| |
Despite the legislative bar of the
"enjoyment of any office of profit or
trust" by Sevier in North Carolina, the
people of the Greene senatorial district
elected him to represent them in the
Carolina state senate of 1789. His
friends, Thomas Amis and Landon Carter,
were returned from the Hawkins and
Washington districts, respectively; and
only General Joseph Martin, of Sullivan,
was chosen from the opposing faction to
sit as Sevier's third western colleague
in the senate.
Sevier appeared with his credentials
when the Assembly met in November, and
was "qualified," sworn in and seated
weeks before an act could be passed to
remove the disqualification. The
election of Sevier and two of his
followers by the western electors made
it clear to the senate that the
conciliation of the people across the
mountains could best be effected if the
disabling clause of the act of 1788
should be disregarded.1
Sevier was also elected as a delegate to
the Convention called to reconsider the
ratification of the Federal
Constitution, and was allowed to take
his seat, in spite of the inhibition.
The Assembly and the Convention met at
the same time and place. Both bodies had
some delegates in common. The Assembly
was confronted with another call from
Congress for a cession of western
territory.2 Only North
Carolina and Georgia had failed to make
cessions and a pointed appeal was made
to the magnanimity and sense of justice
of the laggard State. Though North
Carolina was out of the Union, to
contribute toward the liquidation of the
continental debts continued as an
unchanged obligation.
Another spur to the making of a cession
was the presentation for payment of
large claims incurred in the conduct of
General Martin's campaign against the
Chickamauga Indians, under the State's
military authorities. The members from
the seaboard counties winced when they
saw the magnitude of these claims.
Haywood, who was at the time yet a
resident and active in the affairs of
North Carolina, afterward wrote of this
situation: "The Atlantic members labored
to find ways and means, and still more,
to avoid making contributions from the
counties east of the Alleghanies" to
liquidate these claims.
The two bodies, Assembly and Convention,
cooperated in trying to solve the
serious problems involved in the former
refusals, to ratify the Federal
Constitution and to cede the western
domain. The swing of sentiment was now
distinctly away from localism to the
federal system. That further severance
from the sister States was deemed unwise
is shown by a pronounced reversal—the
Constitution was ratified by a vote of
195 to 77, whereas in the previous year
ratification had failed by a vote of 184
to 83.
Plans were matured for a second cession
to the United States of America, though
a considerable element in the Assembly
favored a proposition advanced in the
house of commons: to cede directly to
the citizens who resided west of the
mountains the territorial or political
rights over the western domain, which
was to be erected into a separate State,
North Carolina to reserve the right to
open a land office and dispose of the
unappropriated lands for the purpose of
satisfying specie certificates issued by
the State and redeeming her paper money
then in circulation.3
This would have been to affront the
national government. It might lead, it
was thought, to a serious breach, and to
the possible loss of all control of the
lands across the Alleghanies. There was
deep solicitude that this point be
safeguarded; an extensive control of the
disposal of these lands must be
retained. Land control had been
throughout the crux of the cession
problem.
An act to cede the Western Country to
the United States was passed. John
Sevier had the satisfaction of recording
his vote in favor of cession even though
on onerous terms;4 and, in
the Convention, in favor of ratifying
the National Constitution.
The cession act, and the deed executed
in pursuance thereof, incorporated as
safeguarding conditions, the following:
I. That the military reservation5
should inure to the benefit of the
officers and soldiers of the continental
line of North Carolina, their heirs and
assigns; and if that reservation should
not be found to contain a sufficient
quantity of land fit for cultivation to
satisfy the several provisions of law
for their benefit, the deficiency might
be made good by resorting to other parts
of the territory ceded, not already
appropriated.6
2. That entries and grants of lands made
agreeable to law prior to the cession
should have full force subsequently; and
power was reserved to the governor of
North Carolina to perfect titles under
entries that had not ripened into
grants.
3. That entries in John Armstrong's
office (under Act 1783) located on land
already entered by another should be
allowed to be shifted to land on which
no entry had been specially located.
The passage of but few years sufficed to
raise a grave issue between the mother
State and Tennessee as to the operative
force of these reservations, leading to
an acrimonious debate, and to
legislative acts of retaliation that
were in a way reminiscent of the
Franklin State struggle.7
Cession thus provided for, the Assembly
proceeded to a disposition of the claims
of the soldiers who held certificates
for service issued by the officers in
the Chickamauga campaign. Their payment
was imposed on the people of the
Washington district (the Tennessee
Valley)—made receivable for taxes in
that district and no other. In
substance, those who fought were
directed to pay themselves.8
As if to forestall opposition from the
western people to the terms of the
cession act respecting lands in the
western domain, pains were taken by the
Assembly to conciliate them by means of
the treatment accorded the most popular
man in the West, Sevier. This leader was
now formally found "not as highly
responsible as many others" who had
engaged in the Franklin movement, which
at first (it was resolved) "he did
oppose in such a manner as actually to
prevent elections from being held in the
new government [Franklin] in two of the
counties; and when at last he joined
them it was in obedience to the
entreaties of several of the most
influential persons in that part of the
country." 9
Joseph Martin, who had stood for years
in the breach in favor of the
restoration of North Carolina's
sovereignty in the Franklin territory,
was now in disfavor with the western
inhabitants. Not withstanding his
valuable service to the Carolina
Commonwealth, he, while a member of the
senate, was removed from the office of
brigadier-general of western forces
without any accusation being lodged
against him as such. The senate by a
vote of 28 to 7 concurred in the passage
of this remarkable resolution that
effected his removal:
"Resolved, That it is the sense of this
General Assembly, that John Sevier is
the brigadier-general of the district of
Washington, and ought to be obeyed as
such according to the date of his
commission issued in the month of
November, 1784; and that the governor
issue his proclamation requiring all the
good people of that district to pay due
regard thereto and govern themselves
accordingly."
What must have been the feelings of the
aged and true-hearted Evan Shelby when
he learned that his loyalty and services
and his commission as brigadier-general
of the same district had been thus
discredited? And what the emotions of
Martin, his successor, as he rode his
horse through the solitude of the
wilderness to his home in the West?
Whatever may have been the desert of
either, it was not this at the hands of
Carolinians.
The Assembly formed a new congressional
district out of the transmontaine
counties; and in the succeeding February
John Sevier was elected to serve as its
delegate—the first member of the
Congress under the Constitution to
represent a part of the Mississippi
Valley.
Congress accepted the cession and soon
established in the region a territorial
form of government under the formidable
and misfit title "Territory of the
United States of America, South of the
River Ohio"—frequently for convenience
designated as the "Southwest Territory."
William Blount was chosen by President
Washington to serve as the first
governor, in preference to General
Martin whose claims and application
failed, though supported by Patrick
Henry. Sevier, who was the choice of the
western people for the governorship of
the Territory,10 was
appointed as brigadier-general of
territorial forces by the President, and
he and his friends were in the
ascendency in the new government. Tipton
and other opponents of the Franklin
leader received honorable though
secondary recognition, from either
constituencies or the appointing power.
Finally the people realized their desire
for separate statehood, when, on June 1,
1796, Congress admitted the State of
Tennessee into the Union—the first
member erected out of a territory of the
United States.
John Sevier was elected by the people as
the first governor almost as of course
and without opposition, and served six
terms of two years each—an honor never
bestowed on any other Tennessean.
The legislature and the judiciary of
Tennessee had to solve a number of
problems that were the results of the
Franklin regime: the status of marriages
consummated under Franklin licenses;11
of judgments rendered by the courts;12
of administration of estates,13
etc. The situation dealt with was one
without parallel in American
jurisprudence, since Franklin was and is
the only example of a de facto American
State that functioned in every aspect of
statal power.
____________
1 N. C. St. Rec., XXI, 584-5.
2 Ib., 503.
3 The bill so providing,
passed two readings in the two houses.
N. C. St. Rec., XXI, 257, 271, et seq.
4 The measure passed in the
senate by a vote of 3o to 13, and in the
house of commons by a vote of 68 to 3o,
John Rhea, representative from Sullivan
county, being the only western delegate
to vote in the negative. General Martin,
in the senate, did not vote.
5 About 3,000,000 acres
bounded as stated in a previous chapter.
6 Jet of North Carolina,
1784, Ch. 19, Sec. 17, had made a
similar provision to cover such
deficiency.
7 At the date of cession the
laws of North Carolina required all
surveys for grants to be finished and
grants procured by the end of 1792.
Tennessee claimed that North Carolina
had no power to enlarge the limitation,
none having been reserved in the cession
act. North Carolina was insistent and
persistent in the assertion of the
power.
Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State,
after a thorough investigation, reported
to the President, in 1791, a detailed
estimate of the acreage in the West that
had been entered or passed to grant
under North Carolina's authority. He
found the total to be 8,177,598 acres,
which naturally was of the best lands.
In resistance of the efforts of North
Carolina, the legislature of Tennessee
penalized in the sum of $5,000 any
person subsequently surveying any land
in the State "for the purpose of
obtaining a title for such lands from
North Carolina." Again (in 1811) North
Carolina renewed the claim and effort,
this time to bring from the Tennessee
legislature a prohibitory act, imposing
a penalty of $5,000 on any surveyor who
should survey North Carolina entries,
and on any register of deeds who should
record any grants based thereon, and
also a fine of $1,000 and disbarment
upon any lawyer who should begin a suit
upon such a claim. See "lets of
Tennessee, 1801, ch. 2; Acts, 1812, Ch.
86; Sanford's Blount College, 83 et
seq.; American State Papers, Public
Lands, I, 18; 'Whitney, Land Laws of
Tennessee, passim; Memorial of North
Carolina to Congress, of 1824; Memorials
of Tennessee, of 1817 and 1825; Hoyt,
Murphey Papers, II, 320, 328. The United
States was magnanimous toward Tennessee
and endeavored to make amends for any
injustice done, even though the national
government should take little of benefit
as the result of the cession. Referring
to the final cession, it has been said:
"In accepting the cession offered by
North Carolina, Congress made a bad
bargain. In the deed of cession North
Carolina stated certain conditions by
which Congress had to satisfy a number
of claims before it should make any
disposition of the ceded lands. It
proved afterward that Congress could
hardly make any disposition whatever of
the acquired lands for the claims were
in excess of lands whose Indian title
had been extinguished by that State.
Being thus covered by reservations, the
cession made by North Carolina was only
nominal, and no public lands were
created out of the ceded territory"—
meaning none for disposal by the Federal
Government. Sato, History of the Land
Question in the United States; Johns
Hopkins Hist. Ser., V, 38.
8 This, though the campaign
was quite as much for the protection of
Mero district (the Cumberland Valley) as
of the district onerated, in which lived
the Franklini tes.
9 N. C. St. Rec., XXI, 285.
10 In convention at
Greeneville May 5, 179o: "No other man
on the continent, the President of the
United States not excepted, can give as
general satisfaction to the people...
Party heat and civil commotions are not
yet assuaged, so that a long
acquaintance must be essential to govern
a people martial in their nature and
heretofore in a kind of anarchy."
Hardin, chairman, to Samuel Johnston,
Hayes Coll. of MSS.
11 All marriages validated by
Tennessee Act, 1803, Ch. 25.
12 The North Carolina Act of
1786, Ch. 23, had provided that where
any judgments in the courts of Franklin
respecting property were incompatible
with justice, the person aggrieved
should have his remedy at common law.
The court of last resort in Tennessee
construed this to mean that the
proceedings of the courts of Franklin
were of obligatory force when
substantial justice had been attained.
The western inhabitants had been under
the protection of the State of Franklin
during its existence, and a presumption
of law arose that such proceedings were
compatible with justice, subjecting the
claimant to the burden of proving the
contrary. Ingraham's Heirs v. Cocke, i
Overton (I Tenn. Rep.), 22.
13 Validated by Act 1801, Ch.
24. An instrument of conveyance admitted
to record under Franklin authority was
treated as if recorded in Tennessee.
Tennessee Act, 1815, Ch. I. |
| |
|
|
