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

by Albert J. Beveridge

The debate continued without interruption for four full days. Every phase of the subject was discussed exhaustively. The question of the power of the Legislature to annul a contract; of the power of the Judiciary to declare a legislative act void because of corruption in the enactment of it; the competency of Congress to pass upon such disputed points—these questions, as well as that of the innocence of the purchasers, were elaborately argued.

The strongest speech in support of the good faith of the New England investors was made by that venerable and militant Republican and Jeffersonian, John Findley of Pennsylvania.[1458] He pointed out that the purchase by members of the Georgia Legislature of the lands sold was nothing unusual—everybody knew "that had been the case in Pennsylvania and other states." Georgia papers did not circulate in New England; how could the people of that section know of the charges of corruption and the denial of the validity of the law under which the lands were sold?

Those innocent purchasers had a right to trust the validity of the title of the land companies—the agents had exhibited the deeds executed by the Governor of Georgia, the law directing the sale to be made, and the Constitution of the State. What more could be asked? "The respectability of the characters of the sellers" was a guarantee "that they could not themselves be deceived and would not deceive others." Among these, said Findley, was an eminent Justice of the Supreme Court,[1459] a United States Senator,[1460] and many other men of hitherto irreproachable standing. Could people living in an old and thickly settled State, far from the scene of the alleged swindle, with no knowledge whatever that fraud had been charged, and in need of the land offered—could they possibly so much as suspect corruption when such men were members of the selling companies?

Moreover, said Findley—and with entire accuracy—not a Georgia official charged with venality had been impeached or indicted. The truth was that if the Georgia Legislature had not passed the rescinding act the attention of Congress would never have been called to the alleged swindle. Then, too, everybody knew "that one session of a Legislature cannot annul the contracts made by the preceding session"; for did not the National Constitution forbid any State from passing a law impairing the obligation of contracts?[1461]

Randolph outdid himself in daring and ferocity when he again took the floor. His speech struck hostile spectators as "more outrageous than the first."[1462] He flatly charged that a mail contract had been offered to a member of the House, who had accepted it, but that it had been withdrawn from him when he refused to agree to support the compromise of the Yazoo claims. Randolph declared that the plot to swindle Georgia out of her lands "was hatched in Philadelphia and New York (and I believe Boston....) and the funds with which it was effected were principally furnished by moneyed capitalists in those towns."[1463]

At last the resolution was adopted by a majority of 63 to 58,[1464] and Randolph, physically exhausted and in despair at his overthrow as dictator of the House, went to his ineffective management of the Chase impeachment trial.[1465] He prevented for the time being, however, the passage of the bill to carry out the compromise with the Yazoo claimants. He had mightily impressed the people, especially those of Virginia. The Richmond Enquirer, on October 7, 1806, denounced the Yazoo fraud and the compromise of the investors' claims as a "stupendous scheme of plunder." Senator Giles, in a private conversation with John Quincy Adams, asserted that "not a man from that State, who should give any countenance to the proposed compromise, could obtain an election after it." He avowed that "nothing since the Government existed had so deeply affected him."[1466]

The debate was published fully in the newspapers of Washington, and it is impossible that Marshall did not read it and with earnest concern. As has already been stated, the first case involving the sale of these Georgia lands had been dropped because of the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing the right to sue a state in the National courts. Moreover, Marshall was profoundly interested in the stability of contractual obligations. The repudiation of these by the Legislature of Virginia had powerfully and permanently influenced his views upon this subject.[1467] Also, Marshall's own title to part of the Fairfax estate had more than once been in jeopardy.[1468] At that very moment a suit affecting the title of his brother to certain Fairfax lands was pending in Virginia courts, and the action of the Virginia Court of Appeals in one of these was soon to cause the first great conflict between the highest court of a State and the supreme tribunal of the Nation.[1469] No man in America, therefore, could have followed with deeper anxiety the Yazoo controversy than did John Marshall.

Again and again, session after session, the claimants presented to Congress their prayers for relief. In 1805, Senator John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts and Senator Thomas Sumter of South Carolina urged the passage of a bill to settle the claims. This led Senator James Jackson of Georgia to deliver "a violent invective against the claims, without any specific object."[1470] After Jackson's death the measure passed the Senate by a vote of 19 to 11, but was rejected in the House by a majority of 8 out of a total of 116.[1471]

Among the lawyers who went to Washington for the New England Mississippi Company was a young man not yet thirty years of age, Joseph Story of Massachusetts, who on his first visit spent much time with Madison, Gallatin, and the President.[1472] On a second visit, Story asked to address the House on the subject, but that body refused to hear him.[1473]

From the first the New England investors had wished for a decision by the courts upon the validity of their titles and upon the effect of the rescinding act of the Georgia Legislature; but no way had occurred to them by which they could secure such a determination from the bench. The Eleventh Amendment prevented them from suing Georgia; and the courts of that State were, as we have seen, forbidden by the rescinding act from entertaining such actions.