Page:History of the Supreme court of the United States (IA historyofsupreme00myeriala).pdf/262



The great case before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1809–1810 was that arising from the act of the Georgia Legislature, in 1796, repealing the Yazoo land grants of 35,000,000 acres, after conclusive evidence had shown that the empowering act had been obtained by bribery.

About a month before the act was repealed, when the whole country knew the sworn details of the bribery, and when it was well known that the incoming Legislature was pledged to annul the granting act, the Georgia Mississippi Company hastily sold to William Wetmore and other New England capitalists, mostly living in Boston and adjacent cities, a tract of their grant. This tract lay in what is now the State of Mississippi, and was estimated to contain the enormous total quantity of 11,380,000 acres. For this immense area, the New England Mississippi Company {for so the buyitig company called itself) agreed to pay the Georgia Mississippi Company ten cents an acre in gradual installments.

Who had suggested this sale in view of the fact that the Georgia Legislature was bound to revoke the grant? And upon what assurances did the Boston capitalists contract to buy the land, knowing as they did that revocation was imminent and certain?