USA > Tennessee > The civil and political history of the state of Tennessee from its earliest settlement up to the year 1796 : including the boundaries of the state > Part 17
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resolved never to return to a dependence on that State, and to maintain the government which they were forming for them- selves at all hazards.
The convention at Jonesboro in December, 1784, and the As- sembly of Frankland in August, 1785, had recommended to the people to choose a convention for the purpose of adopting the proposed Constitution, or of altering it as they should instruct. Deputies were elected accordingly, and met at Greeneville on the 14th of December, 1785. From different parts of the new State the people forwarded instructions which showed that there was a great diversity of sentiment among them. The convention, after some debate, agreed to appoint a committee who should prepare a form of government to be laid before the convention, that it might be examined, altered, amended, and added to, as the majority should think proper; and that thus it might be perfected and finished in as accurate a manner as the united wisdom of the members could devise. After the com- mittee retired, the first thing they agreed upon was to proceed upon the business by taking the Constitution of North Carolina for their groundwork; and, together with it, all the political ยท helps that the thirteen Constitutions of the United States, the instructions of the people, and any other quarter might afford, to prepare a report to lay before the convention. In this man- ner the committee proceeded, adhering strictly to the ground- work (the Constitution of North Carolina), retaining of it what- ever appeared suitable, and to it added pieces out of other political helps till they had so formed their plan that it might be laid before the whole convention, and be examined, altered, amended, and improved, as the majority should think best. The whole house having met, the report of the committee was laid before them, and entirely rejected, in consequence of which, on motion of Mr. Cocke, the whole house took up the Constitu- tion of North Carolina, and, hastily reading it, approved of it in the general; whilst the friends of the report of the committee strove to introduce it, but all in vain. Some material points of their plan-a single house of legislation, equal and adequate representation, the exclusion of attorneys from the Assembly, etc .- and failing in the most important points, as they con- ceived, they, by the unanimous consent of the whole covention, were permitted to enter upon the journals their dissent to what
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had been carried in convention; and also to hold out to the peo- ple, for their consideration, the report of the committee, except the greater part of the 32d Section, which, upon second thought, they expunged. The dissent which they entered upon the jour- nals was as follows:
"The dissent is because we deem the report of the committee (excluding that part of the 32d Article which fixes a tax upon certain articles, as indigo, tobacco, flour, etc. ) to be the sense of a majority of the freemen of Frankland; and more agreeable to a republican government, which report, so considered, we hold out for the consideration of the people." Signed: "David Campbell, Samuel Houston, John Tipton, John Wier, Robert Love, William Cox, David Craig, James Montgomery, John Strain, Robert Allison, David Looney, John Blair, James White, Samuel Newell, John Gilliland, James Stuart, George Maxwell, Joseph Tipton, and Peter Parkison"-nineteen in all.
A great outcry was raised against the report, and its friends vindicated it by an appeal to the public, in which a wounded spirit is very discernible. They accounted for and excused the inaccuracies of the report, and sheltered it from severe and crit- ical remarks. They said it was certain, from the nature of things, and the declarations of many of those who entered the dissent, that they did not look upon the report as a finished and perfect piece, as its warmest advocates themselves said in con- vention. Both they and its enemies meant to inspect every paragraph narrowly, and what, upon mutual deliberation, ap- peared good to receive and by a majority of votes confirm; and what did not, to reject. For the true light in which it should be viewed was, as they declared, that every sentence was a mere proposal unfinished, unconfirmed, and not to be established until the whole house, after due examination and debate upon it, had approved of it. "And," said they, "it must appear that the loud and bitter outcry that has been raised against the report and its friends is not like the friendly criticism of loving citi- zens, but resembles the advantages which enemies take of each other, and the use they make of them, when excited by malice and bitter emnity." They besought the public to lay aside prejudice and to search honestly for the truth, and not for quibbling defects-particularly weighing every part in connec- tion with the whole, whence it might be seen that the greater
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part and substance of the report of the committee contains prin- ciples, provisions, and restrictions which secure the poor and the ruled from being trampled upon by the rich and the rulers; also their property and money from being taken away to sup- port the extravagance of the great men; and that it is full of that which tends to free them from the prevailing enormous wickedness, and to make the citizens virtuous. And that it is well calculated to open the eyes of the people, to look upon the proceedings of the public, and to know and judge for themselves when their rights and privileges are enjoyed, or infringed; and therefore suitable to remove ignorance from the country; is as beneficial to men who wish to live upon the people, as ignomin- ious in the Church of Rome to support the tyranny of the pope and his clergy. Then follows in their public address the Con- stitution which the committee recommended in their report.
The same convention which established the Constitution of North Carolina for the State of Frankland sent William Cocke, Esq., with a memorial to Congress, together with the Constitu- tion they had agreed to, and with an application to be admitted into the Union. Congress gave no ear to the application, and Mr. Cocke returned without effecting any of the objects of his mission.
In this year (1785) the Assembly of Georgia, by an act passed for the purpose, established a county by the name of Houston, opposite the Indian town called Nickajack, in the bend of the Tennessee, opposite the Muscle Shoals, including all the terri- tory which belonged to Georgia on the north side of the Ten- nessee. They appointed Col. Hord, Col. Downs, Mr. Lindsay, John Donalson, and Col. Sevier to act as commissioners, with authority to organize the new county. They opened the land of- fice there, appointed Col. John Donalson surveyor, and author- ized the issuance of warrants. The commissioners, with eighty or ninety men, descended the river to the point where it was in- tersected by the State line. They appointed military officers and justices of the peace, and elected Valentine Sevier, the brother of Gov. Sevier, to represent them in the General Assem- bly of Georgia. The land-warrants were signed by John Don- alson and John Sevier, and were dated the 21st of December, 1785. After remaining there a fortnight, dreading the hostile appearance which the Indians manifested, they broke up the
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settlements and withdrew. Zachariah Cox was with them, who, with two others by the name of Smith, and two by the name of Bean, had been sent by Col. Wade Hampton to explore the country. Valentine Sevier went to the Assembly of Georgia to take his seat, but was not received. Col. Hampton then had land- warrants from South Carolina, with which he intended to cover the lands to the distance of several miles from the North Car- olina line, contending in behalf of South Carolina that the head branches of the Savannah did not reach the North Carolina line by several miles; and that a line due west from the head to the Mississippi was the boundary of Georgia. This claim was aft- erward abandoned, and Col. Hampton failed in the attempt to obtain his titles.
In the early part of the year 1786 was presented the strange spectacle of two empires exercised at one and the same time over one and the same people. County Courts were held in the same counties under both governments; the militia was called out by officers appointed by both; laws were passed by both As- semblies, and taxes were laid by the authority of both States. The differences in opinion in the State of Frankland between those who adhered to the government of North Carolina and those who were the friends of the new government became every day more acrimonious. Every fresh provocation on the one side was surpassed in the way of retaliation by a still greater provo- cation on the other. The judges commissioned by the State of Frankland held Supreme Courts twice in each year in Jones- borough. Col. Tipton openly refused obedience to the new gov- ernment. There arose a deadly hatred between him and Gov. Sevier, and each endeavored by all the means in his power to strengthen his party against the other. Tipton held courts un- der the authority of North Carolina at Buffalo, ten miles above Jonesborough, which were conducted by her officers and agreea- bly to her laws. Courts were also held at Jonesborough, in the same county, under the authority of the State of Frankland. As the processes of these courts frequently required the sheriffs to pass within the jurisdiction of each other to execute them, a ren- counter was sure to take place. Hence it became necessary to ap- point the stoutest men in the county to the office of sheriff. This state of things produced the appointment of A. Caldwell, of Jones- borough, and Mr. Pew, the sheriff in Tipton's court. While the
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County Court was sitting at Jonesborough in this year, for the county of Washington, Col. John Tipton, with a party of men, entered the court-house, took away the papers from the clerk, and turned the justice out-of-doors. Not long after Sevier's party came to the house where a County Court was sitting for the coun- ty of Washington, under the authority of North Carolina, and took away the clerk's papers and turned the court out-of-doors. Thomas Gorly was clerk of this county. The like acts were several times repeated during the existence of the Frankland government. At one time, James Sevier then having the rec- ords of the old court under North Carolina, Tipton, in behalf of the court of North Carolina, went to his house and took them away by force and delivered them to Gorly. Shortly afterward the records were taken by Sevier's party, and James Sevier, the clerk, hid them in a cave. In these removals many valuable papers were lost, and at late periods for want of them some es- tates of great value have been lost. In the county of Greene, in 1786, Tipton broke up a court sitting at Greeneville under the Frankland authority. The two clerks in all the three old coun- ties issued marriage licenses, and many persons were married by virtue of their authority. In the courts held under the author- ity of the State of Frankland many letters of administration of intestate estates were issued, and probates of wills were taken. The members of the two factions became excessively incensed against each other, and at public meetings made frequent ex- hibitions of their strength and prowess in boxing matches. As an elucidation of the temper of the times an incident may here be mentioned which otherwise would be too trivial for the page of history. Shortly after the election of Sevier as Govern- or of the State of Frankland under the permanent Constitu- tion, he and Tipton met in Jonesborough, where as usual a vio- lent verbal altercation was maintained between them for some time, when Sevier, no longer able to bear the provocations which were given to him, struck Tipton with a cane. Instantly the latter began to annoy him with his hands clinched. Each ex- changed blows for some time in the same way with great vio- lence and in convulsions of rage. Those who happened to be present interposed and parted them before victory had de- clared for either; but some of those who saw the conflict be- lieved that the Governor was not as well pleased with his pros-
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peets of victory as he had been with the event of the battle of King's Mountain, in which his regiment and himself had so em- inently distinguished themselves. This example was followed in the time of those convulsions by the members of their respect- ive families, who frequently and with varying success took les- sons in pugilism from each other at public meetings. The rab- ble, also, who in all countries ape their superiors, made numerous displays of their skill in gymnastic exercises, and, like the Spar- tans of old, often lost an eye or part of an ear or nose in the an- tagonistic field without the least complaint for the trifling muti- lation. To such excess was driven by civil discord a people who in times of tranquillity are not exceeded by any upon earth for all the virtues, good sense, and genuine politeness that can make mankind happy or amiable.
In the month of August, 1786, an election was held at the Syc- amore Shoals, in the county of Washington, of members to rep- resent the county in the General Assembly of North Carolina, to be held at Fayetteville in November: Col. Tipton was elected Senator, and James Stuart and Richard White were elected members of the House of Commons. At this election such per- sons as chose to accept the terms held out by North Carolina in her act of 1785 were invited to signify the same by enrolling their names, which many of them did. Opposition to the new State of Frankland from this time put on a more solemn and determined aspect than it had ever done before.
On the 26th of August, 1786, John Houston, Esq., the Gov- ernor of Georgia, appointed Gov. Sevier by commission to be Brigadier-general for the District of Tennessee, formed for the defense of that State and for repelling any hostile inva- sion.
Preparatory to the treaty of Hopewell, which the Cherokees made with the United States, they refrained in a great measure, both before and for some time after the treaty, from incursions into the frontier settlements on the waters of the Holston. That treaty proposed to give peace to all the Cherokees, but they soon began to believe that the gift which they had received was not of much value, and shortly became tired of the quietude derived from it. In the spring of the year 1786 they made open war upon those settlements. They attacked the house of Biram, on Beaver Creek, in the section of country which is now a part of
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Knox County, and killed two men. Several parties were raised and set in pursuit of them. Among others. Gov. Sevier raised a company of volunteers and followed them. The troops assem- bled at Houston's Station, and marched across the Tennessee River at the Island Town, and thence crossed by the Tellico Plains over the Unaca Mountain to the Hiwassee. They there destroyed three Indian towns called the Valley Towns, and killed fifteen Indians and encamped in a town in the vicinity. The spies discovered a large trail, and reported to the commanding officers. The troops were immediately put in motion and moved to the place where the trail was discovered. There a council of the officers was held to determine whether it was proper to fol- low the trail or not. The result was that the troops were marched back to their former encampment. It was ascertained from the best information that John Watts, at the head of one thousand Indians, was endeavoring to draw Sevier and his troops into a narrow defile of rocks. Considering existing circumstances, it was thought most prudent to return home with his troops, and to procure re-enforcements, his corps consisting at this time of not more than one hundred and sixty men. They returned home by the same route they had come.
In this year taxes were imposed by both governments, and paid to neither, the people not knowing, as was pretended, which had the better right to receive them; and neither government was forward in overruling the plea, for fear of giving offense to those who could at pleasure transfer their allegiance.
Members of the Assembly were elected in this year, 1786, for the three old counties, and were sent to the Assembly of North Carolina, which sat at Fayetteville in the month of November. In this session they divided the county of Sullivan, and out of a part of it erected the county of Hawkins. The divisional line began where the boundary line between the Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of North Carolina crosses the North Fork of the Holston River; thence down said fork to its junction with the main Holston River; thence across said river, due south to the top of Bay's Mountain; thence along the top of said mount- ain to the top of the dividing ridge between the waters of the Holston River and the French Broad River to its junction with the Holston River; thence down the said river Holston to its junction with the Tennessee River; thence down the same to the
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"Suck," where said river runs through the Cumberland Mount- ains; thence along the top of said mountains to the aforesaid boundary line; and thence along said line to the beginning. All that part of the settlements lying to the west of the North Fork of the Holston was erected into the county of Hawkins. They appointed justices and militia officers for the county, and appointed times for holding the County Courts; and they had under consideration the measures which were to be adopted in relation to the revolters.
At this critical conjuncture appeared William Cocke, Esq., on a mission from the western counties; and, at his entreaty, he was heard at the bar of the House of Commons. In a speech of some hours he pathetically depicted the miseries of his dis- tressed countrymen; he traced the motives of their separation to the difficult and perilous condition in which they had been placed by the cession act of 1784. He stated that the savages in their neighborhood often committed upon the defenseless in- habitants the most shocking barbarities, and that they were without the means of raising or subsisting troops for their pro- tection, without the authority to levy men, without the power to lay taxes for the support of internal government, and with- out the hope that any of their necessary expenditures would be defrayed by the State of North Carolina, which had then be- come no more interested in their safety than any other of the United States. The sovereignty retained being precarious and nominal, as it depended on the acceptance of the cession by Congress, so it was anticipated, would be the concern of North Carolina for the ceded territory. With these considerations full in view, what were the people of the ceded territory to do to avoid the blow of the uplifted tomahawk? How were the wom- en and children to be rescued from the impending destruction? Would Congress come to their aid? Alas! Congress had not yet accepted them, and possibly never would; and if. accept- ed, Congress was to deliberate on the quantum of defense which might be afforded to them. The distant States would wish to know what profits they could respectively draw from the ceded country, and how much land would remain after satisfying the claims upon it. The contributions from the several States were to be spontaneous. They might be too limited to do any good, too tardy for practical purposes. They might be unwilling to
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burden themselves for the salvation of a people not connected with them by any endearing ties. The powers of Congress were too feeble to enforce contributions. Whatever aids should be resolved on might not reach the objects of their bounty till all was lost. Would common prudence justify a reliance upon such prospects? Could the lives of themselves and their families be staked upon them? Immediate and pressing necessity called for the powers to concentrate the scanty means they possessed of saving themselves from destruction. A cruel and insidious foe was at their doors. Delay was but another name for death. They might supinely wait for events, but the first of them would be the yell of the savage through all their settlements. It was the well-known disposition of the savage to take every advantage of an unpreparedness to receive them, and of a sudden to raise the shrieking cry of exultation over the fallen inhabitants. The hearts of the people of North Carolina should not be hardened against their brethren who have stood by their sides in perilous times, and never heard their cry of distress when they did not instantly rise and march to their aid. Those brethren have bled in profusion to save you from bondage, and from the sanguinary hand of a relentless enemy, whose mildest laws for the punish- ment of rebellion is beheading and quartering. When driven, in the late war, by the presence of that enemy from your homes, we gave to many of you a sanctified asylum in the bosom of our country, and gladly performed the rites of hospitality to a peo- ple we loved so dearly. Every hand was ready to be raised for the least unhallowed violation of the sanctuary in which they reposed. The act for our dismissal was indeed recalled in the winter of 1784. What then was our condition? More penni- less, defenseless, and unprepared, if possible, than before; and under the same necessity as ever to meet and consult together for our common safety. The resources of the country all locked up-where is the record that shows any money or supplies sent to us, a single soldier ordered to be stationed on the frontier, or any plan formed for mitigating the horrors of our exposed situ- ation? On the contrary, the savages are irritated by the stop- page of those goods on their passage which were promised as a compensation for the lands which had been taken from them. If North Carolina must yet hold us in subjection, it should at least be understood to what a state of distraction, suffering, and
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poverty her varying conduct has reduced us; and the liberal hand of generosity should be widely opened for relief, from the press- ure of their present circumstances-all animosity should be laid aside and buried in deep oblivion, and our errors should be con- sidered as the offspring of greater errors committed by your- selves. It belongs to a magnanimous people to weep over the failings of their unfortunate children, especially if prompted by the inconsiderate behavior of the parent. Far should it be from their hearts to harbor the unnatural purpose of adding still more affliction to those who have suffered but too much already. It belongs to a magnanimous people to give an industrious at- tention to circumstances, in order to form a just judgment upon a subject so much deserving of their serious meditation; and, when once carefully formed, to employ with sedulous anxiety the best efforts of their purest wisdom in choosing a course to pursue suitable to the dignity of their own character, consistent with their own honor, and the best calculated to allay that storm of distraction in which their hapless children have been so unexpectedly involved. If the mother shall judge the ex- pense of adhesion too heavy to be borne, let us remain as we are, and support ourselves by our own exertions; if otherwise, let the means for the continuance of our connection be supplied with the degree of liberality which will demonstrate seriousness on the one hand and secure affection on the other. His speech was heard with attention, and he retired.
The Assembly progressed in deliberating on the measures to be adopted with respect to the revolted counties. By another act of this session they pardoned the offenses of all persons who had returned to their allegiance to the State of North Carolina; and restored them to all privileges of the other citizens of the State, as if the said offenses and misconduct had never existed. With regard to decisions respecting property, which were in- compatible with justice, they enacted that the persons injured should have remedy at common law. They continued in office all officers, both civil and military, who held and enjoyed such offices on the 1st of April, 1784; but declared vacant the offices of all such persons as had accepted and exercised other offices and appointments the acceptance and exercise of which were considered to be a resignation of their former offices held under the State of North Carolina; and they directed that such vacant
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offices, both civil and military, shall be filled with proper per- sons, to be appointed by the General Assembly, and commis- sioned by the Governor of North Carolina, as by law directed. They ordered the arrearages of taxes due from the citizens of those counties, up to the end of the year 1784, to be collected and accounted for; and that all taxes due since the end of that year shall be relinquished and given up to the citizens.
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