San Andreas independent., 1857-07-25
Removal Of the County Seat.

Removal of the County Seat
IF the citizens of this county are desirous of
relieving themselves of large amount of indi-
rect taxation which is yearly paid to Mokel-
umne Hill, and also equally large amount of
direct tax which they are compelled to pay into
the Treasury of this county, they should make
an effort for the removal of the County Seat
To defray the ordinary expenditures of our
county government, and to make provision for
the payment of the large debt which is already
hanging over US, the burden of taxation is suf-
fciently large, under the most favorable cir
cumstances but when we are compelled, as we
have been since the division of the county, from
the isolated and out-of-the-way position of the
County Seat, to pay thousands of dollars out of
the county Treasury, unnecessarily, in the shape
OF travelling fees to witnesses and jurors, to the
Sheriff and other officers, the taxation is op-
pressive and ruinous to the welfare and pros
perity of the county.
The great majority of the population of the
county, are residents south of the First Cross
ing of the Calaveras river, and in attending to
the duties which they are called upon, as good
citizens, to perform in the capacity of witnesses
and jurors, they are compelled to travel within
almost stones throw of the northern bound
airy of the county. The Sheriff. computing his
mileage from the Court House " close by the
Amador line" in the service of process, civil or
criminal, in the central or southern portion of
the county, entails upon US heavy and useless
tax, which would at once be remedied by the
removal of the County Seat.
Attempts have been made, heretofore, to cor
rect the evil which was pushing our county to
the verge of bankruptcy and ruin, and a petit
tion signed by nearly two thousand of the voters
of the county, was before the Legislature of
1856, praying for the removal of the County
Seat, or the passage of an act submitting the
question to the people of the county. Messen-
gers from the County Seat, were dispatched in
haste to the capitol at Sacramento, and the
members of the Legislature from this county, to
whom had been referred the matter, unable to
resist their powerful influence, reported ad-
versly to the petition. Thus did the all-pow-
erful oligarchy of the Hill, then as always, pow
erful only for evil, succeeded in thwarting the
wishes of a majority of the people.
Possessing within their control, strong ele-
ments of political power, they have made every
political aspirant in the county dependent upon
them for his success, and wo to him who has
been inimical to the interests of Mokelumne
Hill. The southern and central portion of the
county, to whom the welfare of Mokelumne Hill
was only of secondary Importance, compared
with the welfare and prosperity of Calaveras,
have borne her exactons patiently. That they
will continue to bear them and suffer the al
ready depleted and exhausted Treasury of the
county to be drawn upon for prospective pay
ments to support her interests, we cannot be-
lieve.
The time for bold, decisive action, has come.
A majority of the men on the Assembly ticket
of the dominant party in the county do not be-
long to Mokelumne Hill. They will listen to
the urgent appeals of the four townships south
of the north Calaveras, in behalf of this impor-
tant matter. If they will not, let us unite in
electing those who WILL and thus take the initia-
tory step to free ourselves from the supreme
power of the Mokelumne Hill oligarchy which
has heretofore held in allegiance the best inter-
ests of our county.