is not a particle of evidence that anything he ever said or did as referred to in the Carey letter, would have brought war or disagreement between the United States and Spain. The modern reader can but see in his expulsion cold-blooded national politics with the wires being pulled by parties evidently in the background for undisclosed purposes, and not because of any violation of law indicated by the Carey letter. HON. MARCUS J. WRIGHT ON WILLIAM BLOUNT. Honorable Marcus J. Wright, now eighty years of age, was a Brigadier General from Tennessee in the Confederate Army, and was appointed by President U. S. Grant as the Confederate member of a Commission of three to take charge of the printing for the Government of the records of the Civil War; and ever since his appointment he has been in the War Records Department of the United States at Washington. In 1884 he wrote a short life of Senator Blount-a pamphlet of one hundred and forty-two pagesand in it he gave an account of the charges before the Senate against the Senator, a summary of the testimony of the witnesses, the trial and the expulsion, and some account of his life and history generally. To General Wright's book and to Dr. J. G. M. Ramsey is due much of what we know about Senator Blount, and as General Wright is a Tennessean and wrote his Life of Blount as a vindication, a quotation of his own words will be of interest to the large number of Tennesseans who know him personally. In Chapter thirty we find the following: "Under the old Confederation the people of Tennessee had been unaided and unprotected in all of their Indian wars. They had received neither troops nor money. They were isolated and cut off from trade with the East by mountain ranges, and cut off from New Orleans by Spanish prohibition; the United States was either unable or unwilling to secure for them the free navigation of the Mississippi River, and in general was little disposed to take notice of their grievances. They entertained no strong affection for the old Confederation, and when the new Federal Constitution was submitted to them the first time they rejected it by an almost unanimous vote. Afterwards they did accept it in the hope that the general government would extend them relief. The hope was vain. Monette says: " "The prevalence of Eastern influence in Congress and in the Cabinet of the United States was strong and swayed the national policy as to measures affecting the Eastern people, and these meas 47744A ures operated no less perniciously upon them than if they had been prompted by interested jealousy in the Atlantic States.' "Putnam says: "The politicians in the Eastern States said let us secure the fisheries; what matters it if the navigation of the Mississippi is yielded for five and twenty years, or forever?' * * * If no redress could be had during Washington's administration, still less could any be hoped for under the succeeding administration, which was alike characterized by its tame submission to foreign insults as by the ferocity of its Alien and Sedition Laws. There was no hope from the government; the people of the West must help themselves or be irretrievably ruined as they were justified at the time in supposing; Governor Blount planned an enterprise for their relief; we have seen what the plan was. It was to secure them the free navigation of the Mississippi; a right which had been declared in the twenty-ninth section of the Bill of Rights of Tennessee to be 'one of the inherent rights of the citizens of this State'. This provision was inserted at the instance and by the efforts of Governor Blount in 1796, two years before he was impeached for making an arrangement for carrying it into effect. The people of Tennessee looked to Governor Blount for relief; he had been identified with the early history and government of the State, and felt it to be his duty to attempt to secure relief. He made the effort and failed. For making this effort he was expelled from the Senate of the United States and impeached. But those who sought to disgrace him were disappointed. What was intended for his humiliation redounded to his greater honor. If he had been a popular favorite before, he was now regarded as a victim of Eastern selfishness and as a martyr to the cause of the Western people." A rather amusing incident of the impeachment occurred when Senator Blount forfeited his bond of one thousand dollars and did not appear for trial before the Senate. Dr. Ramsey says that the Sergeant at Arms, James Mathers, was sent by the Senate to Knoxville to take the Senator into custody and bring him before that body. Mathers proceeded to Knoxville and served the Senate's process upon Blount, who of course, refused to go. The Sergeant at Arms was entertained as a guest at the Senator's house and courteously received by the State authorities. After staying about Knoxville for a few days he summoned a posse of citizens to assist him to take the Senator back to Philadelphia-but not a man would serve. Sergeant at Arms Mathers was then not long in coming to the conclusion that he had better start for home, and a number of citizens rode with him a few miles out of town, bade him goodbye with the greatest courtesy, and assured him with all possible politeness that William Blount could not be taken as a prisoner out of Tennessee. His expulsion not only did not injure him with Tennesseans, but it made him more popular than ever, for the people looked upon it just as the fact was, that he was expelled when he was trying to do something in the service of his State. Later, Willie Blount was elected three times Governor of Tennessee, and William G. Blount, the Senator's son, was elected Secretary of State by the Tennessee Legislature, and later, upon the death of John Sevier, was elected a member of Congress from the Knoxville District. Pleasant M. Miller, the Senator's son-in-law, served as a member of Congress; and another son-in-law, Edmund P. Gaines, was a General in the United States army. Senator Blount died on the twenty-first of March, 1800. His wife died on October 7, 1802, and they are buried side by side in the First Presbyterian Churchyard in Knoxville. Six children survived the couple. CHAPTER 7. Blount-Ordinance of 1787 and Blount's Journal as Governor of the Territory South of the Ohio River. The Tennessee Historical Society has the good fortune to have in its archives an original manuscript copy authenticated by Daniel Smith, Secretary of the Territory, of Governor Blount's Journal of his Executive Acts as Governor of the "Territory south of the River Ohio," which Journal the Ordinance of 1787 required the Secretary to keep and report the executive proceedings twice a year to the Secretary of State of the United States. This document is indispensable to a student who wishes to know the history of Tennessee from its first, organized stable government, and when the effort was being first made to wrest the beautiful State by organized government from the dominion of the red man. Names occur all through this journal that became notable either in the development of the State of Tennessee or other parts of the southwest. There are families in Tennessee today who refer with pride to the part taken by some ancestor of theirs in the Territorial Government of the State under Governor Blount, or in the early days of the State government which began on June 1, 1796. The Journal is given in full and is in two parts: The first from the organization of the Territory to March 1, 1794, and the second from that date to March 1, 1796. That the reader may appreciate the full power invested in Governor Blount by the Ordinance of 1787, and more intelligently comprehend the full scheme and plan of the Territorial Government, we reproduce: 1. "An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio," passed by the Confederate Congress July 13, 1787, and which, subsequently, was the plan of government adopted for the Territory south of the Ohio, with the exception that slavery was allowed in the Territory South of the Ohio. |