page_title: Greeneville, Tennessee
section_title: Greeneville becomes capital of the State of Franklin
hierarchical_section_title: Greeneville, Tennessee / History / Greeneville becomes capital of the State of Franklin
caption_attribution_description: English: Replica of the Capitol of the State of Franklin in Greeneville, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. This crude log structure was constructed in 1966, based on dimensions in historical records. Greeneville was the capital of the failed State of Franklin in the 1780s.
context_page_description: Greeneville is a town in and the county seat of Greene County, Tennessee, United States. The population as of the 2010 census was 15,062. The town was named in honor of Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene. It is the only town with this spelling in the United States, although there are numerous U.S. towns named Greenville. The town was the capital of the short-lived State of Franklin in the 18th-century history of East Tennessee.
  Greeneville is known as the town where United States President Andrew Johnson began his political career when elected from his trade as a tailor. He and his family lived there most of his adult years. It was an area of strong abolitionist and Unionist views and yeoman farmers, an environment which influenced Johnson's outlook.
  The Greeneville Historic District was established in 1974.
  The U.S. Navy Los Angeles-class submarine USS Greeneville was named in honor of the town.
  Greeneville is part of the Johnson City-Kingsport- Bristol TN-VA Combined Statistical Area – commonly known as the "Tri-Cities" region.
context_section_description: In 1784, North Carolina attempted to resolve its debts by giving the U.S. Congress its lands west of the Appalachian Mountains, including Greene County, abandoning responsibility for the area to the federal government.  In response, delegates from Greene and neighboring counties convened at Jonesborough and resolved to break away from North Carolina and establish an independent state.  The delegates agreed to meet again later that year to form a constitution, which was rejected when presented to the general delegation in December.  Reverend Samuel Houston (not to be confused with the later governor of Tennessee and Texas) had presented a draft constitution which restricted the election of lawyers and other professionals. Houston's draft met staunch opposition, especially from Reverend Hezekiah Balch (1741–1810) (who was later instrumental in the creation of Tusculum College). John Sevier was elected governor, and other executive offices were filled.
  A petition for statehood for what would have become known as the State of Franklin (named in honor of Benjamin Franklin) was drawn at the delegates session in May 1785. The delegates submitted a petition for statehood to Congress, which failed to gain the requisite votes needed for admission to the Union. The first state legislature of Franklin met in December 1785 in a crude log courthouse in Greeneville, which had been named the capital city the previous August. During this session, the delegates finally approved a constitution which was based on, and quite similar to, the North Carolina state constitution.  However, the Franklin movement began to collapse soon thereafter, with North Carolina reasserting its control of the area the following spring.
  In 1897, at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in Nashville, a log house that had been moved from Greeneville was displayed as the capitol where the State of Franklin's delegates met in the 1780s.  There is, however, nothing to verify that this building was the actual capitol.  In the 1960s, the capitol was reconstructed, based largely on the dimensions given in historian J. G. M. Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee.
caption: Replica of the Capitol of the State of Franklin in Greeneville
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