La Californie was an outpost in the French Empire, isolated from the rest of French Mexico by vast mountain ranges and deserts. France had turned La Californie into a penal colony, exporting Republican dissidents into the fringe of the empire. The French Emperor abused the people of La Californie, unfairly heavily taxing the grain and wines grown in the Valley. Soon French oppression spread its ugly face into other areas. The greedy French tyrant continued to snatch the wealth of California from the people, abused their rights by restricting speech and movement, and continued to neglect the colony.
After the Gold Rush began, the situation in La Californie reached its breaking point, and in Sacramento the leaders of the resistance met. Many of the leaders were freed French Republican thinkers, sent to La Californie because of their republican and democratic views in France. Seen as a threat to the French tyrants. Influenced by the ideas of philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Algernon Sydney, Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki and John Locke, the 56 men who gathered drafted a document that would change the world.
It began
In Sacramento, July 4 1862
The unanimous Declaration of LA CALIFORNIE,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation
After this it listed the rights of the people, the reasons for separation, and why.
It ended
We, therefore, the Representatives of LA CALIFORNIE, in SACREMENTO, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of this Colony, solemnly Publish and Declare, That this United Colony is, and of Right ought to be, a FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATE; that it is absolved from all Allegiance to the French Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of France, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATE, it has full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which a INDEPENDENT STATE may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of the divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
The signatures of the 56 men followed this; copies were made and sent around the colony and to the French Emperor. The men knew they had committed treason, and they vowed to be hung together.