fletcher v peck opinion

Fletcher set out to win the case.The Supreme Court unanimously (with a separate concurring opinion written by It is scarcely to be conceived that such a defence could be set up. It appears to me to bear strong evidence, upon the face of it, of being a mere feigned case. Great Britain yielded the principle of the royal right to disannex lands from the colonies, and acquiesced in the principle contended for by the United States, which was the old boundary of the several states.

The Supreme Court unanimously (with a separate concurring opinion written by William Johnson) ruled that the legislature's repeal of the law was unconstitutional. And on the third day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, a definitive treaty of peace was signed and concluded at Paris, by and between certain authorized commissioners on the part of the said belligerent powers, which was afterwards duly ratified and confirmed by the said two respective powers; by the first article of which treaty, the said King George the third, by the name of his Britannic majesty, acknowledged the aforesaid United States to be free, sovereign and independent states; that he treated with them as such, and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claim to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof; and by the second article of said treaty, the western boundary of the United States is a line drawn along the middle of the river Mississippi, until it shall intersect the northernmost part of the thirty-first degree of north latitude; and the southern boundary is a line drawn due east from the determination of the said line, in the latitude of thirty-one degrees north of the equator, to the middle of the river Apalachicola or Catahouchee; thence along the middle thereof to its junction with the Flint river; thence straight to the head of St. Mary's river; and thence down along the middle of St. Mary's river to the Atlantic Ocean.And the jury further find, that in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, the Congress of the United States did instruct the said commissioners, authorized on the part of the United States to negotiate and conclude the treaty aforesaid, that they should claim in this negotiation, respecting the boundaries of the United States, that the most northern part of the thirty-first degree of north latitude should be agreed to be the southern boundary of the United States, on the ground that that was the southern boundary of the colony of Georgia; and that the river Mississippi should be agreed to be the western boundary of the United States, on the ground that the colony of Georgia and other colonies, now states of the United States, were bounded westward by that river; and that the commissioners on the part of the United States did, in said negotiation, claim the same accordingly, and that on those grounds the said southern and western boundaries of the United States were agreed to by the commissioners on the part of the King of Great Britain. An executory contract is one in which a party binds himself to do, or not to do, a particular thing; such was the law under which the conveyance was made by the governor. The reservation for the use of the Indians appears to be a temporary arrangement suspending, for a time, the settlement of the country reserved, and the powers of the royal governor within the territory reserved, but is not conceived to amount to an alteration of the boundaries of the colony. The land when purchased of the Indiana is to be purchased for the benefit of the United States. How far a court of justice would, in any case, be competent, on proceedings instituted by the state itself, to vacate a contract thus formed, and to annul rights required, under that contract, by third persons having no notice of the improper means by which it was obtained, is a question which the court would approach with much circumspection. Georgia never had title in those lands. The case, as made out in the pleadings, is simply this. Which report being read, congress resolved, that congress agree to the said report.The jury further find, that in the year of our lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three, Thomas Jefferson, Esq.

to be captain-general and commander in chief in and over said colony of Georgia in America, with the following boundaries, viz. It then sets forth the act of the legislature, and avers that the lands, described in the declaration, are included within those to be sold by the said act; and that the To this plea the plaintiff demurred; and the defendant joined in the demurrer.If it be admitted that sufficient matter is shown, in this plea, to have justified the defendant in denying the breach alleged in the count, it must also be admitted that he has not denied it. But the grant, when issued, conveyed an estate in fee-simple to the grantee, clothed with all the solemnities which law can bestow. But I do it on a general principle, on the reason and nature of things: a principle which will impose laws even on the deity.A contrary opinion can only be maintained upon the ground that no existing legislature can abridge the powers of those which will succeed it.