Fletcher v. Peck

Fletcher v. Peck

Argued February 15, 1810
Decided March 16, 1810
Full case name Robert Fletcher v. John Peck
Citations

10 U.S. 87 (more)

10 U.S. (6 Cranch) 87; 3 L. Ed. 162;1810 U.S. LEXIS 322;
Prior history Demurrer overruled, D. Mass
Subsequent history None
Holding
The Contracts Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibited Georgia from voiding contracts for the transfer of land, even though they were secured through illegal bribery. Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Marshall
Associate Justices
William Cushing · Samuel Chase
Bushrod Washington · William Johnson
Henry B. Livingston
Case opinions
Majority Marshall, joined by Washington, Livingston, Todd
Concur/dissent Johnson
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. I, § 10, cl. 1

Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. 87 (1810), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in which the Supreme Court first ruled a state law unconstitutional. The decision also helped create a growing precedent for the sanctity of legal contracts and hinted that Native Americans did not hold title to their own lands (an idea fully realized in Johnson v. M'Intosh).

Yazoo lands sales

Following the Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolution, Georgia claimed possession of the Yazoo lands, a 54000 sq mile/140000 km2 region of the Indian Reserve, west of its own territory. The land later became the states of Alabama and Mississippi.

In 1795, the Georgia legislature divided the area into four tracts. The state then sold the tracts to four separate land development companies for $500,000, about $0.014 per acre, a bargain even at 1790 prices. The Georgia legislature overwhelmingly approved this land grant, known as the Yazoo Land Act of 1795. However, it was later revealed that the Yazoo Land Act had been approved in return for bribes. The voters rejected most of the incumbents in the next election; the new legislature, reacting to the public outcry, repealed the law and voided the transactions made under it.

Robert Fletcher and especially John Peck were speculators in the Yazoo lands. Fletcher bought a tract of land from Peck while the 1795 act was still in force. Fletcher, in 1803, brought a suit against Peck, claiming that Peck had not had clear title to the land when he sold it.

Interestingly, there was collusion between the two. Both would have their land secured if the Supreme Court decided that Native Americans did not hold original title. Fletcher set out to win the case.[1]

Court ruling

The Supreme Court unanimously (with a separate concurring opinion written by William Johnson) ruled that the legislature's repeal of the law was unconstitutional. John Marshall wrote that the sale was a binding contract, which Article I, Section 10, Clause I (the Contract Clause) of the Constitution, cannot be invalidated even if is illegally secured.

The ruling lent further protection to property rights against popular pressures and is the earliest case of the Court asserting its right to invalidate state laws which are in conflict with or are otherwise contrary to the Constitution. A later Chief Justice, William H. Rehnquist, wrote that Fletcher v. Peck, "represented an attempt by Chief Justice Marshall to extend the protection of the contract clause to infant business."[2]

See also

Further reading

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Stuart Banner, How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier (Cambridge: Harvard, 2005), 171–172.
  2. ↑ Rehnquist, William. A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases, Memo to Justice Robert H. Jackson
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