important. In some cases it will perhaps be found that laws which have been impliedly repealed, have been inserted. This course has been pursued from the consideration, that in cases of doubtful construction, it was best to allow both laws to stand, and leave to the courts of justice the determination of their precedence. The sections of the original laws have been preserved in all cases. This was rendered necessary from the fact that references are frequently made to these sections, in other acts, and sometimes in the same act. It was also thought best to present this evidence of the entirety of the law. The articles preceding each section are not portions of the original laws, but have been inserted by the compiler for the convenience of reference and to give compactness and uniformity to the entire code.

In each case where sections have been repealed or amended, the latest amendment has been inserted, with reference at the close of the section to the clause repealed, thus showing the present condition of the law, with all the stages through which it has passed, from its first enactment to the present time.

In a number of the statutes it was found that clauses and sections of a mere temporary character existed, which so soon as they have accomplished the object intended, become obsolete and are no longer of use. Such provisions are marked "executed," and have been omitted.

The head notes at the commencement of each title will be found to present, in a condensed form, the substance of each section. This feature of the work, together with its thorough alphabetical arrangement, in a great measure supersedes the necessity of a very extended index.

References to decisions of the supreme court of the state, have been appended at the close of each title. In addition to these general references, wherever a particular section has been construed by judicial decision, it has been noted at the foot of the page. The references to judicial decisions have been brought down to the April Term, 1857.

In the appendix will be found: the laws of congress relative to Naturalization; the laws of congress for the Authentication of Records between the States; the laws of congress relative to Pre-emptions and Donations of the Public Lands; the Instructions of the General Land Office relative to State Selections of the five hundred thousand acres of Land donated for Internal Improvements, and of the Swamp and Overflowed Lands; the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and 1799; Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States construing the Constitution of the United States; some interesting forms for asserting Pre-emption Rights and acquiring Military Bounty Lands, and certain Forms prescribed by statute.

The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, together with the Articles of Confederation and the Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, constitute an interesting commentary on the constitution of the United States.

Taken as a whole, it is believed that the work will present a more perspicuous and intelligible arrangement and a greater variety of interesting matter than is usually to be found in compilations of the kind. It is the first of so difficult and complicated a nature published in the state. of California, and is now submitted, with all its virtues and imperfections, to the candor and criticism of a discerning public. WM. H. R. WOOD.

SAN FRANCISCO, October 15, 1857.

CERT I F I C АТЕ.

STATE OF CALIFORNIA, }

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

THIS is to certify, that the laws embraced in "WOOD'S DIGEST OF THE LAWS OF CaliforNIA," have been carefully compared with the enrolled bills on file in this office, and are found to be correct, as amended by the "Errata" appended to the volume.

[SEAL OF THE STATE.]

Witness my hand and the Great Seal of the State of California, at

Sacramento, this ninth day of October, A. D. 1857.

DAVID F. DOUGLASS,

Secretary of State.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, JULY 4, 1776.

THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.

WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident-that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature—a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states-for that purpose obstructing the laws of naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in time of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws-giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation; For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments;

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts, by their legislature, to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of 'consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war-in peace, friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.