[1398] Robert Watkins.
[1399] See Report of the Commissioners, _Am. State Papers, Public Lands_, I, 132-35.
[1400] The "Yazoo men" carried two counties.
[1401] Chappell, 126.
[1402] The outgoing Governor, George Mathews, in his last message to the Legislature, stoutly defended his approval of the sale act. He attributed the attacks upon him to "base and malicious reports,"
inspired by "the blackest and the most persevering malice aided by disappointed avarice." The storm against the law was, he said, due to "popular clamour." (Message of Governor Mathews, Jan. 28, 1796, Harper: _Case of the Georgia Sales on the Mississippi Considered_, 92-93.)
[1403] _Am. State Papers, Public Lands_, I, 157.
[1404] _Ib._ 158.
[1405] _Am. State Papers, Public Lands_, I, 158.
[1406] The punctilious Legislature failed to explain that one hundred thousand dollars of the purchase money had already been appropriated and expended by the State. This sum they did not propose to restore.
[1407] "Or his deputy."
[1408] Report of the joint committee, as quoted in Stevens: _History of Georgia from its First Discovery by Europeans to the Adoption of the Present Const.i.tution in 1798_, II, 491-92.
[1409] Stevens, 492-93. Stevens says that there is no positive proof of this incident; but all other writers declare that it occurred. See Knight: _Georgia"s Landmarks, Memorials and Legends_, I, 152-53; also Harris, 135.
[1410] Adams: _Randolph_, 23; also Garland: _Life of John Randolph of Roanoke_, I, 64-68.
[1411] See _infra_, 577-81; and _supra_, chap. IV.
[1412] For instance, Wade Hampton immediately sold the entire holdings of The Upper Mississippi Company, millions of acres, to three South Carolina speculators, and it is quite impossible that they did not know of the corruption of the Georgia Legislature. Hampton acquired from his partners, John B. Scott and John C. Nightingale, all of their interests in the company"s purchase. This was done on January 16 and 17, immediately after Governor Mathews had signed the deed from the State.
Seven weeks later, March 6, 1795, Hampton conveyed all of this land to Adam Tunno, James Miller, and James Warrington. (_Am. State Papers, Public Lands_, I, 233.) Hampton was a member of Congress from South Carolina.
[1413] _State of Facts, shewing the Right of Certain Companies to the Lands lately purchased by them from the State of Georgia._
[1414] The Georgia Mississippi Company, The Tennessee Company, and The Georgia Company. (See Haskins, 29.)
[1415] Eleven million acres were purchased at eleven cents an acre by a few of the leading citizens of Boston. This one sale netted the Yazoo speculators almost a million dollars, while the fact that such eminent men invested in the Yazoo lands was a strong inducement to ordinary people to invest also. (See Chappell, 109.)
[1416] See Chappell, 110-11.
[1417] Ames to Gore, Feb. 24, 1795, Ames, I, 168. Ames"s alarm, however, was that the Georgia land sale "threatens Indian, Spanish, and civil, wars." The immorality of the transaction appears to have been unknown to him.
[1418] Haskins, 30.
[1419] Harper, 109. Hamilton"s opinion is dated March 25, 1796. In Harper"s pamphlet it is incorrectly printed 1795.
[1420] _Annals_, 3d Cong. 1st and 2d Sess. 1231.
[1421] _Annals_, 3d Cong. 1st and 2d Sess. 1251-54. The Georgia act was transmitted to Washington privately.
[1422] _Ib._ 1255, 1262-63.
[1423] _Ib._ 1282-83.
[1424] _Am. State Papers, Public Lands_, I, 341.
[1425] _Ib._ 71.
[1426] Bishop"s pamphlet was called _Georgia Speculation Unveiled_.
[1427] Bishop, 6.
[1428] _Ib._ 11.
[1429] _Ib._
[1430] _Ib._ 29-32.
[1431] _Ib._ 92.
[1432] _Ib._ 144.
[1433] Harper"s opinion bears, opposite his signature, this statement: "Considered at New-York August 3d, 1796." Beyond all doubt it had been submitted to Hamilton--perhaps prepared in collaboration with him.
Harper was himself a member of one of the purchasing companies and in the House he later defended the transaction. (See _Annals_, 5th Cong. 2d Sess. 1277.)
[1434] Harper, 16.
[1435] _Ib._ 14.
[1436] _Ib._ 49-50.
[1437] _Ib._ 50. Here Harper quotes Hamilton"s opinion.
[1438] _Ib._ 50-53. Harper"s pamphlet is valuable as containing, in compact form, all the essential doc.u.ments relating to Georgia"s t.i.tle as well as the sale and rescinding acts. Other arguments on both sides appeared. One of the ablest of these was a pamphlet by John E. Anderson and William J. Hobby, attorneys of Augusta, Georgia, and published at that place in 1799 "at the instance of the purchasers." It is ent.i.tled: _The Contract for the Purchase of the Western Territory Made with the Legislature of Georgia in the Year 1795, Considered with a Reference to the Subsequent Attempts of the State to Impair its Obligations_.
[1439] See report of Attorney-General Charles Lee, April 26, 1796, _Am.
State Papers, Public Lands_, I, 34; report of Senator Aaron Burr, May 20, 1796, _ib._ 71; report of Senator James Ross, March 2, 1797, _ib._ 79.
[1440] Except by John Milledge of Georgia, who declared that "there was no legal claim upon ... any part of that territory." Robert Goodloe Harper said that that question "must be determined in a Court of Justice," and argued for an "amicable settlement" of the claims. He himself once had an interest in the purchase, but had disposed of it three years before when it appeared that the matter must come before Congress (_Annals_, 5th Cong. 2d Sess. 1277-78); the debate occupied parts of two days (see also _ib._ 1298-1313). In view of the heated controversy that afterward occurred, it seems scarcely credible that almost no attention was given in this debate to the fraudulent character of the transaction.
[1441] May 10 1800, Sess. I, chap. 50, _U.S. Statutes at Large_, II, 69.
[1442] The entire commission was composed of three of the five members of Jefferson"s Cabinet, to wit: James Madison, Secretary of State; Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury; and Levi Lincoln, Attorney-General.
[1443] Report of the Commissioners, _Am. State Papers, Public Lands_, I, 132-35. "The interest of the United States, the tranquillity of those who may hereafter inhabit that territory, and various equitable considerations which may be urged in favor of most of the present claimants, render it expedient to enter into a compromise on reasonable terms."
[1444] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 1st Sess. 1039-40.
[1445] _Ib._ 1099-1122, 1131-70.