When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for settlers to resist certain combinations, and take justice in their own hands, that which nature and nature's God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinions of men requires that they should declare the cause which impels them to action. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that these hills and valleys were made for the habitation of laborers; that when these lands fall into the hands of lawyers and speculators, who refuse to sell us a good title to that portion which our hands have improved and our labor increased in value, it is our duty to rise up in union and strength, and defend ourselves, our families, and our homes.

The history of California has been a history of unmitigated wrongs and usurpations, all having a direct tendency to oppress and degrade the laboring class, and to favor, screen and exalt professional rogues. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:

They have been to Mexico, manufactured grants by hundreds, and established their boundary according to their own pleasure.

They have established floating grants, and slide them from the hills into the valleys, or from the valleys on to the hills, as may best suit their personal interests.

They have bought officers and hired witnesses to have confirmed fraudulent grants.

They have entered into a combination and pay money into a common treasury, which may be drawn therefrom for the support of fraudulent grants.

They have had laws passed prohibiting us from court with rebutting testimony.

They have had good grants rejected before the Land Commissioners, that people might settle and improve the land, and then take an appeal to a higher court, have the claim confirmed, take our improvements, and then drive us off the land, from the homes we have erected in honest faith.

They have managed, by intrigue and rascality, to keep a majority of their own clique in office and carry on their roguery by law.

They manage to bring forward their bogus claims first, and reserve the good one to the last.

They, by their fraud, have robbed the people of millions of dollars.

They have located grants from one to five deep.

They have bribed witnesses, and established boundaries twice the width, and three times the length, of the original survey.

They have surveyed land that the original grant never called for; and, under pretense of justice, drive the settler off before the survey has been accepted.

They have sued for, and recovered, rent of land, that they had previously acknowledged they never claimed.

They have recovered rent and damages for more land than the squatter ever had in his possession.

They have taken our improvements, the taxes on which, we have paid to help support the Government.

They have forced some of us to give more for their quit-claim deed than the land is actually worth, while other claims were pending.

They, by their refusal to settle land claims, have deprived us of public schools, churches and comfortable dwellings.

They have, in the last ten years, kept the county back in improvement $100,000 per year.

They have excited prejudices among people from different states, for political gain and self-aggrandizement. They force us into law, and then buy our lawyers, because they have more money than we. They have discouraged immigration to the state, and been the cause of thousands returning home. In fact, they have refused us everything that justice demands and freemen wish, except the right of suffrage.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have tried in vain for redress: We have met them at the ballot box, and been repeatedly foiled: we have met them in law, and that has been unavailing: we have reminded them of our immigration hither, of the hardships in reaching this, our adopted home--they mock us to scorn. We have shown them that we are not squatters from choice, but from necessity; and they laugh at our misfortunes. We tell them we have spent all our means in improving these farms, and they express regret that our means are not greater. We have reminded them how we have toiled, year after year, for ten long years, while our labor has scantily supported us--but their fine clothes tell us that they have fared sumptuously every day.

It is thus that we have been treated in the past, and thus we will be treated in the future, if we will quietly submit. We can only acquiesce, then, in the necessity which impels us to action.

We, therefore, the citizens of Santa Clara Valley, appealing to the supreme judge of the world, for the rectitude of our intentions, do solemnly publish and declare, that settlers have rights that ought to be, and shall be, respected; that our homes are as dear to us as our lives; that it is our duty to hold and possess the land we have in possession, until some one is able to produce a perfect title; and that we never will peaceably submit for our homes to be taken from us, until we are reasonably remunerated for our improvements. And for the support of these declarations, in the language of Thomas Jefferson, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our honor.