Winning of the West

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ...come into Tennessee. A wagon road had been chopped to the Cumberland Growth of District, and as the Indians gradually Tennessee, ceased their ravages, the settlements about Nashville began to grow as rapidly as the settlements along the Holston. In 1796 the required limit of population had been reached, and Tennessee with over seventy-six thousand inhabitants was formally admitted as a State of the Federal Union; Sevier was elected Governor, Blount was made one of the Senators, and Andrew Jackson was chosen Representative in Congress. In their State CoustituThe Ten. ion he hard-working backwoods farmers nessee Con-showed a conservative spirit which would stitution. seem strange to the radical democracy of new Western States to-day. An elective Governor and two legislative houses were provided; and the representation was proportioned, not to the population at large, but to the citizen who paid taxes; for persons with some little property were still considered to be the rightful depositaries of political power. The Constitution established freedom of the press, and complete religious liberty--a liberty then denied in the parent State of North Carolina; but it contained some unwise and unjust provisions. The Judges were appointed by the Legislature, and were completely subservient to it; and, through the influence of the land speculators all lands except town 1796 THE TENNESSEE CONSTITUTION. 171 lots were taxed alike, so that the men who had obtained possession of the best tracts shifted to other shoulders much of their own proper burden.1 1" Constitutional History of Tennessee," by Joshua W. Caldwell, p. 101, another of Robert Clark's publications; an admirable study of institutional development in Tennessee. CHAPTER IV. INTRIGUES AND LAND...