The Lost State of Franklin: The Would Be State Which Terrified US Elites

from the Appalachian Storyteller

The Appalachian Storyteller tells his historical stories in the same cadence my older relatives told me tales of the Comanche Moon and the coming of the Buffalo Soldiers to the north Texas plains.

Probably because there’s a good chance he’s my second cousin thrice removed or something. The frontiersmen who crossed the Appalachians before the Revolutionary War, then called the “overmountain men,” were my direct ancestors.

In 1784, just a year after the Treaty of Paris secured American independence, a group of frontiersmen in what is now eastern Tennessee revolted against the wealthy, declared their own state, and petitioned to join the Union.

The most radical idea they had was that any free man, regardless of skin color or wealth, could run for political office. HOWEVER, doctors, lawyers and preachers were explicitly forbidden from holding public office.

Why? Because they were the only rich folks who were there at the time. If there had been banks there then, there’s not a doubt in my mind that bankers would have been on the list. These would-be Franklinites wanted only ordinary people representing them in their state government.

They definitely didn’t want state legislatures in North Carolina or Virginia telling them what to do or levying taxes.

Of course, the bankers and Federalists of Alexander Hamilton’s ilk would never allow the State of Franklin, with that radical state constitution, to be admitted to the Union. This video(only 15 minutes) tells the story of these overmountain men who tried to create their own state, sans rich people in government, and how the latter prevented it from becoming a thing.

I hope you enjoy it, and that those long gone frontiersmen give you some more subversive ideas. I know I’m all in favor from banning the rich from public office. It’s certainly worth a try, IMHO.

Thank you for reading and hopefully watching, good day or night, and good luck.

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