Part 56

“A comparison of the schedule annexed to the articles, and which is declared to be a part of the agreement, with the yeas and nays on the passage of the act authorizing the sale, (E.) shows that all the members, both in the Senate and House, who voted in favor of the law, were, with one single exception, (Robert Watkins, whose name does not appear,) interested in, and parties to, the purchase.

“The articles of agreement, and list of associates of the Tennessee company, which have been voluntarily furnished by one of the trustees, show that a number of the members of the Legislature were also interested in that company.”

This stubborn fact appears on the face of a report made by persons duly authorized to investigate the whole transaction. The fact is indisputable, and ought to satisfy the most reluctant and unwilling mind of the enormity of the corruption attending this business. It is fully satisfactory to my mind. But it is said that this statement is founded on ex parte depositions, and that no opportunity has been allowed to cross-examine the witnesses. But where were they taken? In Georgia; in probably the same House that witnessed the scene of disgrace; by a tribunal competent to take them and to inquire into facts.

Upon the whole, it appears to me most evident, on referring to the acts of Georgia, the articles of cession, and the laws of Congress, that the claims under the acts of Georgia have no validity. If, therefore, we give any thing, it must be from compassion, and not from the obligations of justice. Let the House, ere it do this, reflect whether there are not objects in the country equally worthy of their compassion. Let them visit the straw shed of the war-worn soldier who bled in the defence of our rights; the comfortless hut of the widow who lost her husband in battle. With but little search we shall find a mountain of claims that overhangs the justice of the country. If, after this view, we shall consider any unfortunate victims of injustice in this transaction entitled to compassion, I will agree to go as far as any man in affording them relief. But were we as rich as Crœsus, I would first administer relief to the Belisariuses of our country. Let us be just to these before we are generous to other descriptions of claimants.

Mr. T. M. RANDOLPH.--Mr. Speaker: I hope the House will not consent to postpone these resolutions. I hope it will, on the contrary, immediately proceed to consider them, and conclude by adopting them, for, taken generally, they meet my warm approbation as to the principles they lay down, and I am anxious to see the last one, which is the fair corollary of the other, incorporated into the bill now before us.

My opinion is, that it will cast a broad stain on the American character, as it must be exhibited in future history, for this body which represents it to grant compensation for their pretended losses, under whatever form ingenuity may invent to disguise it, to any of those adventurers who made the spurious contract with Georgia in the year 1795, for the purchase of her western territory, upon the ground that the fictitious bargain gave the least shadow of title to any part of that territory. This opinion is a conviction irresistibly given to my mind by an impartial investigation, that what were at that time called companies of land adventurers, were, with the exception of one or two misled individuals, whose delusion and consequent implication I lament, no other, in their conduct on this occasion, than shameless bands of sharpers; what was impudently called a contract, was, in reality, a fraud of unprecedented enormity, and what has since been declared an unjust interposition of the primary sovereign authority of the State, to cancel a fair bargain, was no more than the regular and proper application of the only sufficient means which could be used to redress a cheat upon the people of Georgia of unparalleled audacity and magnitude. I am sorry, by entertaining this opinion, to differ with so many on this floor, with whom it is my pride to think; but I am not much surprised at that difference. Very rarely, indeed, have I heard of important questions which did not divide opinions; never have I been at a criminal trial where numbers did not doubt the reality of the crime. Such is the difference in the impression made by the same testimony upon different minds. Were it not for this extraordinary circumstance in our nature, which almost precludes unanimity, and which completely defies explanation upon any general principles of the moral structure of man, there would be but one sentiment in this House upon the question now before it. The information which has satisfied my mind, I have derived from the declarations of the counties of Georgia, in their petitions and remonstrances presented to the convention of that State, which assembled in the month of May, 1795; from the acknowledgment made by that convention of the dignity of those applications, and the respect due to them, in the resolve which referred the matter they contained to the consideration of the succeeding Legislature; from the proceedings of the General Assembly of 1796, upon that matter, and the evidence it collected and recorded relative thereto; and, lastly, from certain declarations and provisions confirming those proceedings, and thereby establishing that evidence, which were made by the convention of 1798, and which exist now in the body of the present Constitution of Georgia. The same means of information are within the reach of all; I ought to say, should be possessed by all; I might say, should be satisfactory to all; since the witnesses are the great body of the people of one of our respectable States, and the testimony is authenticated, confirmed, and preserved, as well by the constitutional as the ordinary code of that State.

It has not been my object in making this inquiry, to learn in what deep sharper’s brain this scheme was first engendered, which of the associates stood most prominent in the development and execution of it, how the price paid for the flagrant treason against posterity was apportioned, or how the spoil obtained by such a stupendous larceny, committed upon the inheritance of the unborn, was divided. I have not desired to know, and it would be unimportant to the House to be informed, which of the associates had no moral sense at all, whose conscience was subdued by his avarice, or who, unthinkingly, gave the control of it into the hands of his friend. I desire not to see any name consigned to infamy; of those which have come to my knowledge, one or two I yet respect; the remainder have not more distinct images annexed to them, in my mind, than those of the men who conceived and executed the South Sea cheat in England, or the Mississippi fraud in France. But, from the investigation I have made, I have learned, as certainly as the actions of men can be known to others than the actual beholders of them, that the Legislature of Georgia, which commenced its session in the autumn of 1794, was assailed by every possible artifice of seduction, to procure from it the act of 7th January, 1795, which constituted what has since been impudently called the Yazoo contract. That it yielded to those artifices, and a considerable majority of its members became treacherous to their constituents, and deaf to the voice of their honor. That bribes were daringly offered and unblushingly received for votes in favor of the land. That the property of the State of Georgia, to the amount of forty millions of dollars, at the most reasonable estimate, was sold by those trustees of the people of Georgia for one half million, and purchased by the sellers themselves in combination with certain abject worshippers of gold, who had artfully infused into them their blind fanaticism. That another offer of four-fifths of a million, made by other men at the same time, was rejected, because the Legislature itself was concerned in the first. That the Chief Magistrate of the State, after one feeble effort of resistance, and a declaration which ought to have bound him to an obstinate opposition, with a conduct which, to my mind, manifests a thorough knowledge of the corrupt views of the Legislature, as well as a want of energy to defeat them, yielded to the impulse, and ratified the fraudulent sale. That the moment his irresolute hand gave the illusive sanction to the vain and ineffectual deed, this ravenous pack of speculators, keen with the hunger of avarice, unkennelled and scoured the whole peopled territory of the Union in quest of their appropriate game--the simple, the credulous, and those who are hoodwinked by the excess of their own cupidity. The most voracious of them sought the great cities, where numbers of the thirsty sons of gain became their prey, while numbers more joined in the promising chase, led the way to the victims, and fattened on their spoil. Many, more fell in their nature, though less keen in their appetites for gold, traversed the tranquil country of New England, scenting the homely purses which hung in the smoky corner of peaceful cottages, into which the solitary dollar had been dropped with religious punctuality every week, perhaps every month only, by the hand of the provident father, from the time when the first birth under his roof gladdened his heart. Great numbers of these receptacles of hard-earned gain, with all their rusty treasure, the fruit of long continued industry and frugality, destined to ensure to many of the rising race the innocent joys of a life of wholesome exertion in their own fields, were devoured by them, and that happy destiny in a moment changed for a short period of certain pain, and, too probable, vice, in the moving prisons of the ocean.

The promulgation of the law produced one general murmur of indignation throughout the State of Georgia. The crime committed by the Representatives of the people was strongly denounced by the grand juries of all the succeeding courts. An assembly of special Representatives, which had been summoned for constitutional purposes, meeting in the succeeding spring, was addressed by all the counties of the State, and by nearly the whole people of it, with memorials, remonstrances, and petitions, according to the different degrees of excitement, all setting forth in strong terms the nefarious act; complaining with bitterness of the perfidy of the Legislature, requiring, urging, and imploring the convention to proclaim the fact, and annul the fraudulent sale. No laborious investigation into the huge and naked scheme of speculation, no troublesome search after testimony to expose the framer of it was necessary. Nothing was requisite but to receive, condense, and record the decisive evidence voluntarily offered from all quarters. But this legitimate and easy task the convention, naturally enough, thought fit to decline, as many of its members were themselves openly concerned, and many more secretly interested in the purchase. The pack of speculators were then in full cry, the game were falling abundantly into their jaws; it could scarcely be expected that those who had contributed so much to set this chase on foot, who expected to share so largely in its profits, should sound the horn of alarm to the objects of it. It quickly occurred to a majority of this body, that a reference of these addresses to the Legislature of the next year, would not only give time for the continuance of the chase, but might be productive of something like safety in the after possession of the spoils of it; while it promised to afford some shield against the popular discontent and indignation which a total neglect, so desirable to themselves, must inevitably have brought on them. Notwithstanding, before midsummer of the same year, the fraudulency and consequently invalidity of the sale must have been unequivocally known throughout the Union, by the ferment in the State of Georgia. Early in the succeeding year all the records of State relative to this transaction were burned, and all recorded evidences of private contracts which had arisen out of the land were cancelled, destroyed, and forbidden to be renewed or afterwards admitted in the courts by the Legislature acting under the authority to consider the matter, and of course the power to redress the complaint of the petitions, which had been given to it by the convention, and also under the express injunction of the people themselves, laid on the individual members of that body at the elections. But the speed of the sharpers had outstripped the slow step of the State. They had, in a great measure, executed their swindling scheme; a number of their dupes were already, instead of amusing their own credulity, insincerely, and I will say, insolently, accusing the perfidy of Georgia.

The question was then taken by yeas and nays on the postponement, until the first Monday of December, of the following resolution:

“Resolved, That the Legislature of the State of Georgia were, at no time, invested with the power of alienating the right of soil possessed by the good people of that State, in and to the vacant territory of the same, but in a rightful manner, and for the public good:”

And passed in the negative--yeas 51, nays 52.

So much of the said original motion as is contained in the second clause thereof, being again read, in the words following, to wit:

“That, when the Governors of any people shall have betrayed the confidence reposed in them, and shall have exercised that authority with which they have been clothed for the general welfare, to promote their own private ends, under the basest motives, and to the public detriment, it is the inalienable right of a people, so circumstanced, to revoke the authority thus abused, to resume the rights thus attempted to be bartered, and to abrogate the act thus endeavoring to betray them:”

The question was taken that the House do agree to the motion for postponement of the said second clause of the original motion; and resolved in the affirmative--yeas 52, nays 50.

So much of the said original motion as is contained in the third clause thereof, being twice read, in the words following, to wit:

“That it is in evidence to this House, that the act of the Legislature of Georgia, passed on the seventh of January, 1795, entitled ‘An act for appropriating a part of the unlocated territory of this State, for the payment of the State troops, and for other purposes,’ was passed by persons under the influence of gross and palpable corruption practised by the grantees of the lands attempted to be alienated by the aforesaid act, tending to enrich and aggrandize, to a degree almost incalculable, a few individuals, and ruinous to the public interest:”

The question was taken that the House do agree to the motion for postponement of the said third clause of the original motion; and resolved in the affirmative--yeas 54, nays 49.

So much of the said original motion as is contained in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh clauses thereof, being again read, in the words following, to wit:

“That the good people of Georgia, impressed with general indignation at this act of atrocious perfidy and of unparalleled corruption, with a promptitude of decision highly honorable to their character, did, by the act of a subsequent Legislature, passed on the thirteenth of February, 1796, under circumstances of peculiar solemnity, and finally sanctioned by the people, who have subsequently ingrafted it on their constitution, declare the preceding act, and the grants made under it, in themselves null and void; that the said act should be expunged from the records of the State, and be publicly burnt, which was accordingly done; provision at the same time being made for restoring the pretended purchase-money to the grantees, by whom, or by persons claiming under them, the greater part of the said purchase-money has been withdrawn from the treasury of Georgia.”

“That a subsequent Legislature of an individual State has an undoubted right to repeal any act of a preceding Legislature; provided such repeal be not forbidden by the constitution of such State, or of the United States.”

“That the aforesaid act of the State of Georgia, passed on the thirteenth of February, 1796, was forbidden neither by the constitution of that State, nor by that of the United States.”

“That the claims of persons derived under the aforesaid act of the seventh of January, 1795, are recognized neither by any compact between the United States and the State of Georgia, nor any act of the Federal Government.”

The question was taken that the House do agree to the motion for postponement of the said fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh clauses of the original motion; and resolved in the affirmative--yeas 53, nays 50.

And then the residue of the said original motion, contained in the eighth and last clause thereof, being twice read, in the following words, to wit:

“Therefore, Resolved. That no part of the five millions of acres reserved for satisfying and quieting claims to lands ceded by the State of Georgia to the United States, and appropriated by the act of Congress passed at their last session, shall be appropriated to quiet or compensate any claims derived under any act, or pretended act of the State of Georgia, passed, or alleged to be passed, during the year 1795:”

The question was taken that the House do agree to the motion for postponement of the said residue of the original motion; and resolved in the affirmative--yeas 54, nays 51, as follows:

YEAS.--Willis Alston, jun., Simeon Baldwin, Silas Betton, Phanuel Bishop, John Campbell, William Chamberlin, Martin Chittenden, Clifton Claggett, Jacob Crowninshield, Manasseh Cutler, Richard Cutts, Samuel W. Dana, John Davenport, John Dawson, William Dickson, Thomas Dwight, James Elliot, Ebenezer Elmer, William Eustis, William Findlay, John Fowler, Andrew Gregg, Gaylord Griswold, Roger Griswold, Seth Hastings, William Helms, David Hough, Benjamin Huger, Nehemiah Knight, Henry W. Livingston, Thomas Lowndes, Matthew Lyon, Nahum Mitchell, Samuel L. Mitchill, Jeremiah Morrow, Joseph H. Nicholson, Thomas Plater, Erastus Root, Tompson J. Skinner, John Smilie, John Cotton Smith, Joseph Stanton, William Stedman, James Stephenson, Samuel Taggart, Samuel Tenney, Samuel Thatcher, David Thomas, Killian K. Van Rensselaer, Joseph B. Varnum, Daniel C. Verplanck, Peleg Wadsworth, Lemuel Williams, and Marmaduke Williams.

NAYS.--Isaac Anderson, David Bard, George Michael Bedinger, William Blackledge, Adam Boyd, Robert Brown, Joseph Bryan, William Butler, Levi Casey, Joseph Clay, Matthew Clay, John Clopton, Frederick Conrad, John B. Earle, James Gillespie, Peterson Goodwyn, Thomas Griffin, Samuel Hammond, John A. Hanna, Josiah Hasbrouck, James Holland, William Kennedy, Michael Leib, Joseph Lewis, jun., Andrew McCord, David Meriwether, Andrew Moore, Nicholas R. Moore, Anthony New, Thomas Newton, jun., Gideon Olin, Beriah Palmer, John Randolph, Thomas M. Randolph, John Rea of Pennsylvania, Jacob Richards, Cæsar A. Rodney, Thomas Sammons, Thomas Sanford, Ebenezer Seaver, James Sloan, John Smith of Virginia, Henry Southard, Richard Stanford, John Stewart, Philip R. Thompson, Abram Trigg, Isaac Van Horne, Matthew Walton, Richard Wynn, and Joseph Winston.