PBA Galleries

10 volumes. Various paginations. Many volumes with folding tables. (8vo) varying binding styles: some legal buckram, others sheep; some with morocco spine labels, others issued without spine labels.

These volumes present the earliest legal history of the State of California. The First Session includes, not only the Statutes enacted, but the Treaty of Peace with Mexico and documents supplementary thereto, the 1849 California Constitution, the U.S. Constitution with amendments, and other foundation enactments. Joint Resolutions, Index, Table of Contents for each Session are printed along with the Laws. The 1852 and 1853 volumes are evidently rare. The Statutes deal with all the significant events of that interesting ten-year period: the settlement of the State, the development of infrastructure and unfolding of commercial life, the multiple social and political institutions, the Gold Rush, immigration, the political strife that engulfed the Nation, and all other aspects of early Statehood. The stated printing locations are San Jose and San Francisco for the first two Sessions, but these were actually printed in New York. The third and fourth Sessions were printed in San Francisco, the others in Sacramento.