitution declaring that he would defend the law and the people. Dressed in the same style of clothing as the other members of the constitutional delegation, Smith was given an olive wreath to differentiate himself from the others. About 2,300 people gathered to witness both the birth of Sierra and the crowning of its first monarch. Following Smith's coronation, the first decree of the king was to hold a popular election for the first prime minister. In the meantime, Smith assumed the duty as acting prime minister which was the first and only instance where a Sierran monarch held dual capacity of royal and civil power. His next act was proclaiming the of Columbia which became the official family name for himself, his wife, his descendants, and his future in-laws.

Reign


In choosing to become king, Smith agreed to relinquish his active participation in partisan politics although he remained a powerful force who was respected and sought after by many during his reign. For the short time as acting prime minister, Smith attended the inaugural meeting of Parliament although he refrained from taking part in its partisan sessions. He enacted several decrees within his first year which focused on promoting public services and raising a viable defense force. Smith's goal was to eliminate the inefficiency and lack of order the Californian government suffered by appointing officials in lieu of governors across Sierra's 22 new provinces. Large swaths of Sierran land were effectively lawless and more were uninhabited which could harbor countless of threats and enemy forces. To confront this issue, Smith and the Parliament passed a law granting free land to Sierrans provided they used the land in a reasonable manner, cultivated the land, and enforced the laws of Sierra. This act encouraged Sierrans to form communal townships that later evolved into centralized and fully-functional local governments.

Following the election of the first prime minister, Frederick Bachelor, Sr., Smith I completely relinquished his direct involvement in politics. He however, for the rest of his life, continued to play a decisive role in Sierran political history by pressuring his prime ministers to implement the king's own policies. Smith strongly supported an industrialist approach to Sierra's economy and lobbied heavily for the set-up of a national bank. While never officially part of a political party (it was unconstitutional), Smith supported the Royalist Party which conversely, strongly supported him. The king developed a tenuous relationship with the Royalists' main rivals, the Democratic-Republican Party which supported the abolition of the monarchy. When Smith backed the Royalists' tariff proposals, the predominantly agriculturalist Democratic-Republicans backlashed and garnered considerable public support based on the pretense that Smith was out of touch with the common Sierran. Meanwhile, industrialists, entrepreneurs, and skilled tradesman supported Smith and the king was well-received in the coastal urban cities. Smith's relationship with agrarian Sierra improved over time as he supported the subsidization of the agricultural sector and made frequent visits to the Central Valley provinces where farming was particularly strong at. Despite an incident where angered avocado farmers chucked rotten fruits at the king, Smith continued working on repairing his standing with the Democratic-Republican farmers.

Later in his life as king, Smith developed a personal support for expanding the power and influence of Sierra internationally in hopes of discouraging the United States or Mexico from ever invading Sierra. Fascinated with exotic cultures and an early proponent for 19th-century colonialism, Smith readily approved and witnessed the Sierran acquisitions of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Rapa Nui, Hawaii, and the Samoan Islands. At the same time, Smith established numerous diplomatic contacts with nations in Asia and Latin America including Danguk and. In 1862, Smith made his first international state visit by traveling to European countries including Albion-Gaul. His demeanor and personality quickly earned the favor of European statesman and captured the attentions of many commoners. Smith's iconic visit left a deep impression upon his hosts and increased the prestige of Sierra.

When the American Civil War broke out, Smith expressed sympathy toward the Northern states and the movement. Although slavery had never been an issue in Sierra, occasionally, white American Southerner immigrants brought their slaves into the country. For a brief time, the Sierran government allowed slavery to be practiced provided that slaveowners be immigrants from the United States. Children born from slaves in Sierra would be considered free and any runaways that escaped were not to be returned to their owners. The fact that slavery existed in Sierra infuriated Smith and when the First Amendment was proposed which struck down slavery in all of its forms, Smith was quick to support it and officially assented to it in 1868.

Death
In 1893, at the age of 71, 35 years into his reign, Smith developed severe health complications that forced him into recluse. An overworked statesman who scarcely took the time to rest, Smith suffered high blood pressure and had a minor heart attack back in 1884. Around January 1893, Smith contracted a flu while traveling to the province of Shasta. Although starting off minor, Smith decided to deliver a speech to local townsmen but when snowfall came, Smith's condition worsened. Eventually, Smith developed lungs infected and developed into. Panicked, officials had the king transported back by train to Los Angeles where he would receive treatment.

Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Smith's condition improved although remained frail for the remainder of his final six months. Later in July that year, on the 29th, the king fell down the stairs of the Parliament Building after attending a legislative session. He suffered a hip fracture, a broken nose, and a minor head injury. After attended to, the king was confined to his bed where he often rested up to eighteen hours. During his waking times, much against the insistence of his wife and other officials, Smith continued working by corresponding with Parliament and issuing his own opinions by letter. Prime Minister Frederick Bachelor, Jr., who frequently visited Smith for advice, noted that "the king was in a particularly gruesome state of affair" and that "[the king] was now a withered corpse whose charm in the pupils have long once diminished considerably". By August, the king stopped working and seldom spoke. He developed a fever on August 13 and had to be relocated to cooler room in the palace where he would spend his final two days at. Sensing that his time was near, Smith called for his family to come to him and bid their farewells to him. He urged his son, Lewis, to "do whatever is best for the nation and for the people". In the evening of August 15, Smith died in his sleep from the fever that wrecked his already deteriorating health.

Following his death, Lewis succeeded the throne and his first official act was declaring a state of mourning for his late father. Smith's body was handled by the Royal Coroner, a new post established by Smith himself months before his death. The coroner officially declared that the king died from a fever although attributed both his earlier pneumonia and physical injuries as other influential factors. Smith's body was underneath the rotunda of the Parliament Building and his royal funeral was held in front of the building. The funeral gathered as much as 10,000 Sierrans, all whom paid their respects and grieved for the death of their king. Several officials including the prime minister delivered eulogies and the body was temporarily buried in a plot directly behind the Parliament. A year later, after a new room was constructed beneath the foundation of the Parliament Building, Smith's was laid there. Since then, many important Sierrans including his son, Lewis, and granddaughter, Angelina I, have been buried in the room. The room came to be known as the Tomb of the West where Smith's remains and others are displayed to the public on special occasions and holidays. Reports of Smith's have commonly surfaced with numerous publicized incidents from lawmakers in the building to civilian visitors. Urban legend purports that Smith's apparition appears in front of the Occidental Palace and Parliament Building on some midnights, especially on the day of his death and Constitution Day.

Legacy
As the founder, the first king, and creator of the flag and coat of arms of Sierra, Smith I has been hailed as one of the greatest figures in Sierran history. His life has been frequently studied by Sierran scholars and has attracted a among extreme  Sierran. Smith I appears on the $1 bill and the 25¢ of the Sierran dollar, numerous postage stamps, and over 932 public and private buildings in 2014 were named in his honor.

In some provinces, Smith's birthday, March 18, is celebrated as a work-free holiday. There has been a movement pushing towards making his birthday a federal holiday although no substantial legislation has been successful largely due to concerns that adding another federal holiday would be considered wasteful.

Since Smith's ascension to the throne, there had been many proposals to erect a monument in his name. During his life, he consistently insisted that there be no monuments or buildings constructed in his name believing that he was but a "mere man". However, when the Royal Monetary Authority proposed that Smith be featured on the $1 dollar bill, Smith agreed to have a facsimile of a portrait of his to be featured on it. He believed that "the people ought to know who works for them" and would keep his image in touch with the public.

Today, various places, streets, and buildings have been named in Smith's honor. The King Smith University and Smith Charles Miller University are two high education institutions named after the king and the first interstate highway, Interstate 1, was named the King Smith's Expressway. The King Smith National Park, located in the, was named after the king following the creation of a national park system in 1907. Since then, twelve other parks and wilderness lands, all at the provincial-level, have been named after Smith.

A collection of Smith's writings and letters have been compiled by the Library of the Parliament and most salvaged copies of the king's writing are stored in the Royal Archive Building in Los Angeles. The papers containing original concept art construed by Smith of the flag and coat of arms are also stored in Los Angeles at two separate buildings: the Royal Flag Institute and the Royal Heraldic Center.

Historians who study the life, achievements, and works of Smith are called "Smithologists" and hundreds of literature have contributed to the exhaustive study of the king. The Royal Historical Society of King Smith I, founded in 1956, is the largest association of Smithologists who collaborate with the monarchy in the research of Smith's life and legacy.

Personal life
Both before and during his reign as king, Smith held various strong relationships and friendships with others. After the death of his two brothers, Smith developed a deep and strong relationship with both of his parents whom he brought to California after he left them. Grieved by the loss of his siblings and remorseful for his shaky relationship, Smith embraced his parents into his life until their deaths in 1867 (Smith's father) and 1869 (mother). In addition, he frequently wrote letters to his cousins who chose to remain in the United States. Throughout his reign, Smith held a strong affinity for his wife, Rachel, and often insisted that she accompany him wherever he went. Several times Smith refused to attend a Cabinet meeting regarding security issues when members did not invite his wife on the grounds "a woman, even that of the queen, was able to handle pressing matters". Sensitive when it came to personal attacks on his family from the media, he had court servants read and burn any incoming papers that wrote "inflammatory and outrageous libel" against him or his family. Smith easily kept his personal life separate from the public for fear that enemies would capitalize on "the smallest of things". After a newspaper report sensationalized a private party held at the palace, Smith grew wary and suspicious of the press. Each evening, Smith personally closed and curtained all the windows in the Palace for fears someone would come in and get away with "sensitive information".

Smith was an avid and kept a stable near the palace. In addition, the king took up and  for leisure, often playing in front of the public. Smith was also a brilliant player at, a woodworker, a fisher, and a musician. The king kept a grand piano, a cello, and a harp in the palace where he often played them during state dinners and galas. Although often interested in activities associated with, Smith, wing from his humble origins, enjoyed the company of commoners. He often attended theaters and lectures, mingling himself with average Sierrans. Smith imitated the French and established one near the Palace in 1865 where he headed and conversed with both intellectuals and common visitors on a variety of subjects including literature, science, philosophy, storytelling, and even politics.

Religious beliefs
Raised in a household, Smith did not become religious until he turned 21. After suffering from, he decided to attend church in hopes of finding relief for his pain. Attending a local church in his hometown Newark, Smith became heavily invested at the church and began attending every Sunday. He became a Sunday school teacher and remained so before his departure to California in 1849. His involvement in church made him happier and indirectly led him to take up a career in politics. With a new sense of hope, Smith was able to work his way up for success with the support of his local church.

During his trip from Boston to San Francisco, Smith spent his days reading the and openly conversed about it with his fellow travelers. Ridiculed, he nonetheless remained firm and managed to develop a strong friendship with one of the travelers thanks to their religious discussions.

When he met his future wife, Rachel Bates, he exhausted all attempts in confirming that Bates was the "ideal Christian woman". After judging her to be one of virtues and morality (along with their mutual attraction and compatibility), the two married within a year of meeting. As he entered into active political duty in the Californian government, he continued attending local Presbyterian and nondenominational churches. At one point, during his free time, he delivered seminars and wrote a brief pamphlet outlining his belief. Before undertaking the duty of becoming king of Sierra, he reportedly declared, "I am merely an earthly King but Christ is the eternal ."

Smith's deep religious convictions often influenced his political decisions. When he discovered that slaveowners from the United States moved to Sierra, bringing along their slaves, Smith was furious and supported passing the First Amendment which would prohibit slavery. Smith denounced slavery as a "great evil" and "incompatible with the merciful religion of Jesus". When he wrote abolitionist statements to the movement in the United States, they often held a strong religious undertone. At the palace, Smith dedicated an entire room where he studied the Bible and other religious literature on Saturday evenings. He prayed daily and occasionally, took up to a especially during particularly stressful times in his life.

At his deathbed, Smith offered Lewis advice as the successor and also pleaded to his family that they remain "in covenant with God" and promised that he would see them in. A personally annotated version of the exists and is kept by the Library of Parliament in an encased glass box at the entrance.

Contemporary scholars have described Smith as a "pious and passionate man in his faith" and Smith's particularly strong religious beliefs have increased his reputation among the more conservative Christians and Royalists in Sierra.

Freemasonry
When Smith arrived to California, he developed contacts with local who invited him to join a lodge. Initiated, Smith seldom attended Masonic meetings at the San Francisco Masonic Lodge No. 13 although Smith was promoted to a Fellow Craft within the Grand Lodge of California in 1856. Following his ascension to the throne in 1858, Smith kept silent on his affiliation with Freemasonry and later came to denounce it citing his own religious convictions and suspicion of the lodge's secrecy. Following the establishment of the Grand Lodge of Sierra, Smith requested an act of demit from the Lodge after it automatically transferred his membership from the now-defunct Californian lodge. After his departure, the king made no more mentions or associations with Freemasons. Likewise, the Grand Lodge of Sierra made no direct references to the king's former membership within the lodge until after his death.

Ever since public knowledge on Smith's association with Freemasonry came to light, have accused Smith of being in fact, a high-ranking Mason who continued Masonic activities well after his official departure from the Grand Lodge. Claims that Smith, alongside with other high-ranking officials were all active Freemasons, grew widespread only after Smith's death. theorists purport that Smith established a secretive and overarching network of Masons throughout Sierra's government and that all of his successors including Smith's current reigning great-grandson, Smith II, are Freemasons part of the.