Knox County TN Archives History - Books .....Territorial Legislature - Chapter VII 1900
************************************************

Copyright.  All rights reserved.

http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/tn/tnfiles.htm

************************************************



File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com September 4, 2005, 4:04 am

Book Title: Standard History Of Knoxville

CHAPTER VII.

TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE.



Hamilton District—Sufferings from Indians—Appeals for Succor—Elections to

Territorial Legislature—Preliminary Session—Spirit of Legislators—Active

Measures for. Resistance to Indian Depredations—First Regular Session—Acts

Touching Education and Taxation—Act Preparatory to Organization of the

State—Constitutional Convention.



GOVERNOR BLOUNT, on March 13, 1793, established a third judicial district,

calling it Hamilton in honor of Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury in

Washington's cabinet. It comprised the counties of Knox and Jefferson, and its

courts were to be held in April and October of each year in Knoxville. At the

sitting of the October court, in 1793, the grand jury of the district issued an

address to the governor upon his return from Philadelphia. Therein they express

in most cordial terms an appreciation of his work and services in behalf oi the

territory over which he presided, but lament its sufferings from the atrocious

conduct of the Indians and hope for a speedy recognition oi its needs and a

declaration oi war to> prevent further outrages. At the same time they remind

him of the fact that their numbers had reached five thousand free male

inhabitants, which warranted by congressional ordinance the organization of the

territorial legislature. This address, • dated at Knoxvilie, October 17, 1793,

is signed by James Roddye, foreman, Joshua Gist, Adam Meek. Samuel Wear, John

Adair, Adam Peck, James Hill, John Blackburn, George McNutt, John Kean, William

Donaldson, Garret Fitzgerald, William Lea, Thomas McCulloch and Jeremiah Jack.*



*Knoxville Gazette. November 23, 1793.



  As the initial movement towards the formation of a territorial legislature

this document possesses a unique interest. In so far as his authority lay, ever

alert to the reasonable demands and evident interests of the people. Governor

Blount without delay ordered an election of representatives on the 22d and 23d

of December, 1793.* Col. Alexander Kelly and Capt. John Beard, both tried Indian

fighters, were elected to represent Knox county. With the election returns all

in. the governor on January 1st following called the legislature to convene at

Knoxville on the fourth Monday of February. In session, religious services

marked the beginning. The Rev. Samuel Carrick, at the time pastor of the

Presbyterian church in Knoxville, having offered prayer, preached a sermon from

this text: "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before

the world began; but hath in due time manifested his word through preaching,

which is committed unto me according to1 the commandment of God our Savior.

Titus 1: 2, 3." At the outset steps were taken for the organization of a

duly-constituted law-making body by recommending to congress ten men, from whom

were to be selected five as members of the legislative council, the upper house

by provision of the ordinance of 1787. In the matters of election and selection

Governor Blount carefully abstained from interference by suggestion or

recommendation. He says: "I call the persons elected to^ represent the several

counties together at so early a period that the nomination of counsellors may be

before Congress in the present session, otherwise there could not be a general

assembly in the territory until after the next session of congress. Who shall be

counsellors I don't care, provided they have ability to do their duty."+ This

was another exhibition of that sound judgment and wise policy he had displayed

when he took charge of the affairs of the territory, selecting for office men in

accord with the wishes of the people.



*   Haywood. 312.

+   Letter to James Robertson. January 19, 1794. in American Historical

Magazine. Vol. Ill, 283.



  Much has been said and made of the earnest men who participated in the Watauga

Association, the Cumberland Compact, and the state of Franklin, and of the

measures and principles they advocated. Their deeds and deliberations have been

far and widely heralded, but not so much is written of this first legislative

council in Tennessee, which, acting under duly authorized calls, entered with

patriotic zeal and intelligent foresight into the consideration and adoption of

such laws as concerned the immediate pressing and undeniable needs of their

constituents. Still the question of all-absorbing public interest was the

hostile attitude and violent outbreaks of the Indians. For months previous this

editorial paragraph had been running through successive issues of the Gazette:

"The Creek nation must be destroyed! or the southwestern frontier, from the

mouth of St. Mary's to the western extremity of Kentucky and Virginia will be

incessantly harassed by them. Delenda est Carthago!" Accordingly the first

utterances upon assembling were appeals to the governor and to congress to aid

in the suppression of the murders, robberies, cruelties and indignities by which

their lives and interests were constantly imperiled. Deeming themselves almost a

merciless and helpless prey to the ferocity of their enemies, yet without the

abandonment of hope, there is a touching and melancholy pathos in this

description of their suffering: "Scarcely is there a man of this body but can

recount a dear wife or child, an aged parent or near relation, besides friends,

massacred by the hands of these bloodthirsty nations, in their houses or fields;

nor are our friends and neighbors less miserable. They, too, can enumerate the

suffering of equal calamities."* The appeal to congress was not without some

tangible results. A committee, in their report upon the memorial, expressed deep

sympathy with the petitioners and their objects, and recommended measures for

the immediate pursuit and punishment of the Indians. The house of

representatives approved and ordered a bill, but it finally failed. However,

through an organized medium, congress had been reached and enlightened.+



*   Haywood, 315.

+   Haywood. 329.



  Having finished such business as could properly come before it at this

preliminary session, the legislature was prorogued by the governor to meet on

the fourth Monday of August. 1794. In the meantime congress nominated the

legislative council, and President Washington commissioned the following:

Griffith Rutherford, James Winchester, John Sevier, Stockley Donelson and

Parmenas Taylor. In the legislature there was but one lawyer, William Cocke, in

the lower house. It is fair to presume that the absence of lawyers in this and

the state's first legislature may be attributed to that antipathy to and

distrust of the legal profession manifested ten years before in the Houston

draft of the Frankland constitution, a section of which excluded attorneys at

law from becoming members of the legislature.



  The first regular session of the legislature met August 25, 1794, and

continued to September 30. 1794. Deducting five Sundays, it was in session

thirty-two working days and passed twenty-three acts. At once rules, some of

them quaint, were adopted, committees appointed and bills introduced. In the

constituting of committees the names of the Knox county representatives do not

appear, they on the third day of the session as officers of the militia having

been granted leave of absence to go on a scouting expedition against the

Cherokee Indians. The first act proposed and passed reflects the wisdom and

beneficence of the body, being one to establish Greeneville college. The acts of

greatest local interest were the establishing of the town Knoxville and of

Blount college, and of the office of public printer to be filled by George

Roulstone,. editor of the Knoxville Gazette. Other acts affected more or less

directly local interests and welfare. Governor Blount was assiduous in his

attention to the wants of the law-makers and generous with his advice. The most

elaborate and most important act of the session, that establishing the courts

and regulating them, was a measure drafted by him, a deed which received the

hearty thanks of the legislative body. The bill which provoked most discussion

and elicited a wide divergence of views was the tax bill, the leading point at

issue being whether lands should be taxed at twelve and a half, eighteen or

twenty-five cents per hundred acres. The council supported the first, then the

second, and finally acceded to the demands of the house, which championed the

last. Besides land, other sources of revenue or subjects of taxation were free

males and male servants between the ages of twenty-one and fifty years, all

slaves between ten and fifty years of age, all stud horses and all town lots, "a

rather queer combination." according to Theodore Roosevelt.*



*   Laws of the State of Tennessee, published by G. Roulstone in 1803, p. 29:

Roosevelt. Winning of the West. Vol. IV, 112. 



  As evidence of the diligence and fidelity of these public servants the fact is

mentioned that many of their sessions began at seven o'clock in the morning, and

that the two houses on one occasion met for conference at four o'clock in the

afternoon. The meeting place for conference was the court house, a one-story

building about thirty feet long and twenty-five feet broad, which afforded the

only available room in the town sufficiently large for a joint session. The

legislative council met either in the barracks or the house of John Stone; the

house met sometimes in another room of the barracks or at Carmichael's tavern.

In the settlement of the expenses incurred ten dollars were allowed John Stone

for the use of his room, and five dollars to James White for the court house.+



+   Ramsey. 630, 635.



  The legislature adjourned to meet by the governor's call, on the first Monday

in October. 1795. Rapidly changing conditions, the growth and prosperity of the

territory, the successful invasion of the Lower Cherokee towns and the

disastrous destruction of Nickojack and Running Water, the effectual suppressing

of Indian expeditions, the growing feeling of security, the flush state of the

treasury, and the belief that, with the dignity of statehood, the people through

their representatives in congress might enjoy greater benefits—these made the

movement for admission into the Union a common impulse. Governor Blount gave his

cordial sanction to the movement and contributed his personal efforts and

influence to this end. Instead of waiting the appointed time for the second

session of the legislature, he summoned it to convene on June 29, 1795.



  The most important measure under consideration was the passage of an act for

the enumeration of the population, to ascertain whether there were as many as

sixty thousand inhabitants to meet the requirements for the organization of a

state government. The bill passed with one dissenting vote. This session was

brief, extending to July 11th. Only fourteen acts were passed, among them one

being for the establishment of Blount county taken from the territory of Knox

county. The tax rate was lowered, even going so far as to accept the contention

of the legislative council at the former session, that land should be taxed

twelve and a half cents per hundred acres. In fact, everything taxable was cut

in half.



  In accordance with the act of enumeration a census was ordered by the governor

and taken by the sheriffs in their respective counties. By November 28th all

returns were made, and the governor announced to the President the result. The

population, 77,262, was found to exceed greatly the required number. There were

nine thousand voters and sixty-five hundred of these expressed preference for

the organization of the state. Wherefore Governor Blount issued a proclamation

calling upon each county to choose in December five delegates to a

constitutional convention, called to meet in Knoxville on January 11, 1796.

Elections were held. Knox county sent a delegation composed of William Blount,

James White, Charles McClung, John Adair and John Crawford, the delegates met

and drafted a constitution characterized by Thomas Jefferson as the least

imperfect and most republican of any of the constitutions adopted up to that

time.* After some delay in congress, caused by political jealousy, on June 1,

1796, Tennessee was admitted into the Union, with its capital at Knoxville.



*   For a full account of the work and proceedings of the constitutional

convention, see Caldwell's Constitutional History of Tennessee. 73-108; paper on

the "Constitutional Convention of 1796." by Edward T. Sanford, Esq., in

Proceedings of the Bar Association of Tennessee, 1896, 92-148.



Additional Comments:
From:



STANDARD HISTORY

OF

KNOXVILLE TENNESSEE



WITH FULL OUTLINE OF THE NATURAL ADVANTAGES, EARLY SETTLEMENT, TERRITORIAL

GOVERNMENT, INDIAN TROUBLES, AND GENERAL AND PARTICULAR HISTORY OF THE CITY DOWN

TO THE PRESENT TIME



EDITED BY

WILLIAM RULE

GEORGE F. MELLEN, PH. D., AND J. WOOLDRIDGE COLLABORATORS



PUBLISHED BY

THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY

CHICAGO 1900

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/tn/knox/history/1900/standard/territor5nms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/tnfiles/

File size: 13.5 Kb