Under this act of Congress, Georgia ceded her rights over the disputed territory for one million, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; provided, however, that the Nation should extinguish the Indian titles, settle British and Spanish claims, ultimately admit the vast domain as a State of the Union, and reserve five million acres for the purpose of quieting all other demands. A later law[1441] directed the National commissioners, who had negotiated this arrangement with Georgia, to investigate and report upon the claims of individuals and companies to lands within the territory thus ceded to the United States.
At once the purchasers from the land companies, especially the New England investors, besieged Congress to devote part of this five million acres to the salvage of their imperiled money. The report of the commissioners[1442] was wise, just, and statesmanlike. It was laid before the House on February 16, 1803. Although the titles of the claimants could "not be supported," still, because most of the titles had been acquired in good faith, and because it would be injurious to everybody, including the Nation, to leave the matter unsettled, the report recommended the accommodation of the dispute on terms that would save innocent purchasers at least a part of the money they had paid or legally engaged to pay.[1443]
When a bill to carry out the recommendations of the commission for the payment of the Yazoo claimants came before the House, John Randolph offered a resolution that went directly to the heart of the controversy and of all subsequent ones of like nature. It declared that "when the governors of any people shall have betrayed" their public trust for their own corrupt advantage, it is the "inalienable right" of that people "to abrogate the act thus endeavoring to betray them." Accordingly the Legislature of Georgia had passed the rescinding act. This was entirely legal and constitutional because "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." Neither the fundamental law of Georgia nor of the Nation forbade the repeal of the corrupt law of 1795. Claims under this nullified and "usurped" law were not recognized by the compact of cession between Georgia and the United States, "nor by any act of the Federal Government." Therefore, declared Randolph's resolution, "no part of the five millions of acres reserved for satisfying and quieting claims ... shall be appropriated to quiet or compensate any claims" derived under the corrupt legislation of the Georgia Legislature of 1795.[1444] After a hot fight, consideration of the resolutions was postponed until the next session; but the bill authorizing the commissioners to compromise with the Yazoo claimants also went over.[1445]
The matter next came up for consideration in the House, just before the trial in the Senate of the impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase. A strong and influential lobby was pressing the compromise. The legislative agents of the New England Mississippi Company[1446] presented its case with uncommon ability. In a memorial to Congress[1447] they set forth their repeated applications to President, Congress, and the commissioners for protection. They were, they said, "constantly assured" that the rights of the claimants would be respected; and that it was expressly for this purpose that the five million acres had been reserved. For years they had attended sittings of the commissioners and sessions of Congress "at great cost and heavy expense."
Would not Congress at last afford them relief? If a "judicial decision" was desired, let Congress enact a law directing the Supreme Court to decide as to the validity of their title and they would gladly submit the matter to that tribunal. It was only because Congress seemed to prefer settlement by compromise that they again presented the facts and reasons for establishing their rights. So once more every aspect of the controversy was discussed with notable ability and extensive learning in Granger and Morton's brochure.[1448]
The passions of John Randolph, which had never grown cold since as a youth, a decade previously, he had witnessed the dramatic popular campaign in Georgia—and which during 1804 had been gathering intense heat—now burst into a furious flame. Unfortunately for Jefferson, the most influential agent of the New England claimants was the one Administration official who had most favors to bestow—Gideon Granger of Connecticut, the Postmaster-General.[1449] He was the leader of the lobby which the New England Mississippi Company had mustered in such force. And Granger now employed all the power of his department, so rich in contracts and offices, to secure the passage of a bill that would make effectual the recommendations of Jefferson's commissioners.
As the vote upon it drew near, Granger actually appeared upon the floor of the House soliciting votes for the measure. Randolph's emotions were thus excited to the point of frenzy—the man was literally beside himself with anger. He needed to husband all his strength for the conduct of the trial of Chase[1450] and to solidify his party, rather than to waste his physical resources, or to alienate a single Republican. On the report of the Committee of Claims recommending the payment of the Yazoo claimants, one of the most virulent and picturesque debates in the history of the American Congress began.[1451] Randolph took the floor, and a "fire and brimstone speech"[1452] he made.
"Past experience has shown that this is one of those subjects which pollution has sanctified," he began. "The press is gagged." The New England claimants innocent purchasers! "Sir, when that act of stupendous villainy was passed in 1795 ... it caused a sensation scarcely less violent than that produced by the passage of the stamp act." Those who assert their ignorance of "this infamous act" are gross and willful liars.[1453] To a "monstrous anomaly" like the present case, cried Randolph, "narrow maxims of municipal jurisprudence ought not, and cannot be applied.... Attorneys and judges do not decide the fate of empires."[1454]
Randolph mercilessly attacked Granger, and through him the Administration itself. Granger's was a practiced hand at such business, he said. He was one of "the applicants by whom we were beset" in the Connecticut Reserve scheme, "by which the nation were swindled out of some three or four millions of acres of land, which, like other bad titles, had fallen into the hands of innocent purchasers." Granger "seems to have an unfortunate knack of buying bad titles. His gigantic grasp embraces with one hand the shores of Lake Erie,[1455] and stretches with the other to the Bay of Mobile.[1456] Millions of acres are easily digested by such stomachs.... They buy and sell corruption in the gross." They gamble for "nothing less than the patrimony of the people." Pointing his long, bony finger at Granger, Randolph exclaimed: "Mr. Speaker, ... this same agent is at the head of an Executive department of our Government.... This officer, possessed of how many snug appointments and fat contracts, let the voluminous records on your table, of the mere names and dates and sums declare, ... this officer presents himself at your bar, at once a party and an advocate."[1457]