George M. Troup of Georgia, slender, handsome, fair-haired,[1495] then thirty years old and possessing all the fiery aggressiveness of youth, sprang to his feet to add his reproof of Marshall and the Supreme Court. He declared that the opinion of the Chief Justice, in Fletcher vs. Peck, was a pronouncement "which the mind of every man attached to Republican principles must revolt at."[1496]
Because the session was closing and from pressure of business, Randolph withdrew his motion to refer the memorial to the Committee, and offered another: "That the prayer of the petition of the New England Mississippi Land Company is unreasonable, unjust, and ought not to be granted." This, if passed, would amount to a condemnation by the House of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. All Federalists and conservative Republicans combined to defeat it, and the resolution was lost by a vote of 46 yeas to 54 nays.[1497]
But Troup would not yield. On December 17 he insisted that the National Government should resist by force of arms the judgment of the Supreme Court. The title to the lands was in the United States, he said, yet the court had decided it to be in the Yazoo claimants. "This decision must either be acquiesced in or resisted by the United States.... If the Government ... would not submit to this decision, ... what course could be taken but to employ the whole military force ... to eject all persons not claiming under the authority of the United States?" Should those "in whose behalf" Marshall's opinion was rendered, take possession, either the National Government must "remove them by ... military power, or tamely acquiesce in the lawless aggression."[1498]
But Marshall and the Supreme Court were to be attacked still more openly and violently. Strengthened by the decision in Fletcher vs. Peck, the Yazoo claimants pressed Congress harder than ever for payment. On January 20, 1813, a bill from the Senate providing for the payment of the claims came up for consideration in the House.
Troup instantly took the floor, moved its rejection and delivered such an excoriation of the Supreme Court as never before was or has since been heard in Congress. He began by reciting the details of the "hideous corruption." Such legislation was void ab initio. The original speculators had made fortunes out of the deal, and now Congress was asked to make the fortunes of the second-hand speculators. For years the House had, most righteously, repelled their audacious assaults; but now they had devised a new weapon of attack.
They had secured the assistance of the Judiciary. "Two of the speculators combined and made up a fictitious case, a feigned issue for the decision of the Supreme Court," asserted Troup. "They presented precisely those points for the decision of the Court which they wished the Court to decide, and the Court did actually decide them as the speculators themselves would have decided them if they had been in the place of the Supreme Court.
"The first point was, whether the Legislature of Georgia had the power to sell the territory.
"Yes, said the Judges, they had.
"Whether by the Yazoo act an estate did vest in the original grantees?
"Yes, said the Judges, it did.