FOOTNOTES:

[65] Lowrey and McCardle: Hist. Miss., p. 71.

[66] Miss. Laws, 1799, pp. 121-133.

[67] For provisions, Cf. Digest of the statutes of M. T., 1816, pp. 415-424.

[68] Revised Code of Miss., 1857, pp. 72-73.

[69] Hutchinson's Code of Miss., (1798-1848) pp. 188 and 202.

[70] Miss. Rev. Code, 1875; pp. 417-18.

[71] Miss. Rev. Code., 1857, pp. 70-72.

[72] For provisions, Cf. Proceedings of Constitutional Convention, 1861, pp. 12-15.

[73] Miss. Laws, 1862-63, p. 70.

[74] Indigent beneficiaries were divided into three classes, viz: (1) Those entirely dependent. (2) Those deficient in breadstuffs. (3) Those deficient in bacon. No beneficiary could receive more than 6 bushels of corn, 1 bushel of wheat, and 50 pounds of bacon during the year.

[75] Miss. Laws, Feb'y and March, 1865, pp. 3-10.

[76] Miss. Laws, 1862-63, pp. 153-155.

[77] Miss. Laws, 1866-67, pp. 412-414.

[78] Miss. Constitutional Convention, 1868, pp. 215-220. This Convention dropped that provision, found in the Constitution of 1832, restricting the origination of money bills to the lower house. The Constitution of 1890 expressly declares that all bills may originate in either house and be amended and rejected in the other.

[79] Lowry and McCardle: Hist. Miss., p. 230, Cf. also Barksdale: Reconstruction in Mississippi, p. 339 (In Noted Men of the Solid South.)

[80] Miss. Laws, 1875, p. 46.

TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF MISSISSIPPI
J.M. WHITE, M. S.

In 1783 the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in America was recognized. Fifteen years later on April 7, 1798, Congress passed an act a part of which was as follows: "All that country bounded on the west by the Mississippi river; on the north by a line to be drawn due east from the mouth of the Yazoo river to the Chattahoochee river; on the east by the river Chattahoochee; and on the south by the thirty-first degree of north latitude, shall be, and hereby is constituted one district, to be called the Mississippi Territory." More than half of this territory is now embraced in the state of Alabama, and the portion that remains to Mississippi constitutes something like one-third of the area of the state. Very little of the boundary of the original territory remains intact, and in so far as Mississippi is concerned all that remains of this original boundary is that around its south west corner, extending from Pearl river along the thirty-first degree of north latitude to the Mississippi river and up that stream to the mouth of the Yazoo river.

The lands that have been added to the original territory lie to the north and to the south of it—that added on the north comprises the South Carolina and Georgia cessions, and that on the south a portion of the Louisiana Purchase, or Spanish cession.

Before going farther into this subject it is necessary that we examine briefly some of the old grants made by Great Britain for the purpose of stimulating the formation of Colonies in the New World. By such an examination we hope to get a clearer idea of the subject, and how it is that some of the boundaries of our state are where they are. The first of these grants to embrace the territory now in Mississippi was that made by Charles I. to his Attorney General, Sir Robert Heath, in 1629. This grant known as Carolina was possibly the largest ever made to any one individual, covering as it did almost all that part of the United States south of the present southern boundary of Virginia and of Missouri. Mississippi was completely swallowed up in this princely domain. Thirty years later (1659) soon after the death of Oliver Cromwell and about the time of the restoration of the Stuart kings to power in England, this charter for non-user was voided, and in 1663 Charles II. gave to eight of his royal favorites, the Lords Proprietors, a charter to Carolina, and by a supplemental charter two years later (June 30, 1665) granted on the petition of the Lords Proprietors, he extended the territory of Carolina so that its northern boundary was 36 degrees thirty minutes north latitude and its southern 29 degrees north latitude.[81] All of Mississippi was in like manner embraced in this grant. This charter was surrendered to the King by seven of the proprietors, act of Parliament July 25, 1729.[82] It had been one hundred years since the grant to Robert Heath. (The eighth proprietor gave up his claim Sept. 17, 1744.) It was at this time that Carolina was divided, South Carolina having remained a part of it until this date. The western portion of the line separating the Carolinas, now forms the northern boundary of Mississippi.[83]

Three years later June 9, 1732, George II., King of Great Britain, granted a charter for the establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America. The lands embraced by the provisions of this charter lay within the royal province of South Carolina, between the Savannah and the Altamaha rivers and the zone lying between parallels passing through the head waters of these streams and extending to the Pacific Ocean.[84]

Now the line passing through the head waters of the Savannah left a zone twelve or fourteen miles wide belonging to South Carolina, and lying between said line and the southern boundary of North Carolina. This strip east of the Mississippi embraced 4900 square miles and was generously ceded by South Carolina to the United States in 1787, and today forms the northern part of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. South Carolina's right to this zone was not questioned nor was Georgia's right to her western zone lying between the parallels passing through the head waters of the Savannah and Altamaha rivers. This zone became, as did the South Carolina zone, a part of the Mississippi Territory, and together they constituted the lands added to the original Mississippi territory on the north as above indicated. But as to the original territory, viz., the zone lying between the thirty-first and the thirty-second and one-half degrees of north latitude, a number of disputes at different times arose. South Carolina claimed it, Georgia claimed it, Spain claimed it, and the United States claimed it. The contentions that arose in consequence of these conflicting claims were protracted over a quarter of a century.

In 1752 the Georgia charter was surrendered, and by virtue of the French and Indian war which soon followed, and the treaty of Paris 1763, Great Britian made good her claim, over France, to all lands east of the Mississippi river and began at once to occupy this territory, which prior to 1732 had been a "sort of free zone of doubtful ownership." The King of Great Britain issued a proclamation, Oct. 7, 1763, creating the provinces of East Florida and West Florida and by the same proclamation the Georgia territory according to the charter of 1732 was extended so as to take in the lands lying between the rivers Altamaha and St. Mary's. This proclamation also settled temporarily a dispute which had arisen between the provinces of South Carolina and Georgia as to the right to the said territory. The provision is as follows: "We have also, with the advice of our Privy Council aforesaid, annexed to our province of Georgia, all lands lying between the rivers Altamaha and St. Mary's." Thirteen years later the Colonies declared their independence, and, as was natural, each claimed jurisdiction over areas previously determined by royal charters, proclamations, &c. At this time Georgia's claims were bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and the Savannah river; on the north by a line passing through the head waters of said river to the Mississippi; on the west by the Mississippi river; and its southern boundary was one with that of the United States. Her title to all of this territory was the charter of 1732, King George III's proclamation of Oct. 7, 1763, extending the area as provided by said charter, and a commission[85] to Governor Wright Jan. 20, 1764, which gave him jurisdiction as far west as the Mississippi and as far south as the thirty-first degree of north latitude.[86]

Acting upon these claims, in 1785 the legislature of Georgia established the County of Bourbon in the extreme southwestern limit of her claim, and 1788 authorized the sale of large bodies of land lying between the Tombigbee and the Mississippi rivers to certain companies known as Virginia Yazoo, South Carolina Yazoo, and the Tennessee Yazoo. These sales were made; but when the State Treasurer refused to accept Georgia bills of credit in payment, the Virginia company withdrew the moneys that she had previously paid and the South Carolina Company brought suit against Georgia in the supreme court of the United States; but the ratification of the eleventh amendment to the Federal Constitution, privileging a state from being sued, cut short the suit.[87]

In 1795 another act was passed authorizing the sale of these lands, but on investigation it was found that many members of the Legislature—in fact all the members voting for the sale except one—were interested in these sales in a pecuniary way and a third Legislature, 1796, declared the act of the previous legislature null and void, because obtained by fraud and corruption, and the records of all the sales and conveyances made under it were blotted out and destroyed.

This, however, did not vitiate the titles of these companies to said lands.[88] The supreme court of the United States decided that the act of the Georgia legislature in repealing the prior act for the sale of the land was unconstitutional and void, was in violation of a contract, and that the titles of claimants were good and valid.[89]

In the midst of all this confusion the United States planted the Mississippi territory with boundaries as given above, justifying her right to do so in her belief that these lands did not belong to Georgia or to any other state at the time of the signing of the peace treaty in 1783, but to the United States in common as the result of their combined effort in establishing independence. In deference, however, to Georgia's claims, Congress in authorizing the establishment of a government in the Mississippi territory provided, "That the establishment of this government shall in no respect impair the right of the state of Georgia, or of any person or persons, either to the jurisdiction or the soil of the said territory; but the rights and claims of the said state, and all persons interested, are hereby declared to be as firm and available as if this act had never been made."

Section I. of this act is as follows: "That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized to appoint three commissioners, any two of whom shall have power to adjust and determine, with such commissioners as may be appointed under the legislative authority of the state of Georgia, all interfering claims of the United States and that state, to territory situated west of the river Chattahoochee, north of the thirty-first degree of north latitude, and south of the cession made to the United States by South Carolina; and also to receive any proposals for the relinquishment or cession of the whole or any part of the other territory claimed by the state of Georgia, and out of the ordinary jurisdiction thereof."[90]

To all this Georgia protested vigorously and asserted her right to the land in question. Commissioners were, however appointed as provided. They were not long in reaching an agreement, which led to the cession of these lands to the United States. The terms were about as follows: The United States gave Georgia in exchange for these lands, a strip about twelve miles wide now forming the northern part of Georgia; agreed to extinguish the Indian titles within her limits; to admit the ceded territory into the Union as a state, when the population should number sixty thousand souls; to confirm all grants recognized by Georgia as legal; to set apart five million acres to satisfy claims such as those of the Yazoo companies and other companies which Georgia did not consider legal; and to pay a million and a quarter dollars to the state of Georgia from the proceeds of lands sold in the said district.[91] All this having been agreed to by Congress, the cession was formally made in 1802 and two years later, together with the South Carolina Cession lying just to its north, became the Mississippi territory. But the contest did not end until Congress voted eight million dollars in 1814 in land script to satisfy all claimants.[92]

The territory had not, however, reached its full growth, for there was yet to be added the strip south of thirty-first degree of north latitude and lying between the Perdido and the Pearl rivers. The title to this land, and in fact all British West Florida, was a subject of dispute between the United States and Spain. This dispute had its origin in the indefiniteness of boundaries as provided by the treaties given by Great Britain to said powers on Sept. 3, 1783. The United States claimed the thirty-first degree of north latitude as her southern boundary, while Spain claimed as far north as thirty-two degrees and thirty minutes north latitude as her northern boundary. The land here in dispute, it will be observed, was that of the original Mississippi territory. To these lands Spain waived claim by treaty, Oct. 27, 1795.[93]

On April 30, 1803, France sold to the United States Louisiana. This purchase brought in question the title of the remainder of British West Florida, i. e., that portion lying south of the thirty-first. This question had its origin in the indefiniteness of the boundary of Louisiana, and although the matter was not definitely settled until 1819, when Florida was purchased of Spain, the United States disregarded Spain's claim, and on April 14, 1812 added that portion west of Pearl river to Louisiana, and on May 14, 1812 the remainder was incorporated with the Mississippi territory.[94]

With this act the Mississippi territory reached its full growth. It embraced all the territory which now makes up the states of Mississippi and Alabama. It had been just fourteen years, one month and seven days since the original territory was organized. It is estimated that 33,956 square miles were included in that territory. To the north of it 54,622 square miles had been added, and to the south 10,482 square miles, (of which 4,482 square miles is water.)[95] In all the Mississippi territory embraced 99,060 square miles. Clause four of the act organizing the territory is as follows: "The territory hereby constituted one district, for the purpose of government, may, at the discretion of Congress, be hereafter divided into two districts, with separate territorial governments in each, similar to that established by the act. Congress exercised the right herein reserved, and on Dec. 10, 1817 the western portion of that territory embracing 46,810 square miles became the State of Mississippi, and the proud commonwealth joined the sisterhood of States."