200 TOWNSHIP GRANTS. been raised in the Spanish courts, notwithstanding their leaning in favor of women and children, they would have established a precedent similar to "the rule in Shelley's case," which is found in the English law books. The boundaries were rather loosely defined for the purposes of measurement, but were laid down with sufficient. certainty to make it impossible to mistake the intent and meaning of the grantor. Some well-known landmarks were selected, such as two chains of hills, by which the two sides of the grant were bounded, the other boundaries being fixed by a given distance, measured from the next rancho, or from some other equally ascertainable starting point. The quantity of land was therefore roughly estimated or guessed at, and the words "poco mas o menos" (more or less) covered the deficiency or excess. Where lands were granted to a township, they were conveyed to the "poblacion" or population in perpetuity, for the uses of the town. The extent of these grants was commensurate with the wants of the town, and they usually consisted of tracts of four or six square leagues. Each actual resident of the town was entitled to a lot, the usual dimensions of lots being two hundred "varas" (yards) square; and the occupant was obliged to fence in or otherwise enclose his lot, and to erect a dwelling-house upon it. The lots were laid out under the direction of the civil authorities, and the town plat was subsequently approved by them. The land thus granted by the government belonged to the town, and no individual, except an actual inhabitant, could take possession of any of the land; and the rights of each settler were confined to a single lot. These town grants were made to encourage the people to live in towns for mutual security and defence, and neither the town nor the settlers could alienate the fee. Lands are granted in this way to the towns or populations of Santa Clara, San Juan, Sonoma, &c., and, whatever else may be done by our government, it is certainly to be hoped that the chartered A PLEA FOR THE TITLES. 201 rights of these towns, which have been the pioneers of civilization, will be respected, and ratified without delay. Aliens were forbidden by the Mexican laws to hold property in California, unless they consented to become citizens. This exclusion, however, was never regarded, and foreigners were permitted by the local governors to hold property, establish ranchos, &c., in defiance of all such laws. Americans and other foreigners possessed large estates, and laughed at the idea of becoming naturalized Mexican citizens. The people of California look with confidence to the government of the United States to secure to them their private property, as they held it under the laws of Mexico. The expectation is not unreasonable, and it would certainly be a sorry business on the part of our government to unsettle well-authenticated titles, many of which are fairly established by prescription as well as by grant. If the Congress of the United States should think proper to interfere with these undisputed titles, California will soon be in a state of ferment, and many of the actual settlers will be ruined men. Surely California was not acquired with any such mercenary and unjustifiable intentions; and it is to be hoped that no man will be found to advocate a law which will operate to unsettle titles and reduce the country to a state of anarchy. If these titles shall be impeached or deraigned, we shall have, for the next half-century, an infinite amount of corrupt land-jobbing on the part of speculators, and of partyCommissioners . jobbing on the part of the government. will probably be appointed for every district in that vast territory, and they will continue in lucrative and useless offices until the present land-holders and their grantees are stripped of their possessions. California will be put far back in her promising career, and a wretched and discontented race will grow up abhorring their oppressors. There is but one just and upright course to be pursued, and that 202 MR. BENTON'S REMARKS is to confirm the titles granted prior to the treaty, under the authority of Mexico. The warning voice of the eminent and profoundly erudite senator from Missouri has lately been raised in Congress on the subject of those titles. No man in the country is so familiar as he is with the history, customs, and wants of the new territories. Like a true statesman, he has large, liberal, just, and enlightened views; and the positions assumed by him cannot be shaken so long as truth, right, and justice bear sway in the national councils. The views presented by this distinguished man, on the subject of land titles are of such vast importance to California, and to all who intend to reside there, as to render it advisable to circulate them as widely as possible, and some remarks intended for this chapter are gladly withdrawn in favor of the infinitely superior arguments of the Hon. Thomas H. Benton. LAND TITLES IN NEW MEXICO AND CALIFORNIA. IN SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, January, 1849. On motion of Mr. Benton, the Senate proceeded to the consideration of the unfinished business, being the bill for ascertaining claims and titles to lands within the Territories of California and New Mexico, to grant donation rights, and to provide for the survey of the lands therein. Mr. BENTON. As I stated to the Senate on Friday, I am opposed to the whole scheme or plan contained in the bill which is now before the Senate; and I propose to substitute for it a plan founded on an entirely different principle. The principle of the bill now before the Senate is found in the first sections of the bill, which I will read to the Senate: "Sec. 1. That, for the purpose of ascertaining the claims and titles to lands within the territory of California and New Mexico, as required by the treaty of second of February, eighteen hundred and forty-eight, and for surveying and selling the public lands, there shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a surveyor-general, a register of lands, ON THE LAND TITLES. 203 and a receiver of public moneys, who shall act conjointly as a board of commissioners to adjudicate land claims. Sec. 2. They shall proceed to hold their sessions as commissioners as soon as practicable, at such points as may be directed by the President, giving public notice in some newspaper printed at each place, or if there be no newspaper, at the most public places at those points, respectively, of the time at which their sessions will commence, requiring all persons to bring forward their claims, with evidence necessary to support them. Their last session shall terminate on the thirtieth of September, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, when said commissioners shall forward to the Secretary of the Treasury, to be submitted to Congress, a detailed statement of all they have done; and deliver over to the surveyor-general all the archives, documents, and papers that may be in their possession." The first objection I have to this bill is, that it couples California and New Mexico in one single general land surveying district. The two countries are put together in one land district, and all the business which belongs to both, is to be transacted in one office, which office can only be in one of the two countries. Now, California and New Mexico have been always politically totally distinct, and are geographically widely separated from each other. Each consists of a mere string of settlements, one upon the Rio Grande del Norte, a river falling into the Atlantic ocean, the other, a string of settlements along the coast of the Pacific. Between them is a wilderness country of about a thousand miles in extent, the whole of it the undisputed dominion of savages, over which no man travels, except with a force sufficient to protect his life and property, moving militarily and encamping every night under the guard of sentinels, while travelling been the two countries. These two countries have never had any political connection whatsoever. Few of the inhabitants of either have ever been in the other, And to require the people of either of these strips to traverse this wilderness and go to the other for the purpose of transacting their business, is to impose on them a hardship which is intolerable-to impose on them a task which 204 MR. BENTON'S REMARKS cannot be performed. There is a total disability of performing it; and when the Surveyor General's office shall be established at San Francisco, as under this bill it is to be, the people of New Mexico may give up all thought or expectation of having their business done by this Board of Commissioners. That is one objection to uniting these two countries in one land district. But there is another, which must suggest itself at once to the mind of every Senator. New Mexico is a country of indefinite boundaries: it is a country, about the boundary of which, a serious question is impending which question, sooner or later, must receive its solution-and when it comes up, it will be large enough to occupy exclusively the authorities who may have charge of the settlement of it. The bill before us does not undertake to settle its boundaries. And it would be most injudicious and improper for it to undertake to do so. There are questions enough in the bill without mixing them up with the question of boundary between Texas and New Mexico. The bill does not undertake to fix the boundary, and it is right in making no such attempt. But it is equally wrong in undertaking to join together New Mexico and California, when one of those countries has no boundaries by which the practical operation under this bill is to be governed. Treasury instructions must be sent out to the surveyors, defining the boundaries. Their settlement will become a subject, not of law or legislation, but of an Executive order. Sir, we all know the usual course of such things. If this bill should be passed, New Mexico, having no definite boundary, it must be acted on nevertheless; instructions must go out under it; and the rule of practice is, that the instructions are to make precise and definite whatever is indefinite and unascertained. Instructions must, then, go out, if the bill be passed, by which the surveyors will have a boundary given to them, up to which they shall work, and beyond which they shall not go. And thus we shall have devolved upon the Secretary |