FLETCHER V. PECK

An 1810 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court,
Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U.S. (6 Cranch) 87, 3 L. Ed.
162, held that public grants were contractual
obligations that could not be abrogated without
fair compensation, even though the state legisla-
ture that made the grant had been corrupted
and a subsequent legislature had passed an act
nullifying the original grant.
The plaintiff, Robert Fletcher, brought suit
against John Peck for breach of COVENANT on
land that Fletcher had purchased in 1803. This
land was part of a tract of 35 million acres in the
area of the Yazoo River (Mississippi and
Alabama) that the state of Georgia had taken
from the Indians and then sold in 1795 to four
land companies for a modest sum ($500,000)