up, read and finally passed. On the next day, the schedule and the boundary, which had been ordered to be inserted immediately preceding the schedule, were read a third time and finally passed.1

The work of the convention was now nearly concluded; but there still remained several propositions undisposed of. One was a motion by Steuart for a committee to draft an address to the people, which was adopted. Another was an ordinance, submitted by Gwin, asking congress to grant the state a section in every quarter township of the public lands for school purposes, seventy-two sections for a university, four sections for a seat of government, five hundred thousand acres, in addition to the same amount given by the act of congress of 1841, for defraying the expenses of the state government and other state purposes, five per cent. of the net proceeds of all sales of public land in the state for the encouragement of learning, and all the salt springs and lands reserved for the use of the same, embracing at least one section including such springs, to be disposed of as the legislature might direct. This occasioned considerable discussion, but was approved. A proposition to take a census was indefinitely postponed.'

On Friday a copy of the constitution was ordered to be transmitted to Governor Riley with a request that he should forward it by the earliest opportunity to the president of the United States; and, shortly afterwards, the president of the convention announced that he had received official notice from Governor Riley that a national salute would be fired, by his order, on the signing of the instrument. On Saturday, October 13, Steuart of the committee of one from each district appointed for that purpose presented an address to the people, which was unanimously adopted and signed by all the delegates. In the afternoon, it was resolved among other things that the members of the convention, after its adjournment, should wait in a body upon Governor Riley and that Sutter should address him. The delegates then proceeded to sign the enrolled constitution, while the guns outside announced the glad tidings; and the convention adjourned sine die.

1 Debates of Convention, 380-461.

A

CHAPTER XII.

ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE.

S soon as the copy of the constitution, ordered to be transmitted to the governor, was presented to Riley, he issued a proclamation for an election. This was on October 12, the day after the instrument was completed and the day before the enrolled parchment draft was signed by the delegates. In his proclamation, Riley stated that the time and manner of voting on the constitution and of holding the first general election were clearly set forth in the schedule and that the whole subject was left to the deliberate and unbiased consideration of the people. In accordance with the request contained in the document, he directed places for holding the polls in the several districts to be designated and notice of the election to be given. Expressing a hope that the selection of officers might be wisely made and that the government might be so organized as to secure the permanent welfare and happiness of the people of the new state, he announced in conclusion that he would with pleasure, if the constitution were ratified, surrender his powers to whomsoever the people might designate as his successor.1

On the same day, the constitution and proclamation were sent to San Francisco to be printed—eight thousand copies in English and two thousand copies in Spanish. As the election was to take place on November 13, the publication was hastened; and the printed copies, as they were turned off the press, were sent forth and distributed as far as possible among the population in all parts of the territory. Riley had no doubt that it would be. ratified by the almost unanimous vote of the qualified electors. It was intended, as stated in the schedule, to put the new government into operation on or soon after December 15, which

Ex. Doc. I Ses. 31 Con. H. R. No. XVII, 858, 859.

day had been fixed on for the assembling of the first legislature. There might, he said, be some legal objections to putting into operation a state government previous to its acknowledgment or approval by congress; but such objections must yield to the obvious necessities of the case; for the powers of the existing government were too limited and its organization too imperfect to provide for the wants of a country so peculiarly situated and of a population which was augmenting with such unprecedented rapidity. He had deemed it his duty to pay from the "civil funds," or moneys collected for customs previous to the extension of the revenue laws of the United States over the country, the current expenses of the convention and the salaries of officers as sanctioned by that body, which, though high and by some considered extravagant, were only in proportion to the high prices of everything in the country, including the necessities of life. In the interim, the country remained remarkably quiet; the civil officers encountered no serious difficulty in enforcing the laws; and it was hoped and believed that they would be fully able to preserve the public tranquillity until the existing government should be replaced by a more perfect organization under the constitution.' And having thus substantially completed his labors, Riley on October 24 issued a proclamation appointing Thursday, November 29, 1849, to be set apart and kept as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.'

The existing government referred to was the old so-called de facto government, consisting chiefly of the body of officers holding over or chosen at the election of August 1 and professing to derive their authority from and to administer the old Mexican laws in force at the conquest of the country. These officers, not counting the governor and secretary, were the prefects, subprefects, alcaldes, justices of the peace and members of ayuntamientos; and the laws, under which they were supposed to hold, were the decrees of the Mexican congress, one of March 20, 1837, relating to the political organization and interior government of the departments of the Mexican republic, and the other of May 23, 1837, relating to the organization and jurisdiction of the judiciary. In July, 1849, Riley caused a translation and

1 Ex. Doc. I Ses. 31 Con. H. R. No. XVII, 850, 851.

digest of these laws to be published in pamphlet form and distributed; and they constituted, so far as they went, the recognized, or rather the accepted, code of laws of California up to the time of their supersession by the laws of the constitutional legislature.1

The political portion of that code provided, among other things, for a departmental legislature; but this under the Americans never went into operation. The judiciary portion provided for a superior court of four judges, having chiefly appellate jurisdiction; courts of first instance, having general original jurisdiction both civil and criminal in certain specified cases and appellate jurisdiction in others, and courts of alcaldes and justices of the peace, in whom was vested the remaining judicial jurisdiction and particularly that of judges of conciliation. It was a fixed principle under the Mexican law, and in fact of the civil law from which it sprang, that in all cases of controversy, that admitted of it, there should be an attempted settlement before the matter was allowed to become properly speaking the subject of a law-suit; and the alcaldes and justices, either by themselves or with the help of "hombres buenos" or arbitrators, were the ministers of conciliation.

The judges of the superior court were appointable by the governor; but Riley, in his proclamation for the election of August 1, had directed each district to vote for one with an understanding that he would appoint any competent and unobjectionable person who might be chosen by the people. At that election, accordingly, Peter H. Burnett was chosen from one district and Pacificus Ord, Lewis Dent and Jose M. Covarrubias from the others; and they were afterwards appointed by the governor; and, to complete the organization of the tribunal, Frederick Billings was appointed and commissioned fiscal or attorneygeneral of California. On September 4, in answer to a complaint against the alcalde of the "Sonoranian Camp" or what is now Sonora, Riley replied that, as the superior court was then organized and had full jurisdiction over the matter, he should decline to interfere. As a matter of fact, however, nothing or nothing of importance was ever done by the tribunal. In October Burnett and Dent resigned; and, though Kimball H.

Dimmick and Richard A. Maupin were appointed to fill the vacancies from and after November 1, yet this was so near the time when the constitutional supreme court was to be organized that the appointment was little more than an empty honor.1

The judges of the courts of first instance were also appointed officers. It was usual for the governor, however, if the first alcalde of a district, elected by the people, proved to be an able and acceptable person, to appoint him to fill the office of judge of first instance as well as his own office of first alcalde. In accordance with this custom, Riley immediately after the election appointed a number of the first alcaldes, who had been elected, judges of first instance and, among others, John W. Geary for the district of San Francisco. But the business of the growing city increased so rapidly, that it was soon found necessary to create an additional court; and this was afterwards, in the early part of December, accomplished by the organization of a special court of first instance with civil jurisdiction only; and William B. Almond was by Riley appointed the judge of it.

Almond was what may be called an original character. He was a man of quick discernment and, as far as it went, clear judgment. But when he made up his mind, which he often did before he heard any evidence, nothing could change him. He had a sovereign contempt for lawyers' speeches, legal technicalities, learned opinions, and judicial precedents. He had an idea that he could see through a case at a glance and imagined that he could, with a shake of his head or a wave of his hand, solve questions which would have puzzled a Marshall or a Mansfield. At the same time he assumed, if indeed the manner was not natural to him, a rough, coarse and abrupt demeanor, indicative of low associations and unfit even for a bar-room. He would often sit in his court on an old chair tilted back, with his feet perched, higher than his head, on a small mantel over the fireplace; and in that position, with a red shirt on and sometimes employed in scraping the dirt from under his nails or paring his corns, he would dispense justice.

On one occasion, a doctor sued the captain of a ship for med

1 Ex. Doc. I Ses. 31 Con. H. R. No. XVII, 807-869.