120 HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



most important rights, and very large sums of money 

 depended upon the dictum of the judge. 



" The sale of the territory by Mexico to the United 

 States had necessarily cut off or dissolved the laws 

 regulating the granting or procuring titles to land ; 

 and, as our own land-laws had not been extended over 

 it, the people were compelled to receive such titles as 

 were offered to them, without the means of ascertain- 

 ing whether they were valid or not. 



" Litigation was so expensive and precarious that 

 injustice and oppression were frequently endured, 

 rather than resort to so uncertain a remedy. 



*' Towns and cities were springing into existence ; 

 many of them without charters or any legal right to 

 organize municipal authorities, or to tax property or 

 the citizens for the establishment cf a police, the 

 erection of prisons, or providing any of those means 

 for the protection of life and property which are so 

 necessary in all civil communities, and especially 

 among a people mostly strangers to each other. 



" Nearly one million and a half of dollars had been 

 paid into the custom-house, as duties on irnported 

 goods, before our revenue laws had been extended over 

 the country; and the people complained bitterly that 

 they were thus heavily taxed without being pro- 

 vided with a government for their protection, or 

 laws which they could understand, or allowed the 

 right to be represented in the councils of the 

 nation. 



" While anxiously waiting the action of Congress, 

 oppressed and embarrassed by this state of affairs, and 

 feeling the pressing necessity of applying such reme- 

 dies as were in their power, and circumstances seemed 

 to justify, they resolved to substitute laws of their own 



