JOHN C. FREMONT. 235 



etantly engaged in proposing measures of wise and 

 judicious legislation, which were necessary to com- 

 plete and consolidate the government of California, 

 which had been recently admitted as a State. 

 Eighteen bills of this nature were proposed by him ; 

 and many of them were passed. On the 31st of March, 

 1851, his term in the Senate expired; after which 

 period he returned to California, to renew his atten- 

 tion to his private affairs, which had been much 

 neglected in consequence of his devotion to public 

 duties. He proceeded to take additional steps to 

 perfect his title to Mariposas. He had the land sur- 

 veyed and mapped. He devoted much time and labor 

 to cattle-rearing. In 1852, his business relations called 

 him to England and France, in which countries he 

 spent a year. In March, 1852, an appropriation was 



punished in a court of the United States with the penalty of forfeit- 

 ure, when there is no law of Congress to inflict it. The purchase was 

 perfectly consistent with the rights and duties of Colonel Fremont as 

 an American officer and an American citizen ; and the country in which 

 he made the purchase was, at the time, subject to the authority and 



dominion of the United States 



" ' Upon the whole, it is the opinion of the court that the claim of 

 the petitioner is valid, and ought to be confirmed. The decree of the 

 district Court must, therefore, be reversed, and the case remanded, 

 with directions to the District Court to enter a decree conformably to 

 this opinion.'"* 



* See Howard's U. S. Supreme Court Reports, TO!, xyii. pp. 564, 665. 



