I first encountered the story of Norton when I read "Three Septembers and a January" from Fables and Reflections (Sandman VI) by Neil Gaiman, about five years ago. I was fascinated with his character so I did a quick google to find out more about him.
The Emperor is based on a historical figure named Joshua Norton, an English businessman from the 1840's who came to California to make his fortune, and instead, ended up losing it, supposedly in a lawsuit over a rice futures contract. (Norton, seeing the huge population in San Francisco's Chinatown, was trying to corner the market on rice.) Whether he was mad before or the deal sent him over the edge, Norton ended up living on the streets of San Francisco and soon issued a proclamation declaring himself the Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. That a homeless fellow might indulge in delusions of grandeur is not unusual; that an entire city would be complicit in the delusion is.
The tailors of San Francisco supplied with Norton with top hats and grand tailcoats with gold braiding and epaulets. Restaurants allowed the Emperor to eat for free, and printers not only printed and posted Norton's proclamations, they created currency with his image on it, which was accepted from him by local businesses. Papers covered Norton as if he were a legitimate politician, despite some of his more insane proclamations: that a bridge be built across the Golden Gate, that another be built across the bay to Oakland, and that a league of nations be formed to resolve disputes without war.
The people of the city treated Nortin with great respect, and he them, as if they were indeed his subjects and he a benevolent ruler. There is a story that Emperor Norton even diverted a race riot in Chinatown when, after a crop failure in California's Central Valley, jobless men blamed the Chinese for their fate and stormed the neighborhood bent on burning it to the ground. Supposedly, Norton stopped them by putting himself between the workers and Chinese and reciting the Lord's Prayer.
In 1867, a police officer named Armand Barbier arrested Norton for the purpose of committing him to involuntary treatment for a mental disorder. The arrest outraged the citizens of San Francisco and sparked a number of scathing editorials in the newspapers. Police Chief Patrick Crowley speedily rectified matters by ordering Norton released and issuing a formal apology on behalf of the police force. Chief Crowley observed of the self-styled monarch "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." Norton was magnanimous enough to grant an "Imperial Pardon" to the errant young police officer. Possibly as a result of this scandal, all police officers of San Francisco thereafter saluted Norton as he passed in the street.
When Emperor Norton died in 1880, more than 30,000 people marched in his funeral procession. His passing was marked by a total eclipse of the sun.
text based on You Suck by Christopher Moore and Wikipedia
