Perhaps the most important legislation of the year was an Act approved April 30, which authorized the people of Ohio to form a Constitution and enter the Union; for not only was the admission of Ohio a formidable increase of power to the Northern democracy, but Gallatin inserted into the law a contract, which bound the State and nation to set aside the proceeds of a certain portion of the public lands for the use of schools and for the construction of roads between the new State and the seaboard. This principle, by which education and internal improvements were taken under the protection of Congress, was a violation of States-rights theories, against which, in after years, the strict constructionists protested; but in the first year of their sway Gallatin and the Northern democrats were allowed to manage their own affairs without interference. John Randolph would not vote for the admission of a new State, but Giles and Nicholson gave their votes for the bill, which passed without a murmur.
Gallatin's influence carried another point, more annoying to the Southern Republicans, although less serious. After years of wrangling, Georgia surrendered to the United States government all right and title to the territory which was afterward to become the States of Alabama and Mississippi. This immense region, shut from the Gulf of Mexico by the Spaniards, who owned every river-mouth, was inhabited by powerful Indian tribes, of whom the Georgians stood in terror. The Creeks and Cherokees, Choctaws and Chickasaws, owned the land, and were wards of the United States government. No one could say what was the value of Georgia's title, for it depended on her power to dispossess the Indians; but however good the title might be, the State would have been fortunate to make it a free gift to any authority strong enough to deal with the Creeks and Cherokees alone. In the year 1795, ignoring the claims of the national government, the Georgia Legislature sold its rights over twenty million acres of Indian land to four land-companies for the gross sum of five hundred thousand dollars. With one exception, every member of the Legislature appeared to have a pecuniary interest in the transaction; yet no one could say with certainty that the title was worth more than a half a million dollars, or indeed was worth anything to the purchasers, unless backed by the power of the United States government, which was not yet the case. Nevertheless, the people of Georgia, like the people of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, being at the moment in the fever of land-speculation, partly because they thought the land too cheap, partly because they believed their representatives to have been bribed, rose in anger against their Legislature and elected a new one, which declared the sales "null and void," burned the Yazoo Act, as it was called, in the public square of Louisville, and called a State Convention which made the repealing Act a part of the Constitution.
This series of measures completed the imbroglio. No man could say to whom the lands belonged. President Washington interposed on the part of the central government; the Indians quietly kept possession; hundreds of individuals in the Eastern States who had bought land-warrants from the Yazoo companies, claimed their land; while Georgia ignored President Washington, the Indians, the claimants, and the law, insisting that as a sovereign State she had the right to sell her own land, and to repudiate that sale for proper cause. In this case the State maintained that the sale was vitiated by fraud.
Doubtless the argument had force. If a sovereign State had not the power to protect itself from its own agents, it had, in joining the Union, entered into a relation different from anything hitherto supposed. Georgia put the utmost weight on the Rescinding Act as a measure of States-rights, and the true Virginia school made common cause with Georgia. Republicans who believed in the principles of 1798 considered the maintenance of the Rescinding Act a vital issue.
At length Congress took the matter in hand. Madison, Gallatin, and Levi Lincoln were appointed commissioners to make a settlement; and Senator James Jackson, the anti-Yazoo leader, supported by his colleague Senator Baldwin and by Governor Milledge, met them on behalf of Georgia,—a formidable array of high officials, whose whole authority was needed to give their decision weight. April 24, 1802, they reached a settlement so liberal to Georgia that Jackson and his associates took the risk of yielding more than they liked to concede. The western boundary was fixed to please the State; an immediate cession of land was obtained from the Indians, and the United States undertook to extinguish at their own expense, as early as they could reasonably do it, the Indian title to all lands within the limits of Georgia; the sum of $1,250,000 was to be paid to the State from the first net proceeds of land-sales; the ceded territory was to be admitted as a State, with slavery, whenever its population should reach sixty thousand; and in consideration for these advantages the Georgians unwillingly agreed that five million acres should be set aside for the purpose of compromising claims. The commissioners did not venture to affirm the legality of the Yazoo sale, but, while expressing the opinion that "the title of the claimants cannot be supported," declared that "the interest of the United States, the tranquillity of those who may hereafter inhabit that territory, and various equitable considerations which may be urged in favor of most of the present claimants, render it expedient to enter into a compromise on reasonable terms." With this concession to the principle of States-rights, the Georgians were appeased, and the commissioners hoped that all parties would be satisfied. The brunt of the negotiation fell upon Gallatin; but Madison found no difficulty in giving his support to the compromise.
These two measures greatly affected the Government and increased its power. The admission of Ohio into the Union gave two more senators to the Administration, and the acquisition of the southwestern territory relieved it from an annoying conflict of authority. Jefferson was henceforward better able to carry out his humane policy toward the Indians,—a policy which won him praise from some of his bitterest enemies; while Gallatin turned his energies toward developing the public-land system, in which he had, when in opposition, taken active interest. The machinery of government worked more easily every day.
1 The Virginia Report of 1799-1800, etc. Richmond, 1850, pp. 143-148
2 Giles to Jefferson, June 1, 1801. Hamilton's History, vii. 585 n.
3 Bayard to Hamilton, April 25, 1802; Hamilton's Works, vi. 534.
Personalities
When the session of Congress closed, May 3, the Administration was left to administer a system greatly reduced in proportions. In Jefferson's own words, he had "put the ship on her republican tack," where she was to show by the beauty of her motion the skill of her builders. Nothing remained, with respect to internal politics, but to restore harmony by winning recalcitrant New England, a task which he confidently hoped to accomplish within the course of the year. "If we are permitted," he wrote,1 in October, 1801, "to go on so gradually in the removals called for by the Republicans, as not to shock or revolt our well-meaning citizens who are coming over to us in a steady stream, we shall completely consolidate the nation in a short time,—excepting always the royalists and priests." So hopeful was he of immediate success, that he wrote to his French correspondent, Dupont de Nemours,2 in January, 1802: "I am satisfied that within one year from this time, were an election to take place between two candidates, merely Republican and Federal, where no personal opposition