Curio: The Lost State of Frankland

It could have been #14:

I've been reading a lot of histories in the past few months, and have started to amass a pretty good stock of historical curios. The latest comes from Lawrence Friedman's "A History of American Law":

Commenting on early America's zeal for state constitutions, Friedman off-handedly mentions that even "the residents of the 'lost state of Franklin,'" in the early 1780s, gave into the movement. (p.72)

What?

Turns out, the far-west residents of North Carolina weren't too happy when their home state offered to give all of North Carolina's lands west of the Appalachian mountains to the national government, in exchange for the government's assumption of North Carolina's Revolutionary-War debts. (Of note, most of the original 13 colonies had no western border and made similar bargains, ultimately leading to the creation of the Northwest and Southwest territories, and to another odd historical curio: Connecticut's non-contiguous "Western Reserve" in Ohio.)

So, the angry Carolinians did what they thought any self-respecting American should do: they declared independence, drafted a constitution (the first version of which, rejected by voters, would have banned lawyers, doctors and preachers from holding elected office), and petitioned Congress for admission to statehood.

Even crazier?

A majority of the original states gave Frankland their blessing: 7 of the 13 voted to admit the eight North Carolinian counties (which would later comprise the northeast corner of Tennessee) into the Confederacy as the tiny, tiny state of Frankland:

It wasn't the two-thirds required by the Articles of Confederation, though, so Frankland withered. After officially changing its name to "Franklin" and trying to rally the respected Mr. Benjamin F. to its cause (he declined), the citizens of Frankland/lin ultimately gave up the ghost after realizing that it was going to be a lot harder not to get killed by members of the Creek and Cherokee Indian Nations (whose lands they were, after all, invading) without the assistance of North Carolina's militia. The "State" collapsed, having existed just shy of a (pretty respectable) 4 years.

Next up: a couple of items from Daniel Walker Howe's "What Hath God Wrought."

Stay tuned.