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9. In 2-3 sentences, discuss the Yazoo Land Fraud.

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Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
The Yazoo Land Fraud (1795) was a scandal in which the Georgia legislature, after being bribed, sold some 35 million acres in the Yazoo territory (parts of present-day Alabama and Mississippi) to private land companies at bargain prices; intense public outrage led the legislature to repeal the sales in 1796 and burn the records. Legal battles followed, culminating in the Supreme Court’s 1810 decision in Fletcher v. Peck, which held that Georgia’s repeal violated the Constitution’s Contracts Clause—upholding purchasers’ rights, protecting property contracts, and marking an early assertion of judicial review over state laws.