Legal and Political Development 

 tract, enunciating in this respect the theory of the 

 Spanish-Mexican law, which, like the early canon 

 law, permitted the establishment of marriage with- 

 out either civil or religious ceremony. Until 1895, 

 the statutory law of the State remained in this con- 

 dition. Since that date solemnization is required 

 to constitute a valid marriage. In the matter of 

 the legitimation and adoption of children, also, 

 Spanish law has had an important influence. 



The Spanish-Mexican law theoretically governed 

 the civil rights of all persons in California from the 

 conquest in 1846 until the formal adoption of the 

 common law of England in 1850. Many questions, 

 therefore, have necessarily come before the courts 

 involving rights acquired prior to 1850, especially 

 with reference to land titles, and neither the his- 

 torian nor the lawyer can aff"ord to neglect the 

 system. But it has affected private rights rather 

 than the main outlines of the law, save in respect 

 to the important survivals noticed. 



The work of lawyers and publicists played an 

 important part from the beginning in the moulding 

 of juristic ideas, and the formal bases of the written 

 law were laid by men of experience and learning 

 in public affairs. But these men themselves were 

 colored by the opinions and prejudices of the so- 

 ciety in which they lived; they were young, vigor- 

 ous, untrammeled by precedent, adventurous. The 

 constitution of 1849 was, it is true, an instrument 

 pretty much of the traditional kind. The over- 

 shadowing importance of the slavery question made 

 the time one unfavorable to political or social in- 

 novation. It was not in the Constitutional Con- 

 vention, but in the legislature of 1850, that the 

 vigorous and independent public men of the in- 

 fant State found their expression and tried experi- 

 ments. From New York came the idea of reform 

 in legal procedure, just introduced by the efforts 

 of David Dudley Field, whose brother, Stephen J. 

 Field was one of the dominant personalities of early 

 California. The distinction between forms of pro- 

 ceeding at law and in equity was abolished, and 

 a fusion of the two systems effected. California 

 was the first State outside of New York to try this 

 experiment, a tremendous forward step in juris- 

 prudence, fundamental in all true legal reform. In 

 the development of its jurisprudence, the State, 

 thanks to this reform, has from the beginning been 

 unhampered by the existence of forms which stand 

 in the way of complete justice. New York also 

 provided the model for the law of real property 

 and conveyancing in the statutes adopted upon this 



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