On the other side they were met with the argument, that the Legislature was sovereign and the supreme power of the State, and might rightfully do anything, not forbidden in the Constitution, pertaining to sovereignty, which they in their wisdom might deem essential to the general welfare; that the territory included in the grant to Oglethorpe and company was entirely too extended, and that by a sale a new State or States would be formed, which would increase the political power of the South—especially in the United States Senate, where she greatly needed representation to counterbalance the influence of the small States of the North in that body. These arguments were specious, but it was well understood they were only meant to justify a vote for the measure which corruption had secured.
The Act was passed by a bare majority of both branches of the Legislature, and the sale consummated. Before the passage of this measure, the will of the people had been sufficiently expressed in the indignant outburst of public feeling, as to leave no doubt upon the minds of the corrupt representatives that they had not only forfeited the public confidence, but had actually imperilled their personal safety. Upon the return to their homes, after the adjournment, they were not only met with universal scorn, but with inappeasable rage. Some of the most guilty were slain; some had their houses burned over their heads, and others fled the State; one was pursued and killed in Virginia, and all not only entailed upon themselves infamy, but also upon their innocent posterity; and to-day, to be known as the descendant of a Yazoo man is a badge of disgrace. The deed, however, was done: how to undo it became an agitating question. The Legislature next ensuing was elected pledged to repeal the odious Act; and upon its convening, all made haste to manifest an ardent zeal in this work.
At the time of the passage of this Act, the Legislature sat in Augusta, and the Governor who by the Act was empowered to make the sale was George Mathews. Mathews was an Irishman by birth, and was very illiterate, but a man of strong passions and indomitable will. During the war of the Revolution he had, as a partisan officer, gained some distinction, and in the upper counties exercised considerable influence. Many anecdotes are related of his intrepidity and daring, and quite as many of his extraordinary orthography. At the battle of Eutaw Springs, in South Carolina, he was severely wounded, at the moment when the Continental forces were retiring to a better position. A British soldier, noticing some vestiges of a uniform upon him, lifted his musket to stab him with the bayonet; his commander caught the weapon, and angrily demanded, "Would you murder a wounded officer? Forward, sir!" Mathews, turning upon his back, asked, "To whom do I owe my life?" "If you consider it an obligation, sir, to me," answered the lieutenant. Mathews saw the uniform was British, and furiously replied, "Well, sir, I want you to know that I scorn a life saved by a d——d Briton." The writer had the anecdote from a distinguished citizen of Georgia, who was himself lying near by, severely wounded, and who in one of his sons has given to Georgia a Governor.
General Wade Hampton, George Walker, William Longstreet, Zachariah Cox, and Matthew McAllister were the parties most active in procuring the passage of the Yazoo Act. That bribery was extensively practised, there is no doubt, and the suspicion that it even extended to the Executive gained credence as a fact, and was the cause of preventing his name ever being given to a county in the State: and it is a significant fact of this suspicion, and also of the great unpopularity of the Act, that to this day every effort to that end has failed. No act of Governor Mathews ever justified any such suspicion. As Governor of the State, and believing the sovereign power of the State was in the Legislature, and consequently the power to dispose of the public domain, he only approved the Act as the State's Executive, and fulfilled the duties assigned to him by the law. But suspicion fastened upon him, and its effects remain to this day.
The pertinacious discussions between the parties purchasing and those opposed to the State's selling and her authority to sell, created immense excitement, and pervaded the entire State. The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States was invoked in the case of Fletcher versus Peck, which settled the question of the power of the State to sell the public domain, and the validity of the sale made by the State to the Georgia Company. In the meantime the Legislature of Georgia had repealed the law authorizing the Governor to sell. This decision of the Supreme Court brought about an amicable adjustment of the difficulties between the Company and the State, with the Government of the United States as a third party.
The excitement was not so much on account of the sale, though this was bitter, as of the corruption which procured it. The test of public confidence and social respect was opposition to the Yazoo fraud. Every candidate at the ensuing election for members of the Legislature was compelled to declare his position on the subject of repealing this Act, and, almost to a man, every one who believed in the power of the State to sell, and that rights had vested in the purchasers and their assigns, was defeated.
James Jackson, a young, ardent, and talented man, who had in very early life, by his abilities and high character, so won the public confidence that he had been elected Governor of the State, when he was ineligible because of his youth, was at this time a member of Congress. He made a tour through the State, preaching a crusade against the corrupt Legislature, and denouncing those who had produced and profited by this corruption, inflaming the public mind almost to frenzy. He resided in Savannah, and was at the head of the Republican or Jeffersonian party, which was just then being organized in opposition to the administration of John Adams, the successor of Washington. His parents had emigrated from England, and fixed their home in Savannah, where young Jackson was born, and where, from the noble qualities of his nature, he had become immensely popular.
Talent and virtuous merit at that period was the passport to public confidence. Had it continued to be, we should never have known the present deplorable condition of the country, with the Government sinking into ruin ere it has reached the ten o'clock of national life.
His Shibboleth was, that the disgrace of the State must be wiped out by the repeal of the Yazoo Act; and repeal rang from every mouth, from Savannah to the mountains. Jackson resigned his seat in Congress, and was elected a member of the Legislature. Immediately upon the assembling of this body, a bill was introduced repealing the odious Act, and ordering the records containing it to be burned. This was carried out to the letter. Jackson, heading the Legislature and the indignant public, proceeded in procession to the public square in Louisville, Jefferson County, where the law and the fagots were piled; when, addressing the assembled multitude, he denounced the men who had voted for the law as bribed villains—those who had bribed them, and the Governor who had signed it; and declared that fire from heaven only could sanctify the indignation of God and man in consuming the condemned record of accursed crime. Then, with a Promethean or convex glass condensing the sun's rays, he kindled the flame which consumed the records containing the hated Yazoo Act.
Jackson was a man of ordinary height, slender, very erect in his carriage, with red hair and intensely blue eyes. His manners were courteous, affable, and remarkable for a natural dignity which added greatly to his influence with the people. He was the model from which was grown that chivalry and nobility of soul and high bearing so characteristic of the people of Southern Georgia. In truth, the essence of his character seemed subtilly to pervade the entire circle in which he moved, inspiring a purity of character, a loftiness of honor, which rebuked with its presence