LEGAL AND POLITICAL 

 DEVELOPMENT OF THE 

 PACIFIC COAST STATES 



BY ORRIN K. MCMURRAY 



Professor of Law, University of California 



THE legal and political conditions of a State 

 are to a large though undefined extent the 

 product of a multitude of social and economic 

 forces. These forces are themselves, in turn, the 

 result of the operation of others, often purely physi- 

 cal, such as climate, geographical location, geological 

 structure and the like. It is a fascinating task to 

 attempt to trace a particular institution to the social 

 conditions which called it into being, and from 

 thence to the natural forces which determined these 

 social conditions. But by reason of the complexity 

 of the problem, because of the ever present per- 

 sonal element, which eludes classification, it is 

 a task fraught with the danger of rash generaliza- 

 tion. 



It is believed that the legal history of the Pacific 

 Coast States, and particularly that of California, 

 affords excellent material for the study of the in- 

 fluence of natural conditions upon legal and po- 

 litical institutions. Take, for illustration, the fact 

 that gold existed in a free form in the creeks and 

 river beds of the State. Its discovery found the 

 community in the pastoral stage of civilization, 

 without fixed legal principles or definite institu- 

 tions; it transformed the social system, as if by 

 magic, into a group of vigorous, independent units, 

 struggling for some sort of law and social order. 

 As free gold created the mining camp, so the mining 

 camps gave birth to law all their own. Their popu- 

 lar courts, administering a rude criminal justice, 

 and framed to meet only a temporary exigency, 

 left, it is true, little trace on the future jurispru- 

 dence of the State. But the customs evolved in the 

 camps with reference to property rights had more 

 permanent results, and were unique contributions 

 to the legal development of the entire United States. 

 The American law with respect to the discovery, 

 location and development of mining claims owes 

 its character and form to these customs; the law 

 with regard to the appropriation and use of water 

 in the arid and semi-arid States, west of the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley, has been evolved from them. The 

 miner's needs required that water be taken from 



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