Mr. J. Randolph said, the House would recollect that he had, on a former day, offered a resolution barring any claims derived under any act of the State of Georgia passed in the year 1795, in relation to lands ceded to the United States. It was not his purpose in rising at this time to trespass on the patience of the House; nor did he know that he should in future offer any remarks additional to those he had already made. But he conceived it his duty to place the subject in such a point of light that every eye, however dim, might distinctly see its true merits. For this purpose he withdrew the resolution which he had before offered, and moved the following resolutions:
Resolved, That the Legislature of the State of Georgia were, 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 public good:
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 clothed 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, so 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:
That it is in evidence to this House, that the act of the Legislature of Georgia, passed on the seventh of January, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five, entitled “An act for appropriating a part of the unlocated territory of this State, for the payment of the late State troops, and for other purposes,” 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:
That the good people of Georgia, impressed with general indignation at this act of atrocious perfidy and unparalleled corruption, with a promptitude of decision highly honorable to their character, did, by the act of a subsequent Legislature, passed on the thirteenth of February, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-six, 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:
That 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:
That the aforesaid act of the State of Georgia, passed on the thirteenth of February, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-six, was forbidden neither by the constitution of that State, nor by that of the United States:
That the claims of persons derived under the aforesaid act of the seventh of January, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five, are recognized neither by any compact between the United States and the State of Georgia, nor by any act of the Federal Government: Therefore,
Resolved, That no part of the five millions of acres reserved for satisfying and quieting claims to the lands ceded by the State of Georgia to the United States, and appropriated by the act of Congress passed at their last session, shall be appropriated to quiet or compensate any claims derived under any act, or pretended act, of the State of Georgia, passed, or alleged to be passed, during the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five.
On considering the resolutions, the House divided—ayes 53. Carried.