The struggle had been so prolonged, however, that the people upon this
coast, far removed from the scene of it, and feeling more than all else
that they were entitled to be protected by a system of laws, had grown
impatient. They had finally proceeded in a characteristically
Californian way. They had met in legislative assembly and proclaimed:
"It is the duty of the Government of the United States to give us laws;
and when that duty is not performed, one of the clearest rights we have
left is to govern ourselves."

The first provisional government meeting was held in the pueblo of San
Jose, December 11, 1848, and unanimously recommended that a general
convention be held at the pueblo of San Jose on the second Monday of
January following. At San Francisco a similar provisional meeting was
held, though the date of the proposed convention was fixed for the first
Monday in March, 1849, and afterward changed to the first Monday in
August.

The various assemblies which had placed other conditions and fixed other
dates and places for holding the same gave way, and a general election
was finally held under the provisions of a proclamation issued by
General Bennet Riley, the United States General commanding, a
proclamation for the issuance of which there was no legislative warrant
whatever. While the Legislative Assembly of San Francisco recognized his
military authority, in which capacity he was not formidable, it did not
recognize his civil power. General Riley, however, with that rare
diplomacy which seems to have attached to all Federal military people
when acting on the Pacific Coast, realizing that any organized
government that proceeded from an orderly concourse of the people was
preferable to the exasperating condition in which the community was left
to face its increasing problem under Congressional inaction, himself