Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 058-3 - July 2004 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 6 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2014-03-12 07:52:02 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:06:02 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:06:02

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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Final results of the Nevada County vote, by precinct, were reported in the May 12, 1879, edition of The Union: Precinct For Against Nevada City 454 478 Blue Tent 4 27 Grass Valley 348 655 Allison Ranch 32 5 Forest Springs 25 16 Buena Vista 9 21 Cottage Hill 21 1 North Bloomfield 108 28 Lake City 19 3 Relief Hill 15 6 Columbia Hill 36 31 Eureka South 44 26 Moore’s Flat 94 34 Washington 42 31 Omega 20 10 French Corral 37 34 Birchville 14 14 Sweetland 42 21 North San Juan 74 77 Cherokee 31 19 Rough and Ready 36 58 Indian Springs 49 37 Anthony House 20 10 Pleasant Ridge 15 17 Mooney Flat 15 10 Truckee 150 124 Boca 15 22 Little York 11 4 Lowell Hill 34 16 Hunt’s Hill 30 13 You Bet 32 49 Total: 1876 1897 On May 9, 1879, the The Union said, in an editorial regarding the new constitution: The people of California have voted to accept the New Constitution with all its crudities and imperfections, and in two months from this time it will be the organic law under which we must live until those imperfections can be remedied. Many of its advocates have acknowledged that it is far from being what it should be, but have contended that it is easy of amendment, and that the desired changes can be easily effected. It will be the duty of those who have opposed the instrument to immediately to work to effect the necessary changes by endeavoring to elect the right kind of Legislature. Assessment o™ The new constitution was not terribly effective in accomplishing its somewhat radical goals. In many instances, the courts interpreted provisions of the new document so as so make them not dissimilar to the old constitution. Other proNCHS Bulletin July 2004 visions failed as being in opposition to the United States Constitution. Still others were not put into practice because they were impractical. In spite of the new constitution’s establishment of a railroad commission, railroads remained basically unregulated. Tax reforms did not result in any real benefit to farmers, as they had anticipated. Chinese exclusion was not accomplished as the new document’s provision violated the U.S. Constitution. Limitations on Chinese immigration became effective, however, when Congress essentially nullified the Burlingame Treaty when it passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Public education reform had a stultifying impact on higher education. By 1882 the University of California, Berkeley, had a student population of less than 225 students. The problem, of course, was a lack of secondary school graduates qualifying for a university education. Possibly not coincidentally, it was that year that Grass Valley native Josiah Royce, a professor of composition, left Berkeley for Harvard. Subjected over the years to judicial construction, shortened by the various constitutional revision commissions and amended countless times (estimated to be more than 400), the 1879 constitution nonetheless continues as the foundation of law in California. An April 1880 cartoon by Thomas Nast derides the new California Constitution as a creature of Communists and anarchists. (Harper’s Weekly Magazine.)