Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 3 (of 16)

by United States. Congress

Wednesday, March 7.

Georgia Claims.

The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill providing for the settlement of sundry claims to public lands lying south of the State of Tennessee; to which Committee of the Whole were also referred, on the twentieth ultimo, a motion containing sundry resolutions “respecting claimants to the said lands under an act of the Legislature of the State of Georgia, passed in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five.”

Mr. J. Randolph called for the reading of sundry resolutions lately offered by him on this subject. The resolutions having been read, Mr. R. said, when he had submitted them, it was with the view of trying the question then before the committee as he thought fairly. It was no part of his intention to embarrass the operations of the friends of the bill, further than to take the sense of the committee and of the House on each specific proposition embraced by the resolutions. His wish, therefore, was, that the sense of the committee, in the first instance, should be taken on the resolutions. If they should be rejected, the vote of rejection would be a virtual admission of the claims of 1795; and gentlemen might then modify the bill in such manner as might best please them to do.

Mr. Mitchill.—These resolutions tend to involve Congress in the proceedings of the State of Georgia. I consider myself as one of those who, by assenting to certain acts heretofore passed by Congress, have consented to a hearing and compromise with the grantees. If this construction be correct, the Committee are precluded from adopting these resolutions; nor is it proper, in my opinion, for Congress to go into a view of the proceedings of Georgia on this occasion. That State is sovereign to a certain extent, and this Government possesses no right to interfere with her sovereignty. Attached to this sovereignty is the right of granting land belonging to her. But it is alleged that Georgia was, in the year 1795, in a disorderly state, and that a certain Legislature in that year did a certain act which a subsequent Legislature declared to be totally unauthorized. This may be so. It is certain the second Legislature declared the act of the first null, under circumstances of a very extraordinary nature. I do not, however, see that it is our duty to give an opinion whether the Legislature of Georgia acted wickedly or uprightly. Whichever course they may have pursued, I do not believe this body to be a constitutional board of censors. We find frequent occasions enough on which, without going out of our way, our duty calls upon us to give our opinions. Believing this to be an occasion on which no opinion is required from us, and one which it is most prudent to pass by without giving such opinion, I wish not to vote for or against the resolutions. I am, therefore, for the committee’s rising and reporting the bill.

Mr. J. Randolph.—I had hoped that when these resolutions were sent from the House to the committee, they would have received the respectful attention to which every such reference is entitled; and that the committee would at least have deemed them worthy of some expression of opinion on them; that they would have deigned to say whether the reasoning or facts contained in them are or are not erroneous and unfounded. The gentleman from New York tells the committee that, by an act passed at a previous session of Congress, a pledge has been given to a certain description of claimants under the act of 1795, to do something in relation to their claims. If so, is this a reason for not acting on the resolutions? No; it is a reason for taking them up and rejecting them. One of those resolutions says, and I am prepared to prove it true, and I call on gentlemen to show its falsehood, “that the claims of persons derived under the act of January first, 1795, are recognized neither by any compact between the United States and the State of Georgia, nor by any act of the Federal Government.” I deny that they are so recognized. If they are, what can be easier than for the learned gentleman to refer to the compact under which they are recognized? This he cannot show, and hence his unwillingness to express an opinion. At an antecedent session we passed a law on this subject. The gentleman may have given his vote for this law under the impression he states, but it does not follow that the Legislature acted under the same impression; on the contrary, I know several gentlemen who voted for it, though hostile to the claims under the act of 1795, because it contained a general provision for claims, and did not particularly recognize those arising under the act of 1795; and now, because Congress have passed an act of a general nature, when it was notorious there are a variety of claims besides those under the act of 1795, and none of which are mentioned either in the compact or treaty with the State of Georgia, it is said we have given a pledge, and we are called upon to fulfil it. And this language is held by gentlemen who, in the same breath, have expressed a disposition to reject another description of claims. Could absurdity speak in stronger language? A general appropriation has been made by Congress for claims; the claims preferred are of two classes—those under the acts of 1789 and 1795. There might have been claims of a hundred other descriptions—for all these Congress have made a general appropriation—and yet we are told by gentlemen hostile to the claims of 1789 that we are pledged to provide for those of 1795. If we are pledged to satisfy one description, are we not equally pledged to the other? But the truth is, we have given no pledge. If we have, nothing is so easy as to refer to the statute book, and to point it out. No such pledge is recognized by our compact with Georgia. While I am up, permit me to say, if the compact with Georgia be construed according to its letter, the appropriation of $5,000,000 ought to be considered as not embracing claims under the act of 1795, for the best reason in the world: the statute book of Georgia shows the reason. But, say gentlemen, we possess the power to satisfy these claims, though such satisfaction may not have been contemplated by our compact with Georgia. There must, say they, have been an understanding between the Commissioners of Georgia and our Commissioners in favor of compromising them, and therefore it is inferred that we ought to be governed more by the quo animo with which the compact was formed than by its strict letter; it is accordingly attempted to be proved, that there was an understanding between our Commissioners and those of Georgia, that relief should be extended to claimants under the act of 1795. I am authorized by the Commissioners to say that this was not the case. Whether, therefore, we are governed by the strict letter of the contract, or by the quo animo, we cannot discover the grounds for this opinion. I have been told, in a way which removes all doubts, by the Commissioners on both sides, at least by a Commissioner of the United States having a great participation in the business, and by the Georgia Commissioners, that the stipulation in the compact was not inserted at the instance of Georgia, but reluctantly inserted by them at the instance of the Commissioners of the United States.

Mr. Macon (Speaker) remarked that this question, like many others which presented themselves, had taken up a long time in discussing the preliminary point that might have been required on the resolutions. To rise and report the bill, without acting on the resolutions, would be a virtual rejection of them; especially as the House had determined to rise on the 19th. For one, Mr. M. said, he was ready to vote on the resolutions. If it were wrong to vote on them, it was certainly proper to vote against their reference. But why not vote on them? We may not all agree; but have we not a right to think for ourselves? Let us then meet them, and vote as we see best. Mr. M. said he was more desirous of meeting the question, as he differed from those with whom he generally coincided in opinion. It may be said the resolutions embrace an abstract question. If so, gentlemen ought not to have allowed their reference. In the present stage of the business, no question could be taken unless in the committee, or on a motion to discharge the committee from their further consideration. Mr. M. said, he thought it the right of every member of a deliberative body to express his sentiments and record his opinion on any subject before it. This had always been the practice. He trusted, therefore, the committee would not rise, but proceed to the discussion of the resolutions.

Mr. J. Randolph.—I little expected to stand on this floor, in the list of persons hostile to State rights—to be charged, as the gentleman before me has expressed himself, with having brought forward propositions subversive of the rights of the States. The sovereignty of the States has ever been the cardinal principle of my political opinions, and in the outset, I enlisted under the banner of State rights in opposition to federal usurpation. The doctrine of exalting the General Government on the ruin of the authority of the States, is at length exploded, and those who have heretofore been most conspicuous in encroaching upon the rights of the States, generally, and upon those of Georgia in particular, are now foremost in displaying their zeal for both. I cannot but rejoice at the acquisition which this cause has made. But to those of its friends who are too new to it to understand its interests as yet, I would recommend, that they would take the conduct of the Georgia delegation as an evidence of the rights and interests of that State. They surely are not so destitute of information or fidelity, as to misunderstand or abandon the rights of the people whom they represent.—So long, however, as I have the honor of concurring with them in opinion, I shall be very easy under any clamor which the new friends of Georgia and of the rights of States may endeavor to excite. If, however, gentlemen are unwilling to rely on the opinions of so few, however respectable men, I refer them to the act of the Legislature of Georgia herself, generally called the rescinding act, passed under circumstances of unparalleled unanimity, and confirmed by the general voice of the people, who subsequently recognized it in, and ingrafted it upon their constitution. If still they remain dissatisfied, I would ask them if the recognition of the claims against Georgia, in the bill which they are so eager to pass, be not equally a violation of the rights of that State, with the rejection of those claims. Does not the bill before you, in pronouncing upon the validity of the act of Georgia, equally involve the principle against which gentlemen protest so loudly, with the resolutions themselves? They have their choice either to pronounce the corrupt act of 1795, or the rescinding act of 1796, invalid. Are not the rights of Georgia as much affected by the one as by the other? and even more, by annulling the act of 1796, since she alone recognizes that to be her own.

Here Mr. R. read the first and second resolutions:

“Resolved, That the State of Georgia was 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 general good.”

Who will deny it? If Georgia has made a valid contract we must execute it. If invalid, there is no obligation on us to perform it.

“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 invested 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, thus 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.”

I am afraid if we deny this position we have no title to show for our own existence as a nation.

Mr. R. here read the third resolution:

“That it is in evidence to this House that the act of the Legislature of Georgia passed on the 7th of January, 1795, entitled an act &c., 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.”

If there be any objection in my mind to this resolution, it is that it does not sufficiently detail what it contains in substance; that the vendors of this iniquitous bargain being at the same time the vendees, the contract was therefore void. On a former occasion, when this position was advanced, we were told that, on the same principle, the sale of our western lands might be set aside, since members of the Legislature speculated in them to a vast amount. However indecorous and reprehensible this may have been in persons in their situation; there was a wide and material difference between the sales made by the United States and a pretended sale like this—not of a few acres, but of millions; not of sections and half sections, but of thousands of square miles; not measured by chains and perches, but by circles of latitude and longitude; not made in the face of day, on public notice, for a reasonable equivalent, and with the general participation of the citizens, but bartered away in the dark by wholesale for the emolument of the partners in the job, for a pretended consideration too paltry to give an air of validity to the contract; and even this sum, pitiful as it was, had since been drawn from the treasury of Georgia by those who had paid it, or others claiming under them by an act yet more infamous and disgraceful if possible than that by which it was deposited there. But it is not my intention at this time to enter into the particulars of this transaction. In the former stages of this bill I have endeavored to give a faithful history of it. Weak and vain, however, must be every effort to do justice to this enormous and atrocious procedure. Some gentlemen indeed will tell you that we have no proof of these facts. The depositions are ex parte, say they, and therefore in strictness of law cannot be considered as evidence. But when was it known that men could not legislate on less than legal evidence? Have we not the same evidence of the fraud that we have of the existence of the claims? Are not the evidences of both in the same report? the same proof of the corruption as of the claims? They both hang together. Do not gentlemen themselves admit the existence of the corruption? On what other principle could they justify their proposition to withhold from these harpies the whole of their glorious booty, and put them off with a comparative pittance? Set aside the evidence of the corruption, and it cannot be denied, that instead of five, they are entitled to fifty millions of acres. I repeat they are entitled to all or nothing. We at least are consistent, we deny their title to anything, and we propose to give them nothing. Gentlemen on the other side can support the claim to the five millions, which they propose to give, only by arguments which justify a claim to ten times that amount.

Mr. R. here read the fourth resolution:

“That the good people of Georgia, impressed with general indignation at the act of atrocious perfidy and unparalleled corruption, with a promptitude of decision highly honorable to them, did, by the act of a subsequent Legislature, passed on the 13th day 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 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.”

This is another of the resolutions not even substantially embraced in the proffered amendment, which has been rejected by the committee. The evidence of the facts contained in the former part of it is to be found in the act of Georgia, which I hold in my hand, commonly called the rescinding act. The report of our Commissioners furnishes the proof of the withdrawal of the money, with a detailed statement of that nefarious business, which in the former stages of this bill has been amply explained. In the rescinding act the Legislature of Georgia take other objections to the usurpation of 1795, besides those founded on its corruption. They deny the constitutional right of their predecessors to have made such an alienation of the public domain, even with honorable views and for a fair equivalent. They declare that their constitution prescribes a certain mode whereby vacant lands shall be sold and granted, and that the pretended act of 1795 is void, not only from its corruption, but from its contravening those provisions. This is a weighty and vital objection. The slow yet equitable method known to the Constitution of Georgia of laying off new counties, granting out the lands, when they were appropriated and settled, laying off and settling others, was ill-suited to the gigantic rapacity of the Assembly of 1795, and their ravenous accomplices, who grasped at every acre within the nominal limits of the State, whether covered by Indian titles, or whether those claims were extinguished.

I must beg leave, in answer to the objection of some gentlemen here, to repeat what was advanced by me in a former discussion of the subject. Georgia ceded this territory to us subject to certain specified claims, arising under Great Britain, under Spain, and under her Bourbon act, as it is commonly called, which has no relation to any of the Yazoo acts, as they are termed. For these claims we have stipulated to provide, moreover paying her a certain sum out of the first proceeds of the lands, as a consideration for the grant. Besides the above-mentioned claims there were others not recognized by, or provided for, in our compact. In relation to these, Georgia gives a reluctant assent, (which is to be inferred as well from the expressions which are used in the treaty, as from the declaration of the Commissioners on both sides,) that we may apply, not exceeding five millions of acres to quiet other claims, generally, without specifying what they are—the appropriation not to exceed the amount above, and to be made within six months from the ratification of the compact, or to revert back to Georgia. Among the claims of this vague description may be ranked those of the Virginia and South Carolina Yazoo Companies (under the act of Georgia of 1789, and those arising under the corrupt act of 1795.) We are at liberty, therefore, to give these reserved five millions of acres to either, or to both, of those descriptions of conflicting claimants, but we are certainly not bound to bestow an acre on one of them, either by compact with Georgia or by our own act of appropriation. When that act passed it was at the close of our session; there was not time to investigate any of these claims. It was then understood that some of them were equitable, and not founded in corruption. If we had not then made the appropriation, the term within which we were permitted to make it, would have elapsed before the next session of Congress. We therefore made the appropriation in the same general terms of our compact with Georgia, pledging ourselves to none, while we thereby reserved the right of examining and recompensing all, in case they should thereafter be found to deserve it. The day of investigation having arrived, you are invited to decline it altogether, and hold that the reservation of the right to give, is converted by some political magic into a duty, and that too by those who propose to give nothing to the companies of 1789, although their claim is embraced by the general provision of our compact with Georgia, and by the terms of our act of appropriation as much as the claims of the companies of 1795.