TENNESSEE. The name of one of the United States of America.
2b It was originally a part of North Carolina. In April, 1784, the legielature of North Carolina passed an act ceding to the United States, upon oertain conditions, all her territory west of the Appalachian or Allegheny mountains. Before the cession wae accepted by congreee, it was repealed by another act passed in October, 1784. In the mean time, movements had been set on foot by the people to constitute themselves an independent state. They acted upon the assumed hut erroneous ground that North Carolina had by the cession abdicated her sovereignty, and, as the congress had not accepted it, and might not upon the conditione proposed, they were left without any regular gov ernment, and therefore had an inherent right to provide one for themselves. They consummated their design after the cession act was repealed, and gave to their new state the name of The State of Franklin.
This revolutionary state meintained ite existence for about three years, when it was suppressed and the rightful dominion of North Carolina reinstated. In December, 1789, the legislature again eeded the territory tu the United Statee; and the cession was accepted by congress by an act approved April 2, 1790. North Carolina made it a fundamental con dition of the cession that the territory so ceded shall be laid out and formed into a etate or etatee, containing a suitable extent of territory, the in habitants of which shall enjoy all the privileges, benefits and advantaged set forth in the ordinance of the late ()congress for the government of the western territory of the United States: provided, alwaye, that no regulations made or to be made by congress shall tend to emancipate slaves. One of ' the privileges thue secured to the territory was that when the number of its inhabitants should amount to sixty thousand it should be entitled to admiesion into the Union upon an equality with the original states. Under the authority of the territorial legie lature, the oensus wee taken in 1795, and, the neceseary number of inhabitants being found in the territory, a convention was celled, and a °consti tution eetabliehed on February 6, 1796. The legal
name of the territory while in a roolonial condition was The Territory of the United Statee south of the river Ohio. But in the oonetitution the people adopt the name of The State of Tennessee.
3. Ae oongrese had not Previously decided whether the territory should constitute one state or more then one, and had not itself authorized the enumeration of the inhabitante or the formation of a constitution, there was a strong minority against the admiseion of Tennessee into the Union. 1 Benton, Debates, 154-159. But she was admitted by an aet approved dune 1, 1796. Prior to thk; time a goverment legislature had been elected and the etate government organined and many import ant laws enacted.
It wee a part of the avowed objeet of the cession ' made by North Carolina to the United States to furnish " further meene of hastening the extin guishment of the national debt." This object has wholly failed. The land wee to be first eubject to the satisfaction of the claims which had originated against it 1113der the laws of North Carolina. These claims ultimately absorbed nearly all the land that %YRS fit for cultivation. Congreee from time to time ceded the refuse lande to Tenneasee, and finally, by an act passed August 7, 1846, surrendered to her the last remnant to which the right of the United States had been previously reserved.
The constitution of 1796 was not submitted to the people for ratification. The authority of the convention established it as the constitution of the state. The present constitution is the work of a convention assembled in 1834 to reviee and amend the first. It was submitted to the people, and rati fied by popular vote, in 1835. The governmeot was reorganized in 1835-36, in accordance with ite pro visione.