The Life of John Marshall, Volume 3: Conflict and construction, 1800-1815

1408

Adams: Randolph, 23; also Garland: Life of John Randolph of Roanoke, i, 64-68.

1409

See infra, 577-81; and supra, chap. iv.

1410

For instance, Wade Hampton immediately sold the entire holdings of The Upper Mississippi Company, millions of acres, to three South Carolina speculators, and it is quite impossible that they did not know of the corruption of the Georgia Legislature. Hampton acquired from his partners, John B. Scott and John C. Nightingale, all of their interests in the company's purchase. This was done on January 16 and 17, immediately after Governor Mathews had signed the deed from the State. Seven weeks later, March 6, 1795, Hampton conveyed all of this land to Adam Tunno, James Miller, and James Warrington. (Am. State Papers, Public Lands, i, 233.) Hampton was a member of Congress from South Carolina.

1411

State of Facts, shewing the Right of Certain Companies to the Lands lately purchased by them from the State of Georgia.

1412

The Georgia Mississippi Company, The Tennessee Company, and The Georgia Company. (See Haskins, 29.)

1413

Eleven million acres were purchased at eleven cents an acre by a few of the leading citizens of Boston. This one sale netted the Yazoo speculators almost a million dollars, while the fact that such eminent men invested in the Yazoo lands was a strong inducement to ordinary people to invest also. (See Chappell, 109.)

1414

See Chappell, 110-11.

1415

Ames to Gore, Feb. 24, 1795, Ames, i, 168. Ames's alarm, however, was that the Georgia land sale "threatens Indian, Spanish, and civil, wars." The immorality of the transaction appears to have been unknown to him.

1416

Haskins, 30.

1417

Harper, 109. Hamilton's opinion is dated March 25, 1796. In Harper's pamphlet it is incorrectly printed 1795.

1418

Annals, 3d Cong. 1st and 2d Sess. 1231.

1419

Annals, 3d Cong. 1st and 2d Sess. 1251-54. The Georgia act was transmitted to Washington privately.

1420

Ib. 1255, 1262-63.

1421

Ib. 1282-83.

1422

Am. State Papers, Public Lands, i, 341.

1423

Ib. 71.

1424

Bishop's pamphlet was called Georgia Speculation Unveiled.

1425

Bishop, 6.

1426

Ib. 11.

1427

Ib.

1428

Ib. 29-32.

1429

Ib. 92.

1430

Ib. 144.

1431

Harper's opinion bears, opposite his signature, this statement: "Considered at New-York August 3d, 1796." Beyond all doubt it had been submitted to Hamilton – perhaps prepared in collaboration with him. Harper was himself a member of one of the purchasing companies and in the House he later defended the transaction. (See Annals, 5th Cong. 2d Sess. 1277.)

1432

Harper, 16.

1433

Ib. 14.

1434

Ib. 49-50.

1435

Ib. 50. Here Harper quotes Hamilton's opinion.

1436

Ib. 50-53. Harper's pamphlet is valuable as containing, in compact form, all the essential documents relating to Georgia's title as well as the sale and rescinding acts. Other arguments on both sides appeared. One of the ablest of these was a pamphlet by John E. Anderson and William J. Hobby, attorneys of Augusta, Georgia, and published at that place in 1799 "at the instance of the purchasers." It is entitled: The Contract for the Purchase of the Western Territory Made with the Legislature of Georgia in the Year 1795, Considered with a Reference to the Subsequent Attempts of the State to Impair its Obligations.

1437

See report of Attorney-General Charles Lee, April 26, 1796, Am. State Papers, Public Lands, i, 34; report of Senator Aaron Burr, May 20, 1796, ib. 71; report of Senator James Ross, March 2, 1797, ib. 79.

1438

Except by John Milledge of Georgia, who declared that "there was no legal claim upon … any part of that territory." Robert Goodloe Harper said that that question "must be determined in a Court of Justice," and argued for an "amicable settlement" of the claims. He himself once had an interest in the purchase, but had disposed of it three years before when it appeared that the matter must come before Congress (Annals, 5th Cong. 2d Sess. 1277-78); the debate occupied parts of two days (see also ib. 1298-1313). In view of the heated controversy that afterward occurred, it seems scarcely credible that almost no attention was given in this debate to the fraudulent character of the transaction.

1439

May 10 1800, Sess. i, chap. 50, U.S. Statutes at Large, ii, 69.

1440

The entire commission was composed of three of the five members of Jefferson's Cabinet, to wit: James Madison, Secretary of State; Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury; and Levi Lincoln, Attorney-General.

1441

Report of the Commissioners, Am. State Papers, Public Lands, i, 132-35. "The interest of the United States, the tranquillity of those who may hereafter inhabit that territory, and various equitable considerations which may be urged in favor of most of the present claimants, render it expedient to enter into a compromise on reasonable terms."

1442

Annals, 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 1039-40.

1443

Ib. 1099-1122, 1131-70.

1444

Perez Morton and Gideon Granger. Morton, like Granger, was a Republican and a devoted Jeffersonian. He went annually to Washington to lobby for the Yazoo claimants and assiduously courted the President. In Boston the Federalists said that his political activity was due to his personal interest in the Georgia lands. (See Writings, J. Q. A.: Ford, iii, 51-53.)

1445

Memorial of the Agents of the New England Mississippi Company to Congress, with a Vindication of their Title at Law annexed.

1446

This document, issued in pamphlet form in 1804, is highly important. There can be little doubt that Marshall read it attentively, since it proposed a submission of the acrimonious controversy to the Supreme Court.

1447

The Postmaster-General was not made a member of the Cabinet until 1829.

1448

See supra, chap. iv.

1449

Annals, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1023.

1450

Cutler, ii, 182.

1451

Annals, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1024. To such extravagance and inaccuracy does the frenzy of combat sometimes drive the most honest of men. When he made these assertions, John Randolph knew that scores of purchasers from the land companies had invested in absolute good faith and before Georgia had passed the rescinding act. His tirade done, however, this inexplicable man spoke words of sound though misapplied statesmanship.

1452

Ib. 1029-30.

1453

Referring to Granger's speculations in the Western Reserve.

1454

The Yazoo deal.

1455

Annals, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1031.

1456

Findley was one of those who led the fight against the ratification of the Constitution in the Pennsylvania Convention. (See vol. i, 327-38, of this work.)

1457

James Wilson.

1458

James Gunn.

1459

Annals, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1080-89.

1460

Cutler, ii, 182.

1461

Annals, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1100-08.

1462

Ib. 1173.

1463

See supra, chap. iv.

1464

Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams, i, 343.

1465

See vol. i, 224-41, of this work.

1466

Ib. 191, 196; and vol. ii, 206.

1467

Martin vs. Hunter's Lessees; see vol. iv, chap, iii, of this work.

1468

Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams, i, 381; also see ib. 389, 392, 404-05, 408-09, 417-19.

1469

Haskins, 38.

1470

Story to Fay, May 30, 1807, Story, i, 150-53; and see Cabot to Pickering, Jan. 28, 1808. Lodge: Cabot, 377.

1471

Annals, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 1601-13.

1472

See Abstract, Am. State Papers, Public Lands, i, 220-34.

1473

Records, U.S. Circuit Court, Boston.

1474

Judge Chappell asserts that the pleadings showed, on the face of them, that the case was feigned. (See Chappell, 135-36.)

1475

Fletcher vs. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87-94.

1476

Fletcher vs. Peck, 6 Cranch, 127.

1477

Justices Chase and Cushing were absent because of illness.

1478

Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams, i, 546-47.

1479

Memoirs, J. Q. A.: Adams, i, 115.

On this occasion Martin was so drunk that the court adjourned to prevent him from completing his argument. (See Md. Hist. Soc. Fund-Pub. No. 24, 35.) This was the first time that drink seems to have affected him in the discharge of his professional duties. (See supra, footnote to 185-86.)

1480

6 Cranch, 123.

1481

6 Cranch, 128-29.

1482

6 Cranch, 130-31.

1483

Ib. 132-33.

1484

See vol. i, 202, of this work.

1485

6 Cranch, 133-34.

1486

6 Cranch, 137-38.

1487

Ib. 139.

1488

6 Cranch, 147-48.

1489

At the risk of iteration, let it again be stated that, in Fletcher vs. Peck, Marshall declared that a grant by a State, accepted by the grantees, is a contract; that the State cannot annul this contract, because the State is governed by the National Constitution which forbids any State to pass any law "impairing the obligation of contracts"; that even if the contract clause were not in the Constitution, fundamental principles of society protect vested rights; and that the courts cannot inquire into the motives of legislators no matter how corrupt those motives may be.

1490

For the first two decades of the National Government land frauds were general. See, for example, letter of Governor Harrison of Indiana, Jan. 19, 1802, Am. State Papers, Public Lands, i, 123; report of Michael Leib, Feb. 14, 1804, ib. 189; and letter of Amos Stoddard, Jan. 10, 1804, ib. 193-94.

1491

Marbury vs. Madison, the Burr trial, and Fletcher vs. Peck.

1492

Annals, 11th Cong. 2d Sess. 1881.

1493

Harden: Life of George M. Troup, 9.

1494

Annals, 11th Cong. 2d. Sess. 1882.

1495

Ib.

1496

Annals, 11th Cong. 3d Sess. 415.

1497

Annals, 12th Cong. 2d Sess. 856-59.

1498

Annals, 12th Cong. 2d Sess. 860.

1499

Annals, 13th Cong. 2d Sess. 1697.

1500

Ib. 1840-42.

1501

Annals, 13th Cong. 2d Sess. 1848.

1502

Ib. 1850.

1503

Ib. 1855.

1504

Ib. 1858-59.

1505

Ib. 1873-75.

1506

Annals, 13th Cong. 2d Sess. 1925; see also Sess. i, chap. 39, March 31, 1814, U.S. Statutes at Large, iii, 117.

1507

Daniel to Ezekiel Webster, March 28, 1814, Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster: Webster, 244.

1508

See 51-53 of this volume.

1509

Jefferson MSS. Lib. Cong.

1510

See footnote to 58 of this volume.

1511

Breckenridge MSS. Lib. Cong.

1512

See 118-19 of this volume.

1513

See footnote 5 to p. 74 of this volume.

1514

See 307-09, 352-55, of this volume.

1515

See 495-97 of this volume.

1516

Burr Trials, ii, 96-98.

1517

See supra, chap. ix.

1518

Burr Trials, ii, 424-38.