he community to abandon
their extreme views and to adopt the laws of North Carolina. However
lawless his acts as Governor of a bolting colony may appear, Sevier was
essentially a constructive force. His purposes were right, and small
motives are not discernible in his record. He might reasonably urge that
the Franklanders had only followed the example of North Carolina and the
other American States in seceding from the parent body, and for similar
causes, for the State's system of taxation had long borne heavily on the
overhill men.

The whole transmontane populace welcomed Frankland with enthusiasm.
Major Arthur Campbell, of the Virginian settlements, on the Holston,
was eager to join. Sevier and his Assembly took the necessary steps
to receive the overhill Virginians, provided that the transfer of
allegiance could be made with Virginia's consent. Meanwhile he replied
in a dignified manner to the pained and menacing expostulations of North
Carolina's Governor. North Carolina was bidden to remember the epithets
her assemblymen had hurled at the Westerners, which they themselves had
by no means forgotten. And was it any wonder that they now doubted the
love the parent State professed to feel for them? As for the puerile
threat of blood, had their quality really so soon become obliterated
from the memory of North Carolina? At this sort of writing, Sevier, who
always pulsed hot with emotion and who had a pretty knack in turning a
phrase, was more than a match for the Governor of North Carolina, whose
prerogatives he had usurped.

The overmountain men no longer needed to complain bitterly of the lack
of legal machinery to keep them "the best members of society." They
now had courts to spare. Frankland had its courts, its judges, its
legislative body, its land office--in fact, a full governmental
equipment. North Carolina also performed all the natural functions of
political organism, within the western territory. Sevier appointed one
David Campbell a judge. Campbell held court in Jonesborough. Ten miles
away, in Buffalo, Colonel John Tipton presided for North Carolina. It
happened frequently that officers and attendants of the rival law courts
met, as they pursued, their duties, and whenever they met they fought.
The post of sheriff--or sheriffs, for of course there were two--was
filled by the biggest and heaviest man and the hardest hitter in the
ranks of the warring factions. A favorite game was raiding each other's
cou