I am not prepared to say whether or not these people intended their new state to become part of the Union, as one of the provisions in their proposed form of government was that “the inhabitants within these limits agree with each other to form themselves into a free, sovereign and independent body politic or state, by the name of the commonwealth of Franklin.” I am inclined to the opinion that in the beginning they did not intend to join the Union of states, but that later they concluded that they would, as there was an effort made to have Congress recognize the new state. An examination of the boundary lines of the state of Franklin will show that it included fifteen counties of Virginia, six of West Virginia, one-third of Kentucky, one-half of Tennessee, two-thirds of Alabama and more than one-fourth of Georgia. Cast your eye over this magnificent area: see the blue mountains, the sun-browned cliffs, the beautiful rivers, the broad valleys with their golden wheat-fields and verdant meadows, with the hundreds of smaller streams and sparkling springs: it seems like one grand piece of natural embroidery, fashioned and put together by the fingers of infinity and spread out by the hand of the Almighty. Think of the iron, coal, marble, lead, copper, zinc and other minerals hidden within its soil--you might have put a Chinese wall around the people of the “state of Franklin,” and still they could have lived in absolute independence of the outside world. There is more iron and coal in this territory than can be found in the same area elsewhere in the United States, and it is today yielding a vast revenue to its inhabitants. You can stand on some of its mountain-tops, and see the heavens darkened by day with the pillar of cloud, and made luminous by night with the pillar of fire, arising from furnace and forge in the valleys below, and hear the hammer of Thor beating the iron ribs of those majestic old mountains into the marvellous machines of modern invention and the utilities of a grand civilization. At the first session of the general assembly of the state of Franklin, held in March, 1785, fifteen acts or laws were passed. In the act levying a tax for the support of the government was the following section: