p161  Chapter XXI

Defeat of Compromise and Resulting Violence

In June Sevier was hopeful of an accommodation with his opponents. He wrote to General Kennedy, of the Washington District, on July 6th:

The purpose of the projected conference was to arrange a compromise before the election in August for representatives in the assemblies of the two States. Conflicts of a serious character were expected, if no agreement was reached.

When, therefore, the August election came on (the third Friday and Saturday) discord and strife marked the occasion in several of the counties in the north part of Franklin. In the lower counties of Caswell, Sevier and Blount the opposition to Franklin was a negligible quantity.

Disappointed and confused by the failure of the conference, the Franklinites hurriedly fell back on Cocke's strategy which had been discussed and discarded in May. The plan itself is surprising to one of to‑day who contemplates it: Franklin leaders offered themselves for election to the North Carolina Assembly!

In Hawkins county (Spencer county in the Franklin government) Stockley Donelson (Franklinite) was a candidate against Thomas Amis (Carolinian). The polls were opened and the North Carolina sheriff made proclamation that no person would be  p162 allowed to vote unless he had paid taxes to North Carolina. When three votes had been cast, Colonel Wm. Cocke appeared on the scene with a number of men, some of whom were from Greene county as claimed by the opposition. The sheriff, apprehensive that a riot would ensue, adjourned the election to the next day. Fear of violence prevented the polls being opened the following day or at all.

Peter Turney,​2 the Spencer sheriff, was asked by Thomas Henderson, "who was to open the election, the sheriff of the old State or the sheriff of the new?" And was answered by Turney: "By both, agreeable to a resolve of the convention." What informed that only such as had given in their property taxes could vote, Turney replied: "If that is the case, the strongest party shall take the house" — a decision by physical strength.

The polling place having been abandoned by the Carolinians, Donelson was declared elected; and the sheriff of North Carolina gave him a certificate of election which the North Carolina Assembly refused to recognize, but declared the election void, and ordered a new writ to be issued. Thus far the Franklinites' plans had succeeded.3

In Sullivan, the Franks attempted to use like tactics, and Sevier charged that they would have been successful but for the opposition tearing up tickets, denying the franchise to those who had not given in their taxable property to North Carolina, and using foul play.4

Landon Carter and — strangest of all — Sevier stood for election from Washington county. "I wrote him [Governor Caswell] I was elected, and also mentioned the other gentleman, and wished his advice whether it would be expedient for me to attend. He writes pressingly for me to attend, and promises every assistance to compromise matters, and seems to have no doubt of it being done.  p163 Also that we be prepared with petitions, &c., to show the great majority that is in favor of the separation. I cannot be so well determined whether to attend or not, until I hear from Georgia."5

Judge David Campbell was elected to the senate from Greene county, in pursuance of this plan; and it is probable that, at the time of his election, he did not intend to take the seat.

Now began the resort to violence in the form of forays of armed men. Colonel John Tipton, although not colonel of the county, appeared in Hawkins county with a force of about fifty men, "under a pretense of redressing a quarrel" between the two sheriffs, though the principal purpose was to get possession of the county records held by the Franklin officers. This conduct gave rise to a rumor that they had made a prisoner of Governor Sevier with purpose to carry him to North Carolina. Two hundred Franks hurried to the home of Tipton, only to find that the report was baseless. "It was only through the influence of his Excellency that the opposite party did not fall a sacrifice to our Franks. During that time a body of about fifteen hundred veterans embodied themselves to rescue their governor (as they thought) out of the hands of the North Carolinians."6

In July, the sheriff of Washington county, Andrew Caldwell, was incarcerating in jail the sheriff who represented North Carolina's authority, Jonathan Pugh, thereby demonstrating that the Franks prevailed there, in actual exercise of power, though much reduced in numbers.

The Maryland Journal​7 quotes a late Virginia newspaper as stating that "the State of Franklin has sent, or is to send, two deputies to Kentucky, to meet a convention of all the western settlements for the purpose of consulting on proper measures respecting navigation of the Mississippi."

 p164  The year 1787 witnessed frequent meetings of the Franklin Assembly. A session was held early in August at which General Evan Shelby was elected governor to succeed Sevier on the expiration of the term of the latter, March 1, 1788. The fact was communicated to Shelby in a letter of Franklin's governor, written from Greeneville, August 12, in which acceptance was urged:

The Franklinites hoped to win over one of the strongest characters in the limits of the State; and through his influence to strengthen the new State at the weakest point — Sullivan county, the home of Shelby. Shelby declined the honor, but the favoritism of the Franks went far toward conciliating him. He shortly afterward resigned as brigadier-general of the Carolina militia, giving his old age as one of the reasons. On October 29th, he sent his resignation to Governor Caswell:

Roosevelt clearly misconceived Sevier's letters to Shelby and the latter's resultant attitude. Roosevelt represents Sevier as being suspicious that Shelby was positively hostile: "Sevier warned him that no unfriendly interference would be tolerated. Shelby could neither be placated nor intimidated." Sevier did not attempt to intimidate the old general.​10 Roosevelt evidently had not seen the letter of Shelby to Caswell, which plainly shows that the writer was placated to a degree. Certain it is that the sturdy old Welshman would not have recommended for election, as his own successor, a man who had tried to intimidate him.

One likes to think that one of the intermingling influences that prompted Shelby to commend Sevier and to counsel the grant of separation was that of his son, Colonel Isaac Shelby, (now in the Kentucky Country where much the same struggle for separate statehood was going on) interposed in behalf of Sevier, his comrade-colonel on the King's Mountain expedition. After-events showed the Shelbys and Seviers always standing together.

During this year Governor Sevier kept up a correspondence with the gray statesman, now governor of Pennsylvania, in which was solicited support of the cause of the State named in his honor. The letters best speak for themselves:

 p168  In replying to a letter from William Cocke about a year before, Franklin had advised the authorities of the new State to submit the points in dispute to the decision of Congress. Franklin now advises Sevier to apply to North Carolina for a satisfactory compromise. The change in Franklin's views was due, doubtless, to what he knew to be the insistence of the landowning States and to his belief that they would prevail in the constitutional convention on the point of the creating new States in the West.

Sevier's next letter was scarcely more than a budget of news:

---

The Author's Notes:

1 Ramsey, 391.

2 The first of the name later made familiar to all Tennesseans by Peter Turney, colonel of the First Tennessee Regiment, C. S. A.; chief justice, and finally governor of Tennessee. For a sketch of Turney, see post, p327.

3 In Hawkins (Spenser) county, Peter Turney, the sheriff under the Franklin regime, at first advertised an election under Franklin authority, but on change of the plans allowed the sheriff of Hawkins county under North Carolina authority to conduct the election. N. C. St. Rec., XX, 322.

4 N. C. St. Rec., XX, 322. Roosevelt in error, treats this as an election held for members of the Franklin Assembly and frustrated by the adherents of North Carolina.

5 Sevier to Gilbert Christian, Mount Pleasant, Oct. 20, 1787, in Am. Hist. Mag., VI, 381. John Tipton and Landon Carter contested for the seat in the senate of North Carolina, with result that the election was held void and set aside. Tipton was thereby deprived of his seat — a sop thrown to the Franklinites.

6 Cocke to Elholm, from Mulberry Grove, State of Franklin, August 27, 1787. Columbian Magazine, November, 1787; Ramsey, 392.

7 Issue of Sept. 28, 1787. Shaler in his History of Kentucky says that efforts were made to persuade the Kentuckians to join in the Franklin movement. Unless he refers to Arthur Campbell's early scheme for a greater Franklin, this seems to be an error. Shaler may have had in mind the efforts made at this time by the Cumberland settlers to combine with the Kentuckians in government.

8 Tennessee Historical Society MSS.

9 As to these petitions, see page 193.

10 Roosevelt probably got the idea from Sevier's reference to Parkinson's conduct in the letter of May 30th.

11 Woods had been a Continental agent to the Choctaw Indians. He was now going to Philadelphia as guide and interpreter for a delegation of Southern Indians.

12 Sparks's Works of Franklin, X, 290.

13 Franklin Papers, VIII, folio, 1803, MSS. Division Library of Congress.

14 American Phil. Soc., Franklin Papers, XXXV, p140.

15 American Phil. Soc., Franklin Papers, XXXV, p276.

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