and Mexican governments were exceedingly jealous of
foreigners of every nationality, and particularly of
esos malos americaiios. The Hispano- American, how-
ever, when he found himself fairly under the laws and
government of the United States, was solicitous to
sustain himself and his rights, while the Anglo-
American, with his shrewder instincts, now became
sensitive of sharing his new possessions with others,
particularly with Spanish speaking Americans. They
claimed that California's shady valleys and fertile
plains, and the metals of her mountains should be theirs,
and theirs alone. And yet, here were all the nations
of the earth rushing in pell-mell, seizing the lands, and
pocketing the gold ; seizing and pocketing as unre-
strictedly as those who had fought in Mexico, or as
those assessed for the purchase of a new wilderness.
In regard to permitting foreigners to abstract from
the foothills, the American miner might truthfully
say that his government possessed both the right and
the power to keep its treasures if it would, and induc-
tively he might bring himself into the belief that in
the absence of government or governmental protection,
he, a unit of the government, possessed the same right
to determine a policy, and enforce his own regulations
that he had to punish crime under like conditions.
But in entertaining the idea that they possessed the
right to act for the government in allowing or disal-
lowing foreigners access to the country's mineral
wealth, the American miners failed to remember that
antecedents, facts, and precedents were against them;
that reciprocity treaties with several nations were in
force ; that when no such treaties existed there was
no prohibition ; in fact, that the policy of the federal
government had ever been to open wide its doors, en-
courage immigration, and offer equal rights to all.
Under this known and recognized policy, equivalent
to tacit consent, foreigners came hither, and it
was now too late to question their presence, or to
drive them by force of arms from our shores.
