of Congress. Mr. Madison and Mr. Gallatin, members of the Cabinet, and Mr. Levi Lincoln, were appointed commissioners to investigate the subject. They made an elaborate report and concluded with a proposition that so much of the five millions of acres as shall remain after having satisfied the claims of settlers and others, not recognized by the agreement with Georgia, which shall be confirmed by the United States, be appropriated for the purpose of satisfying and quieting the claims of the persons who derive their titles from the Act of the State of Georgia, passed Jan. 7, 1795.

The head of this New England and Mississippi Land Company was Gideon Granger, then Postmaster General. He was the agent of the Company to prosecute the claim before Congress. Referring to Mr. Granger and his application to Congress in this case, Mr. John Randolph said: "The first year I had the honor of a "seat in this House, an act was passed somewhat of a "similar nature to the one now proposed. I allude to "the case of the Connecticut Reserve, by which the "nation was swindled out of three or four millions of

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acres, which, like other bad titles, had fallen into the "hands of innocent purchasers. When I advert to "the applicants by whom we were then beset, I find "among them one of the persons who styled them"selves the agents of the New England and Mississippi

Land Company, who seems to have an unfortunate "knack of buying bad titles. His gigantic grasp em

"braces with one hand the shores of Lake Erie, and "with the other stretches to the Bay of Mobile. "Mr. Speaker, when I see the agency which is em"ployed on this occasion, I must own that it fills me "with apprehension and alarm. The same agent is at

"the head of an Executive Department of our Gov"ernment, and inferior to none in the influence at"tached to it. * This officer presents himself at 66 your bar at once a party and an advocate. Sir, when "I see such a tremendous influence brought to bear upon us I do confess it strikes me with consternation "and despair. Are the heads of Executive Departments, with the influence and patronage attached to them, to extort from us now, what we refused at the "last session of Congress."

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Mr. Granger and his friends professed great indignation at the opposition of Randolph, and threatened to canvass New England in the interest of the company who now claimed to hold as innocent purchasers under the rescinded Yazoo law. Prominent among those who aided and sympathized with the company was AARON BURR, who doubtless was in league with the claimants to add their portion of the Yazoo territory to the country which he hoped to erect into an independent Southwestern Republic.

In order to establish their claim, a case was made by the claimants for adjudication by the Supreme Court of the United States. James Gunn and others, who held one of the grants, sold certain lands to John Peck, who in turn sold to Robert Fletcher. Peck made a deed to Fletcher, and Fletcher sued Peck for breach of covenant, in that the State of Georgia at the time of passing the Yazoo Acts, had no good right to sell and dispose of the lands in question. One of the covenants of the deed from Peck was that all the title which Georgia ever had in the lands had been legally conveyed, and another was that the title to the lands had in no way been impaired by virtue of the subse

quent rescision of the Acts by a new Georgia Legislature.

Thus the questions came up which were to have so marked an influence upon Southwestern politics. (1). As to the right of a State to the fee simple of lands occupied by Indian tribes. (2) As to the right of a State to interfere with vested rights by rescision of a contract.

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The Supreme Court refused to say that bribery of a General Assembly would invalidate an Act. "would be indecent in the extreme," said the Chief Justice, "upon a private contract between two indi❝viduals, to enter into an enquiry respecting the corrup"tion of a sovereign power of a State. If the title be plainly deduced from a Legislative Act, which the "Legislature might constitutionally pass, if the act be "clothed with all the requisite favors of a law, a court, sitting as a court of law, cannot sustain a suit brought by one individual against another, founded on the "allegations that the Act is a nullity, in consequence "of the impure motives which influenced certain mem"bers of the Legislature which passed the law."

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The Supreme Court decided that the constitutional inhibition forbidding a State to enact a law invalidating a contract, applied to this case. It was the unanimous opinion of the Court that the repealing Act did not deprive purchasers from the Yazoo grantees of rights under the Acts of 1795, and that the lands in controversy having passed into the hands of a purchaser for valuable consideration and without notice, the rescisive Act of the State of Georgia was inoperative, null and void as to such innocent purchaser.

To sustain the rights of the purchasers in this case,

it was necessarily held also that Georgia had a right to sell the lands in question, although then occupied and claimed by Indian tribes. It was found by the Court that the grant of Carolina by Charles I, to the Earl of Clarendon and others, comprehended the whole country from thirty-six degrees thirty minutes, to twenty-nine degrees, and from the Atlantic to the South Sea. Seven of the eight proprietors of the colonies surrendered to George I, in 1729, who appointed a governor for South Carolina.

In 1732, George I granted to the Lord Viscount Percival and others, seven-eighths of the territory between the Savannah and the Altamaha, and extending west to the South Sea, the remaining eighth part, which was still the property of the heir of Lord Carteret, one of the original grantees of Carolina, was afterwards conveyed to them. This territory was constituted a colony, and called Georgia. The Governor of South Carolina continued to exercise jurisdiction south of Georgia. In 1752, the grantees surrendered to the crown, and in 1754 a governor was appointed by the crown, with a commission defining the boundaries of the colony. In 1765, a commission was issued to the Governer describing the boundaries of Georgia, as extending westward to the Mississippi. The lands involved in the case of Fletcher vs. Peck, lay within the boundary defined by the commission of 1763. It was thus held to be the exclusive property of Georgia, inherited and acquired by the right of conquest. Chief Justice Marshall, in passing upon this branch of the case, said: "The question whether the vacant "land within the United States became joint property,

or belonged to the separate States, was a momentous

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question, which at one time threatened to shake the "American confederacy to its foundation. This im"portant and dangerous contest has been compromised, " and this compromise is not now to be disturbed." In conclusion of his opinion, he says: "The majority of "the Court are of opinion that the nature of the "Indian title, which is certainly to be respected by all "Courts until it be legitimately extinguished, is not "such as to be absolutely repugnant to seizin in fee on "the part of the State."

Although the Supreme Court was thus cautious in its language in 1810, when this decision was rendered, we find that Chief Justice Tracy and the Court had become positive in 1845. There was at that day no longer a doubt as to the seizin in fee by the State of all lands within her limits occupied by Indian tribes. This right to the soil was recognized by Kent in his Commentaries, as early as 1823, as will be seen by reference to the paragraph from his writings quoted at the beginning of this chapter.

The importance of this decision of Fletcher vs. Peck, was at once understood by the States It was the first adjudication which announced that the control by a State of its own territory is not unlimited, but that the General Government has the right in certain cases to restrain the State from annulling its own patent. The Court declared that when a law is in its nature a contract, a repeal of the law cannot divest the rights acquired under it by innocent purchasers without notice, and that their title shall not be impaired. The Court held that a grant by a State is a contract within the meaning of the Constitution, and a party is always estopped by his own grant. A party cannot pronounce