Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-03-01
rHE FIRsr GOvERNOR BLOUNT.

Ot Gov. BiOunt the f1rSt, lather Of
the excellent old gentlemen whose
monument we have raised in Green
wood Cemetery. 1t was known t..
lis that the Governor was expelled
from the Senate for what was re-
garded as q reasonable correspond
snce with the British Government ;
that he was afterwards impeached
10y the House on the same grounds
and that the impeachment was
quashed on the same plea as that o
Gen. Belknap in our time, namely
the plea that he was no longer al.
official person and therefore not an
Improbable person rs defined in
the Constitution.
Thus much we knew before and
had stated at the time of inaugural
ing his sons monument, but we
had never been able to find the ex'
act details of the offence he was
charged with or the evidence on
which the impeachment had been
based. These are now supplied by
the correspondent of the American
1t appears then that his offence was
that of concerning with Pickering,
the English Ambassador at Wash
inetOn, an attack upon the Spanish
settlements upon the Mississippi,
then consisting of military estab-
lishments at Chickasaw Bluffs, now
Memphis, Walnut Hills, now Vicks-
burg, and Natchez. The purpose
was to transfer these posts to the
English Government, and the
means "A force of Cherokee Indians
with whom he was already in
triguing.
There can be no doubt from the
published letter now before us that
Blount was guilty of all this, but,
what seems to US the strange point
is that the Tennesseans of that day
did not think any the worse of him
for il.
Now simply az Tennesseans we
do not feel ourselves called upon to
do anything towards whitewashing
Gov. Biount. He was not the
choice of the then people of Tennes-
see, who wished and petitiOned for
their own favOrite Sewer, and were
disappointed and indignant when
President Washington appointed a.
Governor of what was then the
Southwestern Territory ofthe United
States Col. Blount, of North Caro-
lima. They soon became recOnciled
t. him, however, elected him to the
Senate, and when a deputy Ser
geant-at-Arms came to arrest him
for trial under impeachment, they
sent him back to Washington with
out his prisoner and elected BlOunt
their Governor by reclamation.
Not, then, with a view to the vim
dication of Blount, but to gain some
conception of the State of public
feeling which could approve his
conduct, we will try to present a
true picture of Tennessee and the
Tennesseans of that day.
The territory which Blount was
sent by President Washington to
govern did not ut that time even
- Fl,r ,,,,,,a &c VNanpa1gao TEn
great river from which the State
now derives its name was unknown
and UNEMPLOYED except two of its
upper tributaries, the HOlstOn and
the Watauga, the settlers upon
which were the people whom Blo1nt
came to govern. They occupied
quite Il small portion oil what is
now known AZ East Tennessee.
This tract was known as the South
western Territory of the United
States. 1t did in theory include an
indefinite extent Of territory west
wards, extending a. a great ribbon
of land the width of North Carolina
TO the shores of the Pacific. New
York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and
Georgia had similar ribbons of land
alphabetically extending to the Pa
citic. Immense tracts of this coun-
try so covered with imaginary State
lines were claimed on different pre-
texts by Spain, France and England,
and it was evident that the real
possession depended upon which
nation should first occupy the land
by actual settlers.
The settlements above mentioned
had commenced shortly before and
during the revolutionary war. The
settlers came from both Virginia
and North Carolina, and theOreti-
cally the territory occupied was
part of North Carolina, but it had
not been surveyed, and many of the
settlers did not even know which
State they were in. Practically
they were self-governed and recOg-
niZed no authority of either state
Government over them. At that
time the United States as Il nation
did not exist; their allegiance was
either to North Carolina or to no
State ut all, with a decided prefer
ence for the latter theory. North
Carolina itself recognized very
loose allegiance to the Federal Gov /
ernment for many years after its
creation, and these settlements
were still more loosely subject to !
North Carolina. Before the Cession /
of the territory to the United States I
they had been in revolt against the I
State Government of North Carroll /
ma, and when that State coded its |
western territory to the United /
States they held still more loosely /
l,v their new allegiance. Even i'm /
North Carolina the Federal Govern /
ment was scarcely more than an alb
straetIon. In the HOlston and Wa
tauga settlements it was less than
,r ahsfraetiOn, IL was nothing, or .