oral 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.

The liberal policy of Martin, followed by the no less
conciliatory attitude of his successor, Caswell, for the time
proved wholly abortive. However, Martin's appointment of Evan
Shelby in Sevier's place as brigadier, and of Jonathan Tipton as
colonel of his county, produced disaffection among the Franks;
and the influence of Joseph Martin against the new government was
a powerful obstacle to its success. At first the two sets of
military, civil, and judicial officers were able to work amicably
together; and a working-basis drawn up by Shelby and Sevier,
although afterward repudiated by the Franklin legislature,
smoothed over some of the rapidly accumulating difficulties. The
persistent and quiet assertion of authority by North Carolina,
without any overt act of violence against the officers of
Franklin state, revealed great diplomatic skill in Governors
Martin and Caswell. It was doubtless the considerate policy of
the latter, coupled with the defection from Sevier's cause of men
of the stamp of Houston and Tipton, after the blundering and
cavalier rejection of their singular constitution, which
undermined the foundations of Franklin. Sevier himself later
wrote with considerable bitterness: "I have been faithfull, and
my own breast acquits myself that I have acted no part but what
has been Consistent with honor and justice, tempered with
Clemency and mercy. How far our pretended patriots have supported
me as their pretended chiefe magistrate, I leave the world at
large to Judge." Arthur Campbell's plans for the formation of a
greater Franklin, through the union of the people on the western
waters of Virginia with those of North Carolina, came to nought
when Virginia in the autumn of 17