Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

392 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
nation meeting was held in Oglethorpe County soon after the famous
Yazoo Act was passed, and one of the citizens on his way to the court
house stopped by to get a friend. He chanced to meet him at the gate,
and, seeing that he carried a rope, he inquired:
"What is that for?"
'' That is to hang Musgrove with,'' he replied; and he looked Span
ish daggers as he delivered himself of this information.
But Musgrove, who was one of the offending members of the Legis
lature of 1795, escaped the noose. He managed to catch some wind of
what was intended, and in this way succeeded in eluding Judge Lynch.
The crowd at the courthouse, .however, was more than ready to dispatch
him; and he was lucky to have found an asylum. In May, 1796, a con
vention of the people condemned the sale and urged the next Legisla
ture to rescind the obnoxious act. Senator Jackson's relentless opposi
tion inspired this action. It was also the ,chief factor in arousing the
state into a frenzy of excitement. The Yazoo sale became the dominant
issue in Georgia at this time, overshadowing every other question before
the people. To rescind the obnoxious act became the objective of a
most relentless crusade. On this issue, Jared Irwin, a Scotch-Irishman,
born in North Carolina, who was both a patriot of the Revolution and a
man of spotless reputation, became a candidate for governor. On this
issue, a State Legislature was chosen with an overwhelming preponder
ance of its members opposed to the sale, including James Jackson him
self, who took his seat in the House as a member from the County of ,
Chatham.
In February, 1796, the newly elected State Legislature passed its
famous Rescinding Act, to which Governor Irwin's signature was duly
attached, declaring null and void the Act of 1795 and repudiating in
toto the Yazoo sale. It was then decided to commit to the flames every
record, document and paper in any wise connected with this transaction.
There is, perhaps, nothing more dramatic in Georgia's history than
the scene enacted in front of the old capitol building, in Louisville, when
the records of the Yazoo conspiracy were burned. The traditional
accounts of this affair are somewhat variant. We will first give the
story which is told by Doctor White.* Says he: "This was executed in
a solemn manner. Tradition informs us that when the public func
tionaries were assembled in the State House Square, in Louisville, to
commit the registers of dishonor to the flames, a venerable old man,
whose head was whitened with the frosts of four-score winters, unknown
to any present, rode through the multitude, and made his way to the
officers of the government. Alighting from his horse, he commenced
an address, in which he stated that he had been led there by a desire
to see an act of justice performed; that he did not think that earthly
fire should be employed to manifest the indignation which the occasion
required, but the fire should come from heaven. With his trembling
hands, he took from his bosom, whilst a deathlike silence prevailed
amidst the throng, a burning glass; and, applying it to a heap of papers,
the conflagration was completed. Meanwhile the old man retired unper-
ceived, and no traces of him could afterwards be found."
'White's Statistics of Georgia," p. 347, Savannah, 1849.