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GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 389
to render a man. obnoxious was to say that he was connected with the
Yazoo fraud. For this revolution in public sentiment credit must be
given to an individual who stood pre-eminent in the state at this time—
the embodiment of its awakened conscience—Senator James Jackson.
Divested of all the qualifying adjectives with which we are wont to speak
of this transaction, it was nothing more or less than a deal in wild lands,
with which some of the leading men of the state were connected. The
Supreme Court of the United States adopted this view of the matter.
Such was likewise the position taken by Hon. N. J. Hammond, in a
strong paper read by him before the Georgia Bar Association at Warm
Springs, on July 2, 1896. There never lived a man whose moral sense
was more acute than Colonel Hammond's. He was not only a man of
high character but a man of vigorous intellect, who had served the state
as attorney-general and as member of Congress. In the national arena,
Colonel Hammond was the recognized peer of men like John G. Carlisle
and Samuel J. Randall. His paper before the Georgia Bar Association
was read on the centennial anniversary of the Rescinding Act. He ap
proached the subject, therefore, in an academic spirit. But Colonel
Hammond, after carefully sifting and weighing all the evidence, was
unable to escape, the conclusion that Senator Jackson, a consummate
political strategist, was merely playing to the grandstand in the dramatic
fight which he made upon the Yazooists. But more of this later.
To obtain an adequate understanding of this dramatic chapter, we
must go back to the Treaty of Paris. This instrument signed in 1783 left
Georgia in nominal possession of an extensive area reaching back to the
Mississippi River. But there were no white settlements in this western
domain. Only a small portion of Georgia's territory lying east of the
Oconee River was then occupied by the whites. There was quite a belt
of land then known as British West Florida, but afterwards confirmed
to Georgia, the titles to which were at this time disputed by Spain and
also by the United States Government, as we have already seen in a
former chapter. South Carolina likewise claimed these lands as a part
of the territory described in her own charter. In fact the state's owner
ship of all these western lands according to Mr. Phillips consisted
merely of the right to take possession of them after extinguishing the
Indian titles.*
Moreover, these lands were of little value. It was long before .the
days of the iron horse, of the electric telegraph, and of the various mod
ern agencies of expansion. In fact, most of the states considered it a
wise thing to rid themselves of trouble for the future by ceding to the
general Government as early as 1787 all claims held by them to western
lands. But Georgia was not willing to make an unqualified gift of her
unoccupied domain. She offered to surrender a belt of territory 140
miles in width, occupying the lower half of her territory west of the
Chattahoochee. But conditions were attached to the offer. The state
was to be confirmed in the ownership of lands which it did not cede
and was to receive a reimbursement of $171,428, money expended in
quieting the Indians. Congress rejected the offer of Georgia, but
agreed to accept a cession, if all the lands west of the Chattahoochee
* "Georgia and State Bights," U. B. Phillips, p. 29.