California Romantic and Resourceful Part 1

California, Romantic and Resourceful.

by John F. Davis.

Preface

This plea is an arrow shot into the air. It is the result of an address which I made at Colton Hall, in Monterey, upon the celebration of Admission Day, 1908, and another which I made at a luncheon meeting of the Commonwealth Club, at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, on April 12, 1913. These addresses have been amplified and revised, and certain statistics contained in them have been brought down to the end of 1913.

In this form they go forth to a larger audience, in the earnest hope that they may meet a kind reception, and somewhere find a generous friend.

The subject of Pacific Coast history is one of surpa.s.sing interest to Californians. Some fine additions to our store of knowledge have been made of late years, notably the treatise of Zoeth S. Eldredge on "The Beginnings of San Francisco," published by the author, in San Francisco, in 1912; the treatise of Irving Berdine Richman on "California under Spain and Mexico, 1535-1847," published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, of Boston and New York, in 1911; the warm appreciation of E. D. Baker, by Elijah R. Kennedy, ent.i.tled "The Contest for California in 1861,"

published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, in Boston and New York, in 1912; the monumental work on "Missions and Missionaries of California,"

by Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt, published by the James H. Barry Company, of San Francisco, 1908-1913, and the "Guide to Materials for the History of the United States in the Princ.i.p.al Archives of Mexico," by Herbert E.

Bolton, Ph. D., Professor of American History in the University of California, the publication of which by the Carnegie Inst.i.tution of Was.h.i.+ngton, at Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., in 1913, is an event of epochal historical importance. All of these works and the recent activities in Spain of Charles E. Chapman, the Traveling Fellow of the University of California, the publications of the Academy of Pacific Coast History, at Berkeley, edited by F. J. Teggart, and the forthcoming publication at San Francisco of "A Bibliography of California and the Pacific West," by Robert Ernest Cowan, only emphasize the importance of original research work in Pacific Coast history, and the necessity for prompt action to preserve the remaining sources of its romantic and inspiring story.

John F. Davis.

San Francisco, July 1, 1914.

California Romantic and Resourceful

One of the most important acts of the Grand Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West which met at Lake Tahoe in 1910 was the appropriation of approximately fifteen hundred dollars for the creation of a traveling fellows.h.i.+p in Pacific Coast history at the State University. In pursuance of the resolution adopted, a committee of five was appointed by the head of the order to confer with the authorities of the university in the matter of this fellows.h.i.+p. The university authorities were duly notified, both of the appropriation for the creation of the fellows.h.i.+p and of the appointment of the committee, and the plan was put into practical operation. In 1911 this action was reaffirmed, and a resident fellows.h.i.+p was also created, making an appropriation of three thousand dollars, which has been repeated each year since. Henry Morse Stephens, Sather Professor of History, and Herbert E. Bolton, Professor of American History, and their able a.s.sistants in the history department of the university have hailed with delight this public-spirited movement on the part of that organization.

The object and design of these fellows.h.i.+ps is to aid in the collection, preservation and publication of information and material relating to the history of the Pacific Coast. Archives at Queretaro and Mexico City, in Mexico, at Seville, Simancas and Madrid, in Spain, and in Paris, London and St. Petersburg are veritable treasure mines of information concerning our early Pacific Coast history, and the correspondence of many an old family and the living memory of many an individual pioneer can still furnish priceless records of a later period. Professor Stephens has elaborated a practical scheme for making available all these sources of historical information through the providence of these fellows.h.i.+ps, as far as they reach.

The perpetuation of these traditions, the preservation of this history, is of the highest importance. Five years ago, at Monterey, upon the celebration of the anniversary of Admission Day, I took occasion to urge this view, and I have not ceased to urge it ever since. If we take any pride in our State, if the tendrils of affection sink into the soil where our fathers wrought, and where we ourselves abide and shall leave sons and daughters after us, if we know and feel any appreciation of local color, or take any interest in the drama of life that is being enacted on these Western sh.o.r.es, then the preservation of every shred of it is of vital importance to us--at least as Californians.

The early history of this coast came as an offshoot of a civilization whose antiquity was already respectable. "A hundred years before John Smith saw the spot on which was planted Jamestown," says Hubert H.

Bancroft, "thousands from Spain had crossed the high seas, achieving mighty conquests, seizing large portions of the two Americas and placing under tribute their peoples."

The past of California possesses a wealth of romantic interest, a variety of contrast, a novelty of resourcefulness and an intrinsic importance that enthralls the imagination. I shall not attempt to speak of the hards.h.i.+p and high endeavor of the splendid band of navigators, beginning with Cabrillo in 1542, who discovered, explored and reported on its bays, outlets, rivers and coast line; whose exploits were as heroic as anything accomplished by the Nors.e.m.e.n in Iceland, or the circ.u.mnavigators of the Cape of Good Hope. I do not desire to picture the decades of the pastoral life of the hacienda and its broad acres, that culminated in "the splendid idle forties." I do not intend to recall the miniature struggles of Church and State, the many political controversies of the Mexican regime, or the play of plot and counterplot that made up so much of its history "before the Gringo came." I shall not try to tell the story of the discovery of gold and its world-thrilling incidents, nor of the hards.h.i.+ps and courage of the emigrant trail, nor of the importance of the mission of the Pathfinder, and the excitement of the conquest, each in itself an experience that full to the brim.

Let me rather call attention to three incidents of our history, ignoring all the rest, to enforce the point of its uniqueness, its variety, its novelty, its importance, as ent.i.tling it to its proper proportionate place in the history of the nation.

And first of all, the story of the missions. The story of the missions is the history of the beginning of the colonization of California. The Spanish Government was desirous of providing its s.h.i.+ps, on the return trip from Manila, with good harbors of supply and repairs, and was also desirous of promoting a settlement of the north as a safeguard against possible Russian aggression. The Franciscans, upon the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, had taken charge of the missions, and, in their zeal for the conversion of the Indians, seconded the plans of the government.

"The official purpose here, as in older mission undertakings," says Dr.

Josiah Royce, "was a union of physical and spiritual conquest, soldiers under a military governor co-operating to this end with missionaries and mission establishments. The natives were to be overcome by arms in so far as they might resist the conquerors, were to be attracted to the missions by peaceable measures in so far as might prove possible, were to be instructed in the faith, and were to be kept for the present under the paternal rule of the clergy, until such time as they might be ready for a free life as Christian subjects. Meanwhile, Spanish colonists were to be brought to the new land as circ.u.mstances might determine, and, to these, allotments of land were to be made. No grants of lands, in a legal sense, were made or promised to the mission establishments, whose position was to be merely that of spiritual inst.i.tutions, intrusted with the education of neophytes, and with the care of the property that should be given or hereafter produced for the purpose. On the other hand, if the government tended to regard the missions as purely subsidiary to its purpose, the outgoing missionaries to this strange land were so much the more certain to be quite uncorrupted by worldly ambitions, by a hope of acquiring wealth, or by any intention to found a powerful ecclesiastical government in the new colony. They went to save souls, and their motive was as single as it was worthy of reverence. In the sequel, the more successful missions of Upper California became, for a time, very wealthy; but this was only by virtue of the gifts of nature and of the devoted labors of the padres."

Such a scheme of human effort is so unique, and so in contradiction to much that obtains today, that it seems like a narrative from another world. Fortunately, the annals of these missions, which ultimately extended from San Diego to beyond Sonoma--stepping-stones of civilization on this coast--are complete, and their simple disinterestedness and directness sound like a tale from Arcady. They were signally successful because those who conducted them were true to the trustee-s.h.i.+p of their lives. They cannot be held responsible if they were unable in a single generation to eradicate in the Indian the ingrained heredity of s.h.i.+ftlessness of all the generations that had gone before. It is a source of high satisfaction that there was on the part of the padres no record of overreaching the simple native, no failure to respect what rights they claimed, no carnage and bloodshed, that have so often attended expeditions sent nominally for civilization, but really for conquest. Here, at least, was one record of missionary endeavor that came to full fruition and flower, and knew no fear or despair, until it attracted the attention of the ruthless rapacity and greed of the Mexican governmental authority crouching behind the project of secularization. The enforced withdrawal of the paternal hand before the Indian had learned to stand and walk alone, coupled in some sections with the dread scourge of pestilential epidemic, wrought dispersion, decimation and destruction. If, however, the teeming acres are now otherwise tilled, and if the herds of cattle have pa.s.sed away and the communal life is gone forever, the record of what was accomplished in those pastoral days has linked the name of California with a new and imperishable architecture, and has immortalized the name of Junipero Serra[1]. The pathetic ruin at Carmel is a shattered monument above a grave that will become a world's shrine of pilgrimage in honor of one of humanity's heroes. The patient soul that here laid down its burden will not be forgotten. The memory of the brave heart that was here consumed with love for mankind will live through the ages. And, in a sense, the work of these missions is not dead--their very ruins still preach the lesson of service and of sacrifice. As the fishermen off the coast of Brittany tell the legend that at the evening hour, as their boats pa.s.s over the vanished Atlantis, they can still hear the sounds of its activity at the bottom of the sea, so every Californian, as he turns the pages of the early history of his State, feels at times that he can hear the echo of the Angelus bells of the missions, and amid the din of the money-madness of these latter days, can find a response in "the better angels of his nature."

In swift contrast to this idyllic scene, which is shared with us by few other sections of this country, stands the history of a period where for nearly two years this State was without authority of American civil law, and where, in practice, the only authority was such as sprang from the instinct of self-preservation. No more interesting phase of history in America can be presented than that which arose in California immediately after the discovery of gold, with reference to t.i.tles upon the public domain. James W. Marshall made the discovery of gold in the race of a small mill at Coloma, in the latter part of January, 1848. Thereupon took place an incident of history which demonstrated that Jason and his companions were not the only Argonauts who ever made a voyage to unknown sh.o.r.es in search of a golden fleece. The first news of the discovery almost depopulated the towns and ranches of California, and even affected the discipline of the small army of occupation. The first winter brought thousands of Oregonians, Mexicans and Chilenos. The extraordinary reports that reached the East were at first disbelieved, but when the private letters of army officers and men in authority were published, an indescribable gold fever took possession of the nation east of the Alleghanies. All the energetic and daring, all the physically sound of all ages, seemed bent on reaching the new El Dorado.

"The old Gothic instinct of invasion seemed to survive and thrill in the fiber of our people," and the camps and gulches and mines of California witnessed a social and political phenomenon unique in the history of the world--the spirit and romance of which have been immortalized in the pages of Bret Harte.

Before 1850 the population of California had risen from 15,000, as it was in 1847[2], to 100,000, and the average weekly increase for six weeks thereafter was 50,000. The novelty of this situation produced in many minds the most marvelous development. "Every glance westward was met by a new ray of intelligence; every drawn breath of western air brought inspiration; every step taken was over an unknown field; every experiment, every thought, every aspiration and act were original and individual."

At the time of Marshall's discovery, the United States was still at war with Mexico, its sovereignty over the soil of California not being recognized by the latter. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was not signed until February 2d, and the ratified copies thereof not exchanged at Queretaro till May 30, 1848. On the 12th of February, 1848, ten days after the signing of the treaty of peace and about three weeks after the discovery of gold at Coloma, Colonel Mason did the pioneers a signal service by issuing, as Governor, the proclamation concerning the mines, which at the time was taken as a finality and certainty as to the status of mining t.i.tles in their international aspect. "From and after this date," the proclamation read, "the Mexican laws and customs now prevailing in California relative to the denouncement of mines are hereby abolished." Although, as the law was fourteen years afterwards expounded by the United States Supreme Court, the act was unnecessary as a precautionary measure[3] still the practical result of the timeliness of the proclamation was to prevent attempts to found private t.i.tles to the new discovery of gold on any customs or laws of Mexico.

Meantime, California was governed by military authority,--was treated as if it were merely a military outpost, away out somewhere west of the "Great American Desert." Except an act to provide for the deliveries and taking of mails at certain points on the coast, and a resolution authorizing the furnis.h.i.+ng of arms and ammunition to certain immigrants, no Federal act was pa.s.sed with reference to California in any relation; in no act of Congress was California even mentioned after its annexation, until the act of March 3, 1849, extending the revenue laws of the United States "over the territory and waters of Upper California, and to create certain collection districts therein." This act of March 3, 1849, not only did not extend the general laws of the United States over California, but did not even create a local tribunal for its enforcement, providing that the District Court of Louisiana and the Supreme Court of Oregon should be courts of original jurisdiction to take cognizance of all violations of its provisions. Not even the act of September 9, 1850, admitting California into the Union, extended the general laws of the United States over the State by express provision.

Not until the act of September 26, 1850, establis.h.i.+ng a District Court in the State, was it enacted by Congress "that all the laws of the United States which are not locally inapplicable shall have the same force and effect within the said State of California as elsewhere in the United States[4]."

Though no general Federal laws were extended by Congress over the later acquisitions from Mexico for more than two years after the end of the war, the paramount t.i.tle to the public lands had vested in the Federal Government by virtue of the provisions of the treaty of peace; the public land itself had become part of the public domain of the United States. The army of occupation, however, offered no opposition to the invading army of prospectors. The miners were, in 1849, twenty years ahead of the railroad and the electric telegraph. The telephone had not yet been invented. In the parlance of the times, the prospectors "had the drop" on the army. In Colonel Mason's unique report of the situation that confronted him, discretion waited upon valor. "The entire gold district," he wrote to the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton, "with few exceptions of grants made some years ago by the Mexican authorities, is on land belonging to the United States. It was a matter of serious reflection with me how I could secure to the Government certain rents or fees for the privilege of procuring this gold; but upon considering the large extent of the country, the character of the people engaged, and the small scattered force at my command, I am resolved not to interfere, but permit all to work freely." It is not recorded whether the resolute colonel was conscious of the humor of his resolution. This early suggestion of conservation was, under the circ.u.mstances, manifestly academic.

The Supreme Court of the United States, in commenting on the singular situation in which Colonel Mason found himself, clearly and forcefully states his predicament. "His position," says that Court, "was unlike anything that had preceded it in the history of our country . . . . It was not without its difficulties, both as regards the principle upon which he should act, and the actual state of affairs in California. He knew that the Mexican inhabitants of it had been remitted by the treaty of peace to those munic.i.p.al laws and usages which prevailed among them before the territory had been ceded to the United States, but that a state of things and population had grown up during the war, and after the treaty of peace, which made some other authority necessary to maintain the rights of the ceded inhabitants and of immigrants, from misrule and violence. He may not have comprehended fully the principle applicable to what he might rightly do in such a case, but he felt rightly and acted accordingly. He determined, in the absence of all instruction, to maintain the existing government. The territory had been ceded as a conquest, and was to be preserved and governed as such until the sovereignty to which it had pa.s.sed had legislated for it. That sovereignty was the United States, under the Const.i.tution, by which power had been given to Congress to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States, with the power also to admit new states into this Union, with only such limitations as are expressed in the section in which this power is given. The government, of which Colonel Mason was the executive, had its origin in the lawful exercise of a belligerent right over a conquered territory. It had been inst.i.tuted during the war by the command of the President of the United States. It was the government when the territory was ceded as a conquest, and it did not cease, as a matter of course, or as a necessary consequence of the restoration of peace. The President might have dissolved it by withdrawing the army and navy officers who administered it, but he did not do so. Congress could have put an end to it, but that was not done.

The right inference from the inaction of both is, that it was meant to be continued until it had been legislatively changed. No presumption of a contrary intention can be made. Whatever may have been the causes of delay, it must be presumed that the delay was consistent with the true policy of the Government[5]."

This guess, being the last guess, must now be taken as authoritative.

The prospectors and miners were, then, in the start, simply trespa.s.sers upon the public lands as against the Government of the United States, with no laws to guide, restrain or protect them, and with nothing to fear from the military authorities. They were equal to the occasion. The instinct of organization was a part of their heredity. Professor Macy, in a treatise issued by Johns Hopkins University, once wrote: "It has been said that if three Americans meet to talk over an item of business, the first thing they do is to organize."

"Finding themselves far from the legal traditions and restraints of the settled East," said the report of the Public Land Commission of 1880, "in a pathless wilderness, under the feverish excitement of an industry as swift and full of chance as the throwing of dice, the adventurers of 1849 spontaneously inst.i.tuted neighborhood or district codes of regulation, which were simply meant to define and protect a brief possessory owners.h.i.+p. The ravines and river bars which held the placer gold were valueless for settlement or home-making, but were splendid stakes to hold for a few short seasons and gamble with nature for wealth or ruin.

"In the absence of State and Federal laws competent to meet the novel industry, and with the inbred respect for equitable adjustments of rights between man and man, the miners sought only to secure equitable rights and protection from robbery by a simple agreement as to the maximum size of a surface claim, trusting, with a well-founded confidence, that no machinery was necessary to enforce their regulations other than the swift, rough blows of public opinion. The gold-seekers were not long in realizing that the source of the dust which had worked its way into the sands and bars, and distributed its precious particles over the bedrocks of rivers was derived from solid quartz veins, which were thin sheets of mineral material inclosed in the foundation rocks of the country. Still in advance of any enactments by legislature or Congress, the common sense of the miners, which had proved strong enough to govern with wisdom the owners.h.i.+p of placer mines, rose to meet the question of lode claims and sheet-like veins of quartz, and provided that a claim should consist of a certain horizontal block of the vein, however it might run, but extending indefinitely downward, with a strip of surface on, or embracing the vein's outcrop, for the placing of necessary machinery and buildings. Under this theory, the lode was the property, and the surface became a mere eas.e.m.e.nt.

"This early California theory of a mining claim, consisting of a certain number of running feet of vein, with a strip of land covering the surface length of the claim, is, the obvious foundation for the Federal legislation and present system of public disposition and private owners.h.i.+p of the mineral lands west of the Missouri River. Contrasted with this is the mode of disposition of mineral-bearing lands east of the Missouri River, where the common law has been the rule, and where the surface tract has always carried with it all minerals vertically below it.

"The great coal, copper, lead and zinc wealth east of the Rocky Mountains has all pa.s.sed with the surface t.i.tles, and there can be little doubt if California had been contiguous to the eastern metallic regions, and its mineral development progressed naturally with the advantage of homemaking settlements, the power of common-law precedent would have governed its whole mining history. But California was one of these extraordinary historic exceptions that defy precedent and create original modes of life and law. And since the developers of the great precious metal mining of the Far West have, for the most part, swarmed out of the California hive, California ideas have not only been everywhere dominant over the field of the industry, but have stemmed the tide of Federal land policy, and given us a statute-book with English common law in force over half the land and California common law ruling in the other."

I have spoken of these two incidents, the one of the peaceable civilization of the missions, and the other of the strenuous life issuing in the adoption of the mining law, as ill.u.s.trative incidents of the variety of California history. Let me briefly speak of a third one, California's method of getting into the Union. But two other states at the present time celebrate the anniversary of their admission into the Union; the reason for California's celebration of that anniversary is well founded. The delay incident to the admission of California into the Union as a State was precipitated by the tense struggle then raging in Congress between the North and the South. The admission of Wisconsin had made a tie, fifteen free states and fifteen slave states. The destiny of the nation hung upon the result of that issue, and when California finally entered the Union, it came in as the sixteenth free State, forever destroyed the equilibrium between the North and the South, and made the Civil War practically inevitable. The debate was a battle of giants. Webster, Clay and Calhoun all took part in it. Calhoun had arisen from his death-bed to fight the admission of California, and, upon reaching his seat in the Senate, found himself so overcome with weakness and pain that he had Mason of Virginia read the speech he had prepared in writing. Webster atoned for his hostility to the Pacific Coast before the Mexican War by answering Calhoun. "I do not hesitate to avow in the presence of the living G.o.d that if you seek to drive us from California . . . I am for disunion," declared Robert Toombs, of Georgia, to an applauding House. "The unity of our empire hangs upon the decision of this day," answered Seward in the Senate. National history was being made with a vengeance, and California was the theme. The contest was an inspiring one, and a reading of the Congressional Record covering the period makes a Californian's blood tingle with the intensity of it all[6].

The struggle had been so prolonged, however, that the people upon this coast, far removed from the scene of it, and feeling more than all else that they were ent.i.tled to be protected by a system of laws, had grown impatient. They had finally proceeded in a characteristically Californian way. They had met in legislative a.s.sembly and proclaimed: "It is the duty of the Government of the United States to give us laws; and when that duty is not performed, one of the clearest rights we have left is to govern ourselves."

The first provisional government meeting was held in the pueblo of San Jose, December 11, 1848, and unanimously recommended that a general convention be held at the pueblo of San Jose on the second Monday of January following. At San Francisco a similar provisional meeting was held, though the date of the proposed convention was fixed for the first Monday in March, 1849, and afterward changed to the first Monday in August.

The various a.s.semblies which had placed other conditions and fixed other dates and places for holding the same gave way, and a general election was finally held under the provisions of a proclamation issued by General Bennet Riley, the United States General commanding, a proclamation for the issuance of which there was no legislative warrant whatever. While the Legislative a.s.sembly of San Francisco recognized his military authority, in which capacity he was not formidable, it did not recognize his civil power. General Riley, however, with that rare diplomacy which seems to have attached to all Federal military people when acting on the Pacific Coast, realizing that any organized government that proceeded from an orderly concourse of the people was preferable to the exasperating condition in which the community was left to face its increasing problem under Congressional inaction, himself issued the proclamation for a general convention, which is itself a gem.

The delegates met in Monterey, at Colton Hall, on the 1st of September, and organized on the 3d of September, 1849.

The convention was one of the keenest and most intelligent that ever a.s.sembled for the fulfillment of a legislative responsibility. Six of the delegates had resided in California less than six months, while only twenty-one, exclusive of the seven native Californians, had resided here for more than three years. The average age of all the delegates was 36 years. The debates of that convention should be familiar to every citizen of this State. No Californian should be unfamiliar with the great debate on what was to const.i.tute the eastern boundary of the State of California, a debate accompanied by an intensity of feeling which in the end almost wrecked the convention. The dramatic scenes wrought by the patriotism that saved the wrecking of the convention stand out in bold relief. The const.i.tution adopted by this convention was ratified November 13, 1849, and, at the same election, an entire State and legislative ticket, with two representatives in Congress, was chosen.

The senators and a.s.semblymen elect met in San Jose on December 15, 1849.

On December 20, 1849, the State government of California was established and Governor Peter H. Burnett was inaugurated as the first Governor of the State of California, and soon thereafter William M. Gwin and John C.

Fremont were elected the first United States Senators of the State of California. Notwithstanding the fact that there had never been any territorial form of government, notwithstanding the fact that California had not yet been admitted into the Union, these men were all elected as members of the State government, and the United States Senators and members of Congress started for Was.h.i.+ngton to help get the State admitted.

Immediately upon the inauguration of Governor Burnett, General Riley issued this remarkable proclamation:

"To the People of California: A new executive having been elected and installed into office, in accordance with the provisions of the Const.i.tution of the State, the undersigned hereby resigns his powers as Governor of California. In thus dissolving his official connection with the people of this country he would tender to them his heart-felt thanks for their many kind attentions and for the uniform support which they have given to the measures of his administration. The princ.i.p.al object of all his wishes is now accomplished--the people have a government of their own choice, and one which, under the favor of Divine Providence, will secure their own prosperity and happiness and the permanent welfare of the new State."

No matter what the legal objections to this course might be, notwithstanding the fact that Congress had as yet pa.s.sed no bill for the admission of California as a State into the Union, and might never pa.s.s one, California broke all precedents by declaring itself a State, and a free State at that, and sent its representatives to Was.h.i.+ngton to hurry up the pa.s.sage of the bill which should admit it into the Union.

The brilliant audacity of California's method of admission into the Union stands without parallel in the history of the nation. Outside of the original thirteen colonies, she was the only State carved out of the national domain which was admitted into the Union without a previous enabling act or territorial apprentices.h.i.+p. What was called the State of Deseret tried it and failed, and the annexation of Texas was the annexation of a foreign republic. The so-called State of Transylvania and State of Franklin had been attempted secessions of western counties of the original states of Virginia and North Carolina, respectively, and their abortive attempts at admission addressed to the Continental Congress, and not to the Congress of the United States. With full right, then, did California, by express resolution spreading the explanation upon the minutes of her const.i.tutional convention[7], avowedly place upon her great seal her Minerva--her "robed G.o.ddess-in-arms"--not as the G.o.ddess of wisdom, not as the G.o.ddess of war, but to signify that as Minerva was not born, but sprang full-armed from the brain of Jupiter, so California, without territorial childhood, sprang full-grown into the sisterhood of states.

When it is remembered that California was not admitted into the Union till September 9, 1850, and yet that the first session of its State Legislature had met, legislated, and adjourned by April 22, 1850, some appreciation may be had of the speed limit--if there was a limit. The record of the naive self-sufficiency of that Legislature is little short of amazing.

On February 9, 1850, seven months before the admission of the State, it coolly pa.s.sed the following resolution: "That the Governor be, and he is hereby authorized and requested, to cause to be procured, and prepared in the manner prescribed by the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument a.s.sociation, a block of California marble, cinnabar, gold quartz or granite of suitable dimensions, with the word 'California' chiseled on its face, and that he cause the same to be forwarded to the managers of the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument a.s.sociation, in the city of Was.h.i.+ngton, District of Columbia, to const.i.tute a portion of the monument now being erected in that city to the memory of George Was.h.i.+ngton." California did not intend to be absent from any feast, or left out of any procession--not if she knew it. Looking back now, our belief is that the only reason she required the word "California," instead of the words "State of California," to be chiseled on the stone was that the rules of the Monument a.s.sociation probably prohibited any State from chiseling on the stone contributed by it any words except the mere name of the State itself. And the resolution was obeyed--the stone was cut from a marble-bed on a ranch just outside Placerville, and is now in the monument!

On April 13, 1850, nearly five months before California was admitted into the Union, that Legislature gaily pa.s.sed an act consisting of this provision: "The common law of England, so far as it is not repugnant to or inconsistent with the Const.i.tution of the United States, or the Const.i.tution or laws of the State of California, shall be the rule of the decision in all the courts of the State."

Among other things, three joint resolutions were pa.s.sed, one demanding of the Federal Government not only a change in the manner of transporting the mails, but also in the manner of their distribution at San Francisco, a second urging upon Congress the importance of authorizing, as soon as practicable, the construction of a national railroad from the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi River--not from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, but from the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi River--and a third urging appropriate grants of land by the General Government to each commissioned officer of the Army of the United States who had faithfully and honorably served out a complete term of service in the war with Mexico. Each of the last two resolutions, with grim determination, and without a suspicion of humor, contained this further resolution: "That His Excellency, the Governor, be requested to forward to each of our Senators and Representatives in Congress, a certified copy of this joint resolution."