[Footnote: American State Papers, Public Lands, I., pp.

99, 101, 111, 165, 172, 178; Haskin's "Yazoo Land Companies." In Congress, Randolph, on behalf of the ultra states'-rights people led the opposition to the claimants, whose special champions were Madison and the northern democrats.

Chief Justice Marshall in the case of Fletcher _vs._ Peck, decided that the rescinding act impaired the obligation of contracts, and was therefore in violation of the Constitution of the United States; a decision further amplified in the Dartmouth case, which has determined the national policy in regard to public contracts.

This decision was followed by the passage of the Compromise Act by Congress in 1814, which distributed a large sum of money obtained from the land sales in the territory, in specified proportions among the various claimants.] The land companies were more important to the speculators than to the actual settlers of the Mississippi; nevertheless, they did stimulate settlement, in certain regions, and therefore increased by just so much the western pressure upon Spain.
Georgian Filibusterers.
Some of the aggressive movements undertaken by the Americans were of so loose a nature that it is hard to know what to call them.

This was true of Elijah dark's company of Georgia freebooters in 1794.