The Conquest of the Old Southwest; the romantic story of the early pioneers into Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, 1740-1790Henderson, Archibald
History
The Conquest of the Old Southwest; the romantic story of the early pioneers into Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, 1740-1790
Henderson, Archibald
Frontier and pioneer life -- Southwest, Old; Kentucky -- History -- To 1792; Southwest, Old -- History; Tennessee -- History
Among the noteworthy features of the Franklin movement was the
constitution prepared by a committee, headed by the Reverend Samuel
Houston of Washington County, and presented at the meeting of the
Franklin legislature, Greeneville, November 14, 1785. This eccentric
constitution was based in considerable part upon the North Carolina
model; but it was "rejected in the lump" and the constitution of North
Carolina, almost unchanged, was adopted. Under this Houston
constitution, the name "Frankland" was chosen for the new state. The
legislature was to consist of but a single house. In a section excluding
from the legislature "ministers of the gospel, attorneys at law, and
doctors of physics," those were declared ineligible for office who were
of immoral character or guilty of "such flagrant enormities as
drunkenness, gaming, profane swearing, lewdness, Sabbath-breaking and
such like," or who should deny the existence of God, of heaven, and of
hell, the inspiration of the Scriptures, or the existence of the
Trinity. Full religious liberty and the rights of conscience were
assured--but strict orthodoxy was a condition for eligibility to office.
No one should be chosen to office who was "not a scholar to do the
business." This remarkable document, which provided for many other
curious innovations in government, was the work of pioneer
doctrinaires--Houston, Campbell, Cocke, and Tipton--and deserves study
as a bizarre reflection of the spirit and genius of the western
frontiersmen. [210]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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