Stephen Johnson Field

“ The political department of the government at least appears to have designated that day as the period when the conquest of California was completed, and the Mexican officials were displaced; and in this respect the judiciary follows the action of the political department. [4]
3. The absence from the grant of conditions requiring cultivation and inhabitancy, and the construction of a house within a year, does not affect the validity of the grant. ”

“ Their testimony, or at least testimony establishing something more than the genuineness of their signatures, might have been required, if the usual preliminary proceedings to the issue of a Mexican grant in colonization had not been produced in the case from the archives of the former government in the custody of the Surveyor-General of California. In the absence of the preliminary proceedings, suspicion naturally arises as to the genuineness of any grant produced, and in such cases the strict proof mentioned in United States v. ”

“ Even if the case were different, and the treaty had been concluded in reliance upon the truth of the declaration, that fact could not affect the rights of parties, who, subsequent to the 13th of May, 1846, obtained grants from the governors of California, whilst their authority and jurisdiction in the country continued. ”