case blog #2: Fletcher v Peck

In 1795, the Georgia state legislature passed a land grant awarding territory to four private companies. These lands were known as the Yazoo land territory, present day Mississippi and Alabama, the transaction was known as the Yazoo land act. These lands were sparsely populated and named after the Yazoo Tribe of Native Americans. Every member but one in the Georgia Legislature had been bribed into selling the 35 million acres to the private companies at two cents per  acre totaling five-hundred-thousand, this became known as the Yazoo Scandal.

Most of the legislators lost the following election and the new legislature passed a statute in 1796 essentially nullifying the transactions. In 1796 the new Georgia legislature voided the law and declared all rights and claims under it to be invalid. In 1800, John Peck acquired land that was part of the original legislative grant. He then sold 15, 000 acres to Robert Fletcher three years later, in 1803 for the price of three thousand dollars, claiming that past sales of the land had been legitimate. Fletcher sued Peck to establish the constitutionality of the 1796 act; either the act was constitutional and the contract was void, or the act was unconstitutional and Fletcher had clear title to the land.

The Supreme Court in a six to one decision ruled that the state legislature's repeal of the law was void because it was unconstitutional. Marshall held that the sale was a binding contract,  that according to Article I, Section 10, Clause I, the Contract Clause of the Constitution, cannot be nullified. Even if illegally secured and as a result the ruling lends further protection to property rights against pressures. It is the earliest case of the Court asserting its right to invalidate state laws that conflict with the Constitution. Fletcher v. Peck was the first court case in which state law was decreed to be unconstitutional.