CALIFORNIA. The name of one of the states of the United States. It was
admitted into the Union, by an Act of Congress, passed the 9th September,
1850, entitled "An act for the admission of the state of California into the
Union."
Sec. 1. This section enacts and declares that the state of California
shall be one of the United States, and admitted into the Union on an equal
footing with the original states, in all respects whatever.
Sec. 2. Enacts that the state of California shall be entitled to two
representatives, until the representatives in Congress shall be apportioned
according to the actual enumeration of the inhabitants, of the United
States.
Sec. 3. By this section a condition is expressly imposed on the said
state that the people thereof shall never interfere with the primary
disposal of the public lands within its limits, nor pass any law, nor do any
act, whereby the title of the United States to, and right to dispose of the
same, shall be impaired or questioned. It also provides that they shall
never lay any tax, or assessment of any description whatever, upon the
public domain of the United States; and that in no case shall non-resident
proprietors, who are citizens of the United States, be taxed higher than
residents; that all navigable waters within the said state shall be common
highways, forever free, as well to the inhabitants of said state, as to
citizens of the United States, without any tax, impost or duty therefor;
with this proviso, viz., that nothing contained in the act shall be
construed as recognizing or rejecting the propositions tendered by the
people of California, as articles of compact in the ordinance adopted by the
convention which formed the constitution of that state.
2. The principal features of the constitution, of California, are
similar to those of most, of the recently formed state constitutions. It
establishes an elective judiciary, and: confers on the executive a qualified
veto. It prohibits the creation of a state debt exceeding $300,000. It
provides for the protection of the homestead from execution, and secures the
property of married females separate from that of their husbands. It makes a
liberal provision for the support of schools, prohibits the legislature from
granting divorces, authorizing lotteries, and creating corporations, except
by general laws, and from establishing any bank's of issue or circulation.
It provides also that every stockholder of a corporation or joint-stock
association, shall be individually and personally liable for his proportion
of all its, debts or liabilities. There is also a clause prohibiting
slavery, which, it is said, was inserted by the unanimous vote of the
delegates.