Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee

Context

In the seventeenth century, English monarchs such as James I and Charles I granted large North American land tracts to loyal political supporters like the Fairfax family. Well-established social patterns of paternalism and deference allowed large, landholding families to wield considerable power over the landless masses in colonial Virginia. But increasing tensions over taxation between the British government and the American colonies led to the 1775 outbreak of the American Revolution, with many of the colonies divided between Patriot and Loyalist camps. Many Loyalists like Lord Fairfax escaped the conflict to Canada or Britain. In 1779 Thomas Jefferson, a leading advocate of independence, became Virginia's wartime governor. Under his administration, the state legislature passed a series of acts confiscating abandoned Loyalist land. These confiscation acts were often upheld by state courts that were eager to pay down Virginia's war debts and strike a blow against the unpopular Tories.

In 1781, at the end of the Revolutionary War, Loyalist land claims remained unresolved. In the Treaty of Paris, American delegates pledged to honor prewar debts owed to British creditors, encourage state legislatures to honor British and Loyalist land claims, and prevent future confiscation of Loyalist property. The government created by the Articles of Confederation attempted to enforce these treaty provisions but met stubborn resistance from the states. In the 1780s Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton and James Madison promoted a stronger central government to protect property rights and international treaty obligations. Following the creation and partial ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, the Federalist administrations of George Washington and John Adams cultivated stronger diplomatic and economic ties with Britain. When Britain declared war on France after the French Revolution, President Washington dispatched Chief Justice John Jay to Britain to negotiate a secret treaty declaring American neutrality in the conflict. When Congress ratified the unpopular Jay Treaty in 1796, it agreed to recognize the property rights of British subjects on American soil.

When Jefferson assumed office in March 1801, he immediately announced a new direction in federal power, lowering taxes, slashing federal spending, and reducing the U.S. military. Jefferson heavily criticized the “midnight appointments” of his predecessor and experimented with impeaching federal judicial appointees. When Republicans failed to impeach U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, Jefferson appointed the Republicans Joseph Story and William Johnson to the Court. Ironically, Story became Marshall's closest friend and collaborator, and Johnson frequently made more nationalistic decisions than Marshall did. Anti-British sentiment remained high during the Jeffersonian period. In 1807 the HMS Leopard, a British warship, fired on the USS Chesapeake off the Virginia coast, prompting Jefferson to issue embargo acts against Britain and France. Frequent British impressment of American sailors worsened diplomatic relations between the two nations. Under these circumstances, many Americans felt lingering hostility toward those who had remained loyal to the British government during the Revolutionary War and considered the forfeiture of their lands as a fair prize of war.

Anti-British sentiment was particularly high in Virginia, where Roane and Thomas Ritchie, editor of the Richmond Enquirer, formed a political machine called the “Richmond Junto,” which controlled Republican politics in the Old Dominion. Roane, Ritchie, and Jefferson watched with concern as the federal government and the Marshall Court became more powerful after the War of 1812. Roane decided to use the issue of Loyalist lands to express his views on federal-state relations in Fairfax's Devisee v. Hunter's Lessee (1813). The public anticipated the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee in the spring of 1816 with great interest.