The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 293 



less only a few people in Franklin ever knew that 

 it existed. As for Sevier, when he saw that he was 

 baffled he suddenly became a Federalist and an ad 

 vocate of a strong central government; and this, 

 doubtless, not because of love for Federalism, but 

 to show his hostility to North Carolina, which had 

 at first refused to enter the new Union. 54 This 

 particular move was fairly comic in its abrupt un 

 expectedness. 



Thus the last spark of independent life flickered 

 out in Franklin proper. The people who had set 

 tled on the Indian borders were left without gov 

 ernment, North Carolina regarding them as tres 

 passers on the Indian territory. 55 They accordingly 

 met and organized a rude governmental machine, 

 on the model of the Commonwealth of Franklin; 

 and the wild little State existed as a separate and 

 independent republic until the new Federal Govern 

 ment included it in the territory south of the Ohio. 56 



54 "Columbian Magazine," Aug. 27, 1788, Vol. II, 542. 



85 Haywood, 195. 



& * In my first two volumes I have discussed, once for all, 

 the worth of Gilmore's "histories" of Sevier and Robertson 

 and their times. It is unnecessary further to consider a 

 single statement they contain. 



