1789. THE YAZOO LAND COMPANIES. 127 meeting of the Legislature certain citizens of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina applied for leave to buy land between the Tombigbee and the Mississippi, and three great tracts of land were sold to three companies, named the Virginia Yazoo, the South Carolina Yazoo, and the Tennessee.* The intention of each company, as set forth in its petition, was to pay in Georgia bills of credit. Some of these, known by the nickname of Rattlesnake, were of no value whatsoever. Fearing that this worthless paper might be gathered and tendered, the Legislature sent a committee to the agents of the companies, who agreed that Rattlesnake money should not be offered, and the bill passed. Two years were given in which to make payment. In the House the minority entered a strong protest. Acting under the law, which said nothing about the kind of money to be received, and having offered paper money in their petitions, the two companies made a part payment in Georgia bills. But, when a tender of the rest was made, the State Treasurer declined to receive it, and, the two years ending, the Governor refused to pass the grant. The Virginia Yazoo Company then withdrew the money paid to the Treasurer. The South Carolina Company brought suit against Georgia in the Supreme Court of the United States, but the adoption of the eleventh amendment to the Constitution cut short the suit, and left the company to seek redress elsewhere. Such was their condition when, in 1794,# the Georgia Legislature passed a second act, selling the same land to four companies, named the Georgia, the Georgia Mississippi, the Upper Mississippi, and the Tennessee. The Governor returned the bill, and gave eight reasons. A conference followed. The Legislature struck out the objectionable features, and on January seventh, 1795, the bill was approved. Then the wickedness of the sale came out fast. Of those who voted for it in the House, the majority were found to be concerned in the purchase; of those who voted for it in the Senate, many were *Laws of Georgia, December 21, 1789. + Moultrie et al. vs. Georgia et al. Hollingsworth et al. vs. Virginia, 3 Dallas, pp. 878-380. likewise found to be moved by corrupt motives. The people all over the State were furious. In county after county the Grand Jury presented the sale as a grievance. A Convention was called, met at Louisville,* received petitions, and bade the next Legislature take up the matter. The Legislature obeyed, and in February, 1796, declared the act had been obtained by fraud and corruption; pronounced it null and void; ordered all records of grants and conveyances under it to be wiped from the books; forbade any others to be recorded; and went in solemn procession to see it burned. And now the United States for the first time took alarm. The President laid the act before Congress,† who instructed the Attorney-General to examine the title of the United States to the land claimed by these companies. The huge batch of documents# he sent back was referred by the Senate to a committee, and the committee advised negotiation. That the boundary of Georgia was a line from the source of the St. Mary's river to the source of the Ocmulgee and the Savannah, heading all the rivers which flowed into the Atlantic, the committee had no doubt whatever; but, as this line had never been traced, they recommended that a joint commission be constituted to determine it. Meanwhile, Congress should ask for the consent of Georgia to set up a temporary government on the disputed territory similar to that northwest of the river Ohio. Having heard the report, the Senate ordered it printed, and the following day adjourned. The report, however, was not forgotten. Early in the next session the matter was again taken up, and a bill based on the report passed both House and Senate. Two matters were provided for: The appointment of a joint commission to settle the conflicting claims of Georgia and the United States, and the formation of a new territory to be called Mississippi,◊ with * May 10, 1795. February 17, 1795. # Communicated to the Senate, April 29, 1796. [ March 2, 1797. Resolution passed March 3, 1795. ▲ Communicated to the Senate, March 2, 1797. Public Lands, vol. i, pp 79, 80. The bounds of Mississippi Territory were to be the parallel of thirty-one degrees, the Chattahoochee river, a line due east from where the Yazoo joins the Mississippi, and the Mississippi. 1798. MISSISSIPPI TERRITORY. 129 a government of the same sort as that in force in the Northwest Territory, save that slavery was not to be forbidden.* No time was lost in organizing under the act, and ten days after signing it Adams nominated the officials to the Senate. For Governor he chose George Mathews, of Georgia; for Secretary, Arthur Miller, of Connecticut; and for Judges, William Witmore, Daniel Clark, and Daniel Tilton.† The Senate seeming loath to agree to these names, Adams on May second withdrew them, and sent a new list instead. His second choice for Governor was Winthrop Sargent, then Secretary of the Northwest Territory; and for Secretary, John Steele, of Virginia. The Judges were Peter Bryan Bruin and Daniel Tilton. The Chief Judgeship he left vacant. A contest now took place over the confirmation of Sargent, and by one vote was carried in his favor.# Early in August the Governor, the judges, and many settlers from the Northwest arrived at Natchez. There Sargent proceeded to organize the government, lay out counties, and began an administration short, violent, and disastrous. Sargent was a Puritan. The people he governed were French and Spanish Catholics. That harmony should long continue between them was impossible, and he was soon sending to the Secretary of State descriptions of the people which represented them as worse than the penal colony of Botany Bay. "Diffused over our country," said he, "are aliens of various characters, and among them the most abandoned villains, convicted of the blackest crimes, and escaped from the chains and prisons of Spain. To extirpate these people from our Territory would be a wise policy." Natchez, where, after mass on Sundays, the people indulged in all manner of amusements and excesses, he describes as an abominable place, and suggests that the inhabitants be taught more seemly behavior with the bayonet. Hold *Act of April 7, 1798. Executive Journal of the Senate, April 18, 1798. Executive Journal of the Senate, May 2, 1798. June 26, 1798, William McGuire was made Chief Justice. * The vote stood-yeas, eleven; nays, ten. Every Senator from south of the Ohio and Potomac voted no; every Senator from the North voted yes, save Tracy, of Connecticut. Executive Journal of the Senate, May 7, 1798. VOL. III.-10 ing the Federal doctrine that none but New Englanders were fit to be free, he broke through every law imposed on himself, and established a government for which the term tyrannical is too mild. By one order he decreed that every alien entering the Territory should report to a magistrate within two hours of his arrival at any settled post, or be imprisoned. By another order he created the office of administrator on the estates of decedents, laid down the law for its management, and appointed an officer to fill it. Without the shadow of right he next began to exact fees for his private purse. Every man who took out a marriage license, every man who wished for the privilege of feeding travellers or selling liquors, must pay the Governor eight dollars for the license. Every man who wished to leave the Territory must first get a passport, costing four dollars. Galled by these exactions and by the illegal punishments prescribed by the penal code, the chief men of the Territory met,* and called on the people of every district or "beat" to choose members of a committee to lay their grievance before Congress. The petition thus presented charged the Governor with promulgating laws framed by himself, in direct violation. of the ordinance of 1787; with subjecting the people to illegal taxation and exorbitant fees; with exacting excessive fines, and imposing cruel and unconstitutional punishments; and asked that the Territory be raised to the second grade. Congress heard the prayer, declared the odious laws to be null and void,† gave the Territory a Legislative Assembly, and began an examination of the Governor's conduct, which came to nothing.# Against this act Georgia protested most vigorously, for every foot of the Territory belonged, she asserted, to her. But the House replied that, the United States having named commissioners under the act of 1798, and Georgia having done the same, the whole matter might safely be left with them. The three Commissioners for the United States were, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, * July 6, 1799. Annals of Congress, May 9, 1800. Act of May 2, 1800. #Annals of Congress, May 14, 1800; March 3, 1801. Report of the Committee of the House, February 28, 1801. 1802. THE GEORGIA CESSION. 131 and the Attorney-General.* They were nominated on the last day of December, 1799. They fell, therefore, under Jefferson's rule, that all appointments made after the result of the election was known should be treated as null. But he chose to find another reason for getting rid of them. They were Heads of Departments, and, construing the action of Adams to mean that the Commissioners should be chosen from the Heads of Departments, he removed them and nominated his own Secretaries and Attorney-General in their stead. † By these men an arrangement was quickly effected, and in April articles of agreement and cession were signed at Washington. Georgia then drew her present boundary on the west, and gave to the United States all lands between it and the Mississippi. In return the United States gave to Georgia a strip just south of Tennessee,# agreed to pay her a million and a quarter of dollars from the proceeds of land sales, agreed to extinguish the Indian title within her limits, agreed to admit the ceded Territory into the Union as a State, when the population numbered sixty thousand souls, and to confirm all grants recognized by Georgia as legal. Georgia on her part consented that five million acres should be set apart to satisfy claims she did not consider legal. No sooner was the agreement read than the most violent opposition was made to it both in the House and the Senate. One clause provided that, unless Georgia should refuse to ratify, or unless Congress should, within six months, repeal the act of 1800, the agreement was binding. As the session was nearing its end, no time was to be lost, and a motion was at once made to repeal. By a strictly sectional vote it was lost, and, Georgia soon after approving, the agreement became law. The Commissioners meantime went on to perform the second duty assigned them, examined the claims of settlers, received offers of compromise, and in February, 1803, reported. Claimants to land in the ceded territory they divided into two classes: those who were recognized by Georgia, and * Executive Journal of the Senate, December 31, 1799. + Executive Journal of the Senate, January 5, 1802. + April 24, 1802. American State Papers. Public Land, vol. i, pp. 125, 126. # This was part of the South Carolina cession of 1787. |