The Life of John Marshall Volume III Part 71

[1446] Perez Morton and Gideon Granger. Morton, like Granger, was a Republican and a devoted Jeffersonian. He went annually to Was.h.i.+ngton to lobby for the Yazoo claimants and a.s.siduously courted the President. In Boston the Federalists said that his political activity was due to his personal interest in the Georgia lands. (See _Writings, J. Q. A._: Ford, III, 51-53.)

[1447] _Memorial of the Agents of the New England Mississippi Company to Congress, with a Vindication of their t.i.tle at Law annexed_.

[1448] This doc.u.ment, issued in pamphlet form in 1804, is highly important. There can be little doubt that Marshall read it attentively, since it proposed a submission of the acrimonious controversy to the Supreme Court.

[1449] The Postmaster-General was not made a member of the Cabinet until 1829.

[1450] See _supra_, chap. IV.

[1451] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1023.

[1452] Cutler, II, 182.

[1453] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1024. To such extravagance and inaccuracy does the frenzy of combat sometimes drive the most honest of men. When he made these a.s.sertions, John Randolph knew that scores of purchasers from the land companies had invested in absolute good faith and before Georgia had pa.s.sed the rescinding act. His tirade done, however, this inexplicable man spoke words of sound though misapplied statesmans.h.i.+p.

[1454] _Ib._ 1029-30.

[1455] Referring to Granger's speculations in the Western Reserve.

[1456] The Yazoo deal.

[1457] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1031.

[1458] Findley was one of those who led the fight against the ratification of the Const.i.tution in the Pennsylvania Convention. (See vol. I, 327-38, of this work.)

[1459] James Wilson.

[1460] James Gunn.

[1461] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1080-89.

[1462] Cutler, II, 182.

[1463] _Annals_, 8th Cong. 2d Sess. 1100-08.

[1464] _Ib._ 1173.

[1465] See _supra_, chap. IV.

[1466] _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 343.

[1467] See vol. I, 224-41, of this work.

[1468] _Ib._ 191, 196; and vol. II, 206.

[1469] Martin _vs._ Hunter's Lessees; see vol. IV, chap, III, of this work.

[1470] _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 381; also see _ib._ 389, 392, 404-05, 408-09, 417-19.

[1471] Haskins, 38.

[1472] Story to Fay, May 30, 1807, Story, I, 150-53; and see Cabot to Pickering, Jan. 28, 1808. Lodge: _Cabot_, 377.

[1473] _Annals_, 10th Cong. 1st Sess. 1601-13.

[1474] See Abstract, _Am. State Papers, Public Lands_, I, 220-34.

[1475] Records, U.S. Circuit Court, Boston.

[1476] Judge Chappell a.s.serts that the pleadings showed, on the face of them, that the case was feigned. (See Chappell, 135-36.)

[1477] Fletcher _vs._ Peck, 6 Cranch, 87-94.

[1478] Fletcher _vs._ Peck, 6 Cranch, 127.

[1479] Justices Chase and Cus.h.i.+ng were absent because of illness.

[1480] _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 546-47.

[1481] _Memoirs, J. Q. A._: Adams, I, 115.

On this occasion Martin was so drunk that the court adjourned to prevent him from completing his argument. (See _Md. Hist. Soc. Fund-Pub. No.

24_, 35.) This was the first time that drink seems to have affected him in the discharge of his professional duties. (See _supra_, footnote to 185-86.)

[1482] 6 Cranch, 123.

[1483] 6 Cranch, 128-29.

[1484] 6 Cranch, 130-31.

[1485] _Ib._ 132-33.

[1486] See vol. I, 202, of this work.

[1487] 6 Cranch, 133-34.

[1488] 6 Cranch, 137-38.

[1489] _Ib._ 139.

[1490] 6 Cranch, 147-48.

[1491] At the risk of iteration, let it again be stated that, in Fletcher _vs._ Peck, Marshall declared that a grant by a State, accepted by the grantees, is a contract; that the State cannot annul this contract, because the State is governed by the National Const.i.tution which forbids any State to pa.s.s any law "impairing the obligation of contracts"; that even if the contract clause were not in the Const.i.tution, fundamental principles of society protect vested rights; and that the courts cannot inquire into the motives of legislators no matter how corrupt those motives may be.

[1492] For the first two decades of the National Government land frauds were general. See, for example, letter of Governor Harrison of Indiana, Jan. 19, 1802, _Am. State Papers, Public Lands_, I, 123; report of Michael Leib, Feb. 14, 1804, _ib._ 189; and letter of Amos Stoddard, Jan. 10, 1804, _ib._ 193-94.

[1493] Marbury _vs._ Madison, the Burr trial, and Fletcher _vs._ Peck.

[1494] _Annals_, 11th Cong. 2d Sess. 1881.