Quote:
Originally Posted by ChiefsFanatic
I am pretty sure that a contract cannot override actual legislation.
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Oh! I'm excited to share some completely obscure trivia that I learned the other day. This is not meant to be a dispute, and I agree with your general thought, but I read some history related to this very topic.
Apparently when the USA was being formed, a bunch of states made territorial claims west of the Appalachians. There were a lot of negotiations about this because the states that didn't make claims didn't want the other states becoming much larger than them.
Eventually, the expansionist states agreed to give up their claims. However, there was a problem with Georgia. The state legislature had sold land claims in modern-day Alabama and Mississippi while Georgia was claiming those areas, and took bribes to sell it very cheaply. After public outcry and voting the corrupt people out of office, the new state legislature passed legislation to invalidate the sales. The people who got the land cheap (presumably crooks) sued, saying it was a legal contract. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, and the Court ruled that legislation could not override a sales contract if the legislation was created after a contract.
I had to bring that up, because what are the odds that it would be relevant?
Edit: I looked it up. It was the Yazoo Land Scandal and I corrected some facts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher_v._Peck
