Sevier persuaded the more radical members of the 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.
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