The reader, must not however, confuse the policy advocated and _practised_ by those people of emancipation or of manumitting their slaves, with the doctrine of forcible abolition, or of freeing slaves by legislative enactment, without the consent of the owner. Petitions, with nearly two thousand signers or names to them, coming from all settlements in the state (territory) were presented to the Constitutional Convention in 1796, asking that a provision be embodied in the constitution prohibiting slavery in the state after the year 1864. This was the voice of prophecy coming up out of the _Western Wilderness_. True philanthropy liberates its own slaves, and not other people’s without their consent. The first private corporation chartered by the general assembly of Tennessee was the “Nolichucky River Company,” November 10, 1801. Its objects are briefly stated to be “to clear out and remove from the bed or channel of so much of the river Nolichucky as shall be within the limits of Washington, Greene and Jefferson counties, all and every obstruction which in any way impede or hinder the navigation of the same.” The tenth section of the act is as follows: _Be it enacted_, That three custom houses be established on said river, for the purpose of receiving toll, in such places as the said Nolichucky River Company may think expedient; and any boat, craft or other vessel, entering in above the upper custom house shall pay at the rate of one dollar per ton; any boat, craft or other vessel, entering between the upper custom house and the second below, shall pay at the rate of seventy-five cents per ton; and any boat, craft or other vessel, entering in between the second custom house and the third, shall pay at the rate of fifty cents per ton. It is worth the time of the curious to read the whole of this act, as it is not probable that another like it can be found in the statute law of any other state.