h toward
abolition would be pointed out by poor frontiersmen engaged in a life
and death struggle with hostile savages. The slaveholders were not
interfered with until they gradually grew numerous enough and powerful
enough to set the tone of thought, and make it impossible to root out
slavery save by outside action.

Blount's First Appointments.

Blount recommended the appointment of Sevier and Robertson as
brigadier-generals of militia of the Eastern and Western districts of
the Territory, and issued a large number of commissions to the justices
of the peace, militia officers, sheriffs, and clerks of the county
courts in the different counties. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Journal of the
Proceedings, etc.] In his appointments he shrewdly and properly
identified himself with the natural leaders of the frontiersmen. He made
Sevier and Robertson his right-hand men, and strove always to act in
harmony with them, while for the minor military and civil officers he
chose the persons whom the frontiersmen themselves desired. In
consequence he speedily became a man of great influence for good. The
Secretary of the Territory reported to the Federal Government that the
effect of Blount's character on the frontiersmen was far greater than
was the case with any other man, and that he was able to get them to
adhere to the principles of order and to support the laws by his
influence in a way which it was hopeless to expect from their own
respect for governmental authority. Blount was felt by the frontiersmen
to be thoroughly in sympathy with them, to understand and appreciate
them, and to be heartily anxious for their welfare; and yet at the same
time his influence could be counted upon on the side of order, while the
majority of the frontier officials in any time of commotion were apt to
remain silent and inactive, or even to express their sympathy with the
disorderly element. [Footnote: American State Papers, iv.; Daniel Smith
to the Secretary of War, Knoxville, July 19, 1793.]

Blount's Tact in Dealing with Difficulties.

No one but a man of great tact and firmness could have preserved as much
order among the frontiersmen as Blount preserved. He was always under
fire from both sides. The settlers were continually complaining that
they were deserted by the Federal authorities, who favored the Indians,
and that Blount himself did not take sufficiently active steps to subdue
the savages; while on the other hand the National A