Feliz Cumpleaños
Tomorrow is another holiday in California - Admission Day. Cal. Govt. Code § 6700(a)(10). Although Admission Day is a statutorily designated holiday, it is not a judicial holiday. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 135.
California joined the union as a free state on September 9, 1850. It was the 31st state (note below the 31 stars in the arc at the top of the word "constitution"). The original capital was located in what was to become the Silicon Valley - San Jose. Cal. Const. (1849) Art. XI, Sec. 1 ("The first session of the Legislature shall be at the Pueblo de San Jose . . .".) Later, it was relocated to Vallejo, then Benicia and ultimately to Sacramento.
California's first constitution was handwritten in both English and Spanish. Notably, Article XI, Section 21 provided:
Toda ley, decreto, reglamento y disposicion que su naturaleza deban publicarse, se publicaran en ingles y en castellano
All laws, decrees, regulations, and provisions, which from their nature require publication, shall be published in English and Spanish.
The 1849 Constitution is actually trilingual for it included Latin as well. Article IV, Section 21 provides "In all elections by the Legislature, the members thereof shall vote viva voce, and the votes shall be entered on the journal." See also Cal. Const. (1849) Art. XII, Section 9 (requiring the election of a President of the Senate pro tempore).
The Constitution includes a number of provisions pertaining to corporations. For example, Article IV, Section 36 imposed personal, proportional liability on stockholders.
The 1849 Constitution was replaced with a new constitution in 1879. The 1879 Constitution jettisoned the state's official bilingualism and instead mandated that "laws of the State of California, and all official , and the executive, legislative, and judicial proceedings shall be conducted, preserved, and published in no other than the English language". Cal. Const. (1879) Art. IV, Section 24. Nonetheless, the legislature continued to publish laws in English and Spanish until the first decade of the twentieth century. The 1879 Constitution is still in effect, but it has been amended hundreds of times. Proposition 1-a eliminated Article IV, Section 24 in 1966, but Proposition 63 added a new English language requirement in 1986 (Article III, Section 6). Gone too from the current Constitution are the provisions addressing corporations.
If you happen to be in Sacramento on September 9, you may attend a rare display of the 1849 Constitution at the Secretary of State building, 1500 11th Street. If you won't be in Sacramento, you can view the English and Spanish versions of the 1849 Constitution here.
