islature and under her name. Though the hue and cry
against the enormity was first raised, as we have seen, at
the Federal Capital and by the Federal Executive and Con-
gress, yet here at home, the shock was far the deepest and
most violent. It was here the crime struck with its most
heinous, deadly effect, despoiling the State at once of a vast
public property and her precious public honor, not only
robbing her of invaluable territories, but doing it under cir-
cumstances that brought imputation on her national patriot-
ism and magnanimity, doing it, moreover, by debauching
her trusted public servants, whom she had chosen to be the
guardians, not betrayers of her high interests and her fair
fame. Thus had that crime wounded her in a point dearer
than landed or monied wealth, tarnished her reputation, de-
filed at its young fountain head the eternal stream of her
history and polluted the waters mingled with which her
name was to go down to future times, and especially to her
own children forever.
I design not recounting minutely the oft told, familiar
story of the State's strong sovereign action in resentment and
redress of this celebrated wrong. That story, at ODCC simple
and striking, has ever been so much an attractive theme to
writers and talkers as to have become thread bare and to re-
coil from any thing like a labored handling now. Prelimi-
narily, however, it should be told that the first effect of the
sale on the mass of the people was stunning stupefaction and
amazement. They found difficulty in believing that the
deed had been done. The entire failure of the measure be-
fore the preceding Legislature and the entire quietude and
silence in regard to it that had ensued, had rendered them
114 THE YAZOO FRAUD.
unsuspecting and secure, and they had let the subject pass
off from their minds and it occurred not to them that it had
not been equally dropt by the speculating Companies.
They were unaware that these latter had been during
the whole interim stealthily, yet industriously, at work every
where, both in and out of Georgia, and had really gotten into
their hands the complete mastery of the game before they
again came out to light and began to take open steps to-
wards their object. It is wonderful what a profound privacy
they had succeeded in maintaining in their widely ramified
operations, a privacy kept up to the last possible moment.
Even after their b : ll was introduced, there was no notoriety
beyond Augusta and its neighborhood that such a measure
was on hand. No publicity had been given to it, no an-
nouncement made of it by any name or title pointing to
its character or contents. A lying title concealed its true
nature which consequently was not indicated by anything on
the journal of either House or in the newspapers, which
were wont to give only lists of the titles of the bills intro-
duced.
The consequence of all which was that the people awoke
to find themselves outraged and robbed without having had
any notice of the design or warning of their danger or the
least chance of outcry and resistance. At first they were
likewise ignorant of the turpitude of the means by which
the wrong had been effected, or what strangers, or who
among themselves except the guilty members of the Legis-
lature and the few grantees named in the act, were concern-
ed in its perpetration. They soon, however, became better
and bitterly enlightened. The astounding discovery broke
upon them that the cancerous fibres of the monstrous transac-
tion pervaded not only the State but the United States, and
embraced they knew not how many powerful and influential
names and shrewd, unscrupulous characters. They were
especially struck with the successful pains that had been
taken to enlist in its interest all the men in Georgia who
were prominent enough to attract the base courtship of the
THE YAZOO FRAUD. 115
Yazooists and pliant enongh to become their tools and ac-
complices. Most of those to whom the people would natur-
ally have looked to become their leaders and to champion
their cause in this great emergency, were either bought up
and subsidized on the side of the enemy by their own inte-
rests or paralyzed by their relations to interested parties.
Besides, not many men were there, indeed, who were at all
competent to such leadership and championship as was
wanted. Nothing short of the highest courage and the
greatest energy, reputation, talents and self devotion could
constitute the necessary qualifications. He who should give
himself to the people's service on this occasion had need of
a charmed life and an invincible soul, as well as of a con-
centrated and commanding mind : For assuredly it was a
lion's den he would have to enter, a liery furnance through
which he would have to pass. And by universal concession
there was but one man in the State, in all respects equal
and fitted to the exigency, and who at the same time had
kept himself pure and intact, and but for the extraordinary
self-abnegation and lofty, patriotic intrepidity and devotion
of that one man, the people would have been without a
leader and champion, such as the case imperatively required.
That man was General James Jackson, the noblest and
most admirable name in the history of Georgia, then a
member of the United States Senate as Mr. Few's succes-
sor and General Gunn's colleague.
I do not know that I can open the part acted by this ex-
traordinary man against the Yazoo Fraud better than by
recalling a personal reminiscence of my own full half a cen-
tury old and more. It was at Hancock Superior Court, at
April term, 1823, a date at which the Governor was still
chosen by the Legislature, and as the name of one of those
understood to be aspiring to the office was to be found in the
old public documents as the owner of a few Yazoo subshares,
conversation began to be somewhat turned to the subject of
the Yazoo Fraud and young men, especially, were keen in-
quirers. It was under these circumstances that a number
116 THK YAZOO FRAUD.
of the junior members of the bar were sitting one night
after supper in the large, pleasant room, up stairs, which
our good host, William G. Springer, whose soul contended
with his body, which should be biggest, had assigned to us
across the street, when we were agreeably startled by
Judge Dooly* entering to pay us a visit, a courtesy on the
part of the Judges not uncommon in those days. The
Judge, whose rniud was a rich treasury of the miscellanies
of Georgia, past and present, and whose manner of saying
everything was singularly plain, condensed and incisive,
was soon drawn out on the Yazoo Fraud. My recollection
has ever since been perfectly distinct of the following remark
made by him in the course of his conversing : " The peo-
ple," he said, " were generally against the Yazoo sale, but
the rich and leading men were mostly for it, because, in
most instances, they or some of their friends or relations
were interested in it. The people wanted to get rid of it,
but did not know how to do it. They had nobody to lead
and contrive for them, and Gen. Jackson resigned his seat
in the United States Senate and came home and ran for the
Legislature in Chatham county, and was elected to lead and
contrive for the people."
Such were the very words of Judge Dooley to us young
men about Gen. Jackson words which struck me greatly
and imprinted themselves indelibly, enkindling my mind
with a most vivid and exalted conception of the illustrious
character, t) whom they related and making him from that
moment a study and almost an idolatry to me. The annals
of mankind teem with the names of heroes, martyrs, self-
sacrificers, martial, moral, religious men who have held
their lives and their ease as nothing in the scale against
glory, duty, honor ; and yet among them all I am unable
* Whoever may feel curious as to what sort of physiognomy belonged to that
very striking man, John M. Dooly, long the Judge of the Northern Circuit^
the greatest wit as all agreed, and generally conceded to have been also the
greatest judicial intellect of his day, may see a wonderfully true likeness of
him (Adonised, however,) in the portrait of the celebrated painter, Gilbert
Stuart, in the 1st Volume of the American Portrait Gallery.
THE YA7X)0 FRAUD. 117
to recollect any instance parallel and fully up to this con-
duct of Gen. Jackson so pointedly stated by Judge Dooly,
so barely and sleepily mentioned by history. Certainly our
own country, vast and diversified as it is, has hitherto fur-
nished nothing equal to it or like it, nor does it promise ac-
cording to present symptoms ever to do so. Does any man
believe that there is now to be found in all the low minded
ranks of power and of the public service a single bosom in
which even a dormant possibility dwells of such sublime,
self-denying, unselfish patriotism? What United States
Senator would now resign his seat with yet four years to run
and come homa and seek the humblest Representative post
known to our system of Government, and all for the sake of
the people arid their rights and vindication ?
Gen. Jackson, however, had given some evidence on a
previous occasion in his life of his capability of this neplns
ultra of public virtue. In 1V88, when but thirty years old,
he had been elected to the office of Governor of the State, and
declined accepting it upon the ground of lacking age and ex-
perience. It was in full keeping with this act of noble, pa-
triotic modesty and humility that he should afterwards in
1*795, have so subjugated an ambition of the most ardent
and lofty type as to give up the highest and become a candi-
date for the lowest place in political service, because he be-
held his beloved Georgia in a mighty trouble in which she
needed the sacrifice from him, and in which by making it he
could do so much more and better for her, although at the
cost of doing so much less and worse for himself.
For well he knew not only what he was surrendering, but
also to what he was exposing himself when he magnani-
mously resolved to descend from the high round of the polit-
ical ladder to which he had climbed down to the very bot-
tom, there to scuffle and fight, "lead and contrive for the
people," both against all the bad men who had combined,
and all the good men who had been misled, to become the
State's betrayers and robbers, or the supporters of its betray-
ers and robbers. He knew what enemies he was necessitat-
118 THE YAZOO FRAUD.
ing himself to make and how deeply they would he enven-
omed against him, and that their thirst for his hlood would
be only less keen than their greed for the prey he was "bent
on snatching from their grasp. He knew, in fine, that from
the first moment to the last of the work on which he was
entering, he would have to carry his life in his hand, although
the ultimate fate that awaited him lay concealed from hu-
man view, and none could foresee that a life so dear and in-
valuable was destined to pass away, alas ! so prematurely
a slow-wasting sacrifice, long offered up on the altar of Geor-
gia's interest and honor.*
From the first Gen. Jackson had been outspoken and ve-
hement in his denunciations of the sale., arid had contributed
greatly to rousing the popular rage against it. This, even
before he had doffed his Senatorial robes for a candidacy for
the State Legislature, and thereby formally entered the lists
as the people's leader and champion against a host of powerful
and unscrupulous men whose mortal fear and hatred he
thenceforward incurred. The people at once hailed him and
rallied to him, and it was not long before under his brave
*Col. Benton, in his Abridgement of the Congressional Debates, Vol. TII.
twice comments upon Gen. Jackson and the cause of his death. At p. 338 is
the following note at the close of the debate on the Yazoo Claims :
"Mr. Randolph was the great opposer of these claims in Congress and Gen-
| eral Jackson their great opposer in Georgia. It was he, who aroused the
I feeling that overthrew the General Assembly who made the grant, and elected
I the Legislature which annulled the Act, and burned the record of it. He was
in the Senate of the United States with James Gunn, the Senator alluded to in
the debate as being engaged in the Fraud, and lost his life in the last of the
many duels which his opposition to that measure brought upon him."
And again at page 4(35, in a note to the proceedings in Congress on the occa- '
sion of Gen. Jackson's death, March 19th, 1806, Col. Benton says among other
things : "He was a man of marked character, h'gh principle and strong temper-
ament honest, patriotic, brave, hating tyranny, oppression and meanness in
in every form ; the bold denouncer of crime in high as well as in low places;
a ready speaker, and as ready with his pistol as his tongue, and involved
in many duels on account of his hot opposition to criminal measures. The de-
feat of the Yazoo Fraud was the most signal act of his Legislative life, for
which he paid the penalty of his life, dying of wounds received in the last o*
the many duels, which his undaunted attacks upon that measure brought upon
him."
THE YAZCO FRAUD. 119
auspices and their fierce enthusiasm the battle into which
they had plunged was substantially won. For the storm
quickly overspread the State with a violence that appalled the
Yazooiats and their myrmydons, and they everywhere slunk
and cowered before it long before the election day came.
But still Jackson's hot and heavy blows were not mitigated,
nor did the people's vengeful energy slacken. It was more
than even the bravo, Gunn, could brave or bear. He became
utterly paralyzed and annihilated, as it were, by the intense,
crushing detestation of which he was sensible of having be-
come the object, and we hear no more of him whatever ex-
cept that he continued to occupy to the last day of his new,
basely gotten terra, the seat in the National Senate, which
he at once obscurely filled and flagrantly dishonored. The
bribed Senators and Representatives in the Legislature met
from their constituents a fate similar to that of their brib-
ing, bullying chief. The tempest of public indignation
against them was such as made not a few of them tremble
for their personal safety on their return home. But their
fears were groundless. Such was the orderly, law abiding
character of our ancestors, except in cases where society is
obliged to resort to the ''higher law" for its purgation and
protection, that, content with the sort of penalty which
God inflicted on Cain, they simply branded their culprit
legislators and consigned them to political death and social
ostracism and infamy.
In making this statement I am not unaware that a sur-
mise older than my earliest recollection, indeed, older than
myself, long existed in some minds, making the case of
Roberts Thomas, the recreant Senator from Hancock, whose
high-priced vote turned the scale in favor of the Yazoo sale,
an exception to this eulogium on the people's moderation.
But even on the worst supposition anybody ever entertained
(which was that Jonathan Adams, or some other person,
whose dark secret was never suspected, followed him from
Hancock in his flight and overtook and assassinated him in
South Carolina) it was but the crime of an individual to
120 THE YAZOO FRAUD.
which the public was in no way party or privy. An uncon-
cealed, formal flogging, "hugging a sapling,"* meanwhile,
or some other still lighter corporal punishment and disgrace
was all he ever had to fear (and it was this fear that made
him flee) from his incensed constituents who never dreamed
of anything harsher against him than his ignorainous ex-
pulsion from their midst. Not a man in Hancock ever har-
bored such a thought as that of pursuing and assassinating
him after his flight, f The most probable theory of his
murder is that it was procured by some arch fiend among
the Yazooists. Thomas' vacilation, timidity and extortion
had already excited their displeasure and uneasiness before
he gave that vote for them, which they were obliged to have
at any price, because if given the other way it would be fa-
tal to -them. His vote obtained and the law passed, their
uneasiness about him was still kept alive by his indiscre-
tions before he left Augusta and by his coward weakness
after he got home. And when soon afterwards he took to
flight, thereby proclaiming not only his fears, but, as it was
*Sallard's Jlffidavit, American Stale Papers, Public Lands, Vol. I, p. 149.
fBoth White in his Statistics of Georgia, page 50, and Gov. Gilmer in his
book, entitled "Georgians," take it for granted that Thomas met his late from
the hands of some of his constituents. Gov. Gilmer, though not naming Jona-
than Adams, indicates him clearly to every Hancock man as the assassin.
The logic which inculpated Adams, ran in this wise : "The Adamses were a
strong charactered and very leading, patriotic family in the county and were
particularly indignant at Thomas' Yazoo vote and against Thomas himself for it.
Thomas fled and was assassinated. After which Jona. Adams fell into bad health
and became a great hypochondriac for a number of years. Therefore, some
people wondered whether he had not something dreadful on his conscience and
whether that something was not the killing of Thomas." Such was the syllo-
gism that I heard occasionally whispered in Hancock in my boyhood, of
which it will be seen that the premises being weak, the conclusion is a mere
doubt or wonder. By the time it reached Oglethorpe county it must have be-
come a positive belief or Gov. Gilmer would not have put it in his book as a
fact. This sort of reasoning was liable, however, to refutation and was actu-
ally refuted by Adams' eventual recovery of his health, mental and physical.
Gov. Troup was in Congress during the Yazoo discussions, and in a speech
quoted by Gen. Harden in his Life of him, allndes to the suspicion that Thomas'
assassination was contrived by the Yazooists. Such is my recollection, but I
have not the book at hand.
THE YAZOO FRAUD. 121
argued, his and their guilt also, which they were solicitous
should not be noised abroad, at least until they should have
time to sell off their ill-acquired lands, under the im-
pulse of malignant fear, fury and precaution, they contrived
his death by the hand of some hired assassin who dogged
him from Augusta beyond doubt. For it was the very night
after passing through that city that he was killed. And
thus was stilled forever that tongue from which alone they
had fears of the early betrayal of the yet secret crime of the
corruption they had used, and the continued secrecy of which
long enough for their purposes they madly hoped might be
secured by the prompt taking off of one whom they regard-
ed with suspicion and fear as having it in his power and as
being weakly liable to make damaging disclosures against
them. So does crime breed crime, the progeny often, more
hideous than the parent, as all prose and verse, all history
and observation have always proclaimed.
But although there was so much popular excitement which
found expression through public meetings, the presentments
of Grand Juries, the voice of the Press, and by petitions and
memorials from every quarter which, numerously signed,
were sent up to a Constitutional Convention about to be held
at Louisville in the ensuing month of May,* yet the people
never fully understood how bad and desperate the state of
things was, till after that Body had met and proved itself
false to all their expectations. Then it was that the
veil was entirely lifted, disclosing a spectacle for which they
were unprepared, the spectacle of the Convention itself act-
ing as an accessory to the Yazoo Fraud and playing strong-
ly into its hands. This great and new fangled treachery,
more infamous than that of the Yazoo Legislature in propor-
tion as a Constitutional Convention is a Body more exalted
and more highly trusted than an ordinary Legislative As-
sembly, has long since died out of the minds of men. But
it becomes necessary even at this late date to disinter it from
*Benton's Jbridg. Debates, Vol. Ill, p. 325. Whites Statistic*, p. 51.
122 THE YAZOO FRAUD.
its long oblivion as forming a part not less material than re-
pulsive of the odious history through which we are wading.
The Convention,- then, of May, 179o, was the child of the
Constitution of 1789, a Constitution rather hurriedly gotten
up by our forefathers to meet the advent of the newly launched
Federal system of the United States which Georgia was among
the first to greet and accept. Care, however, was wisely
taken by the State's Constitution makers of '89 to insert in
their hasty framework of government a provision for its own
early revision and emendation. That provision required
that at the election of members of the Legislature in 1794,
delegates should also be chosen, three from each county, to
meet at such time and place as the Legislature should ap-
point to deliberate and determine what alterations and amend-
ments should be made in the Constitution. It thus happen-
ed that this election of members of the Convention took place
at the same time and by the same constituencies and under
all the same circumstances and influences with the election
of the members of the Yazoo Legislature, and the specula-
tors were altogether too shrewd a set of men not to see that
it was best to have the Convention as well as the Legislature
on their side. They took their measures accordingly.
Great though quiet and secret pains were used to pack the
Convention with their friends and with persons thought to
be accessible to the influences they could bring to bear.
They wanted, too, at least one master mind and commanding
character there to watch over their interests, to lead and
manage for them and to keep things in such a channel as
would be for their advantage. They found and returned
such a person in George Walker, of Richmond county.
This gentleman ranked among the first men in the State for
talents, address, popularity and high future promise, and
was, by all odds, the very foremost of the Georgians, whom
the Yazooists had succeeded in enlisting in their scheme.
lie was one of their leading partners and his name stands
out with those of James Gunn and Matthew McAllister,
THE YAZOO FRAUD. 123
printed in the Act as one of the original Grantees of the
Georgia Company.
Having such advantages as these on their side in the com-
position of the Convention and perfect concert and under-
standing among themselves besides, the Yazooists found it
not difficult to carry things their own way in that body over
the not very small sprinkling of good and true, but not
particularly effective men, who were their fellow members.
And their way and ivish ivas to favor and protect, the Yazoo
speculation and save it from harm. Ignoring almost entirely
the high duty of amending the Constitution for which they
had been called together, they devoted themselves to aiding
and screening the great Fraud. Their whole doings are dis-
tent with internal evidence of this aim. It is apparent in
what they did and in what they did not do. There is noth-
ing which the speculators could have asked or wanted which
either through the action or non-action of the Convention
they did not get ; whilst of all that the people asked for
and expected, not a whit was granted or done. What was
most desirable for the Yazooists was plenty of undisturbed
time for their vast and scattered operations of resale of their
lands, and this the Convention secured to them as far as
possible by changing the meeting of the Legislature from
the old time, the first Monday in November, to the second
Tuesday in January, for which change no reason can be im-
agined except to give the Yazooists more than two full ad-
ditional months to work off their lands before they could be
overtaken and cut down by the dreaded rescinding vengeance
of another and purer Legislature. Thus much as to what
the Convention did. Still more strikingly sinister was the
character of what it refused to do. To it as the most com-
petent and all-potent Body known to our political system as
well as the earliest in point of time to which an appeal
could be made, the people had made their loud appeals.
Thither they had sent up their complaints and petitions,
their protests and fulminations against the sale, accompanied
by abundant proofs of the now discovered corrupt means by
124 THE YAZOO FRAUD.
which it was procured, justly regarding the Convention as
clothed with transcendent powers which it was bound to