The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1905-03-31
PLAN FOR A NEW STATE
Report That a BIN to Provide for Ono
VIII be Introduced I'm Congress.

y That q bfIl to Provide Tor Ono
win be Introduced I'm Congress.
1t Is an interesting report that The
first session Of the Fffty-ninth Col
gress VIII witness the introduction OF
q bill creating a new state out of east-
ern Tennessee, southeastern Kentucky
and southwestern Virginia The me7-
sure will be advocated, we are told. BY
Representatives Brownlow. of Tennes-
see: Slemp, OF Virginia, and Edwards
Of Kentucky. all Of whom come from
the region to be included In the pro-
jected commonwealth For obvious
reasons such a bill may prove accep-
table to the Republican majority in
the next Congress, and 1t is by DO
means impossible hat the three ex-
listing states concerned may give tie
consent which. under the third sec
ton of b fourth article OF our fed
eral constitution is indispensable.
The mountainous country, which
would constitute the new state has
played a notable part in our poiiti-
cal history. During the Revolution,
when the northern part of il belonged
TO Virginia and the southern part 10
North Carolina, its inhabitants were
Wings to a man, whereas the popula-
ton of tidewater Virginia and of The
North Carolina lowlands contained
many loyalists. 1t was the flank at
tack of the patriots from beyond the
mountains that so seriously embarrass-
ed Corwallis's march from South Car
DINA TO Virginia. Defiant as they had
been of British authority, the settlers
of eastern Tennessee soon grew restless
under the neglect of the officials COM
posing the new state government of
North Carolina, and proceeded to or
ganize a commonwealth of their own,
to which they gave the nam of
Franklin" That is obviously the ap-
pellation which ought to be conferred
on the state now projected, should Ii
be called into being. George Washing
ton has a state named after him, ~.
u other coleman Revolutionary
worthy, Benjamin Franklin, has none
The divergence of interests and
sympathies which, during the Revolu-
ton had marked off the men beyond
the mountains from the denizens Of
the lowlands, continued to separate
them throughout the following eighty
years. Radically, socially and econ
omically, the inhabitants of southwes-
tern Virginia, eastern Kentucky and
eastern Tennessee form a homogc-
neous body of poor Whites" who had
little except their colorSa and their Ian
guage in common with the slavehold-
ing aristocracies by which they were
~, rrnr,n1oI TIay bod anr1a.,1nl thns~
congener, Andrew Jackson, when he
crushed notification in South Carolina:
and when the Civil war broke out
they found spokesman in Brownlow
and Johnson and the evinced a readi-
ness to fight for the Union, not so
much because they loved the North as
because they dlsliked the south. Prom
the outset of the reconstruction period
up 70 the present hour, the three coII-
munities have been the strongholds of
the Republican party in the states to
which they respectively belong. 1t
was the votes Oh eastern Tennessee
that came near seating H. Clay Evans
in the governors chair at Nashville.
1t has been mainly through the
strength evinced at the ballot box by
eastern Kentucky that a Republican
has more than once become the state
executive at Frankfort. 1t was large
ly the support derived by him from
southwestern Virginia that enabled
General Malone to control the Old Do
monion for a considerable period.
A vivid recollection of the facts just
mentioned may lead the Democratic
majorities in the Legislatures of Vir-
ginia, Kentucky and Tennessee to as
sent to the ACKNOWLEDGMENT involved in
the erection of the proposed new state.
That state would contain between 700,-
900 and 800, 900 inhabitants and would,
therefore, assur to the Republican
party an addition OF five electoral
votes-a number, however, which
would be likely to remain stationary
for a long time, inasmuch as the pop
ulatiOn of the region in question in
creases slowly. On the other hand,
the Democracy could rely with conf
dence IN retaining thereafter the Is
electoral votes of Kentucky, II OF
which it lost in 1896 and which were
imperiled in 1900 and 1904. The Il
electoral votes Of Virginia and the IL
of Tennessee would also be %thencefor-
ward ~unshakably Democratic. On
this ground, it Is conceivable that, as
a matter of party policy, the Legisla-
lures of Kentucky, Tennessee and Vir
ginia might acquiesce in the creation
of a new Republican state.
1t would be one of the strangest sur
prises wrought by the whirligig of
time if for the short-lived state OF
Franklin should be reserved a resu--
rection.-New York Sun.