their destructive
counter-inroads into the Cherokee and Upper Creek country, and if under
Robertson's orders Nickajack and Running Water had not been destroyed;
while the support of the Chickasaws and friendly Cherokees in stopping
the Creek war parties was essential. The Southwesterners owed thanks to
General Wayne and his army and to their own strong right hands; but they
had small cause for gratitude to the Federal Government. They owed still
less to the Northeasterners, or indeed to any of the men of the eastern
seaboard; the benefits arising from Pinckney's treaty form the only
exception. This neglect brought its own punishment. Blount and Sevier
were naturally inclined to Federalism, and it was probably only the
supineness of the Federal Government in failing to support the
Southwesterners against the Indians which threw Tennessee, when it
became a State, into the arms of the Democratic party.

Peace.

However, peace was finally wrung from the Indians, and by the beginning
of 1796 the outrages ceased. The frontiers, north and south alike,
enjoyed a respite from Indian warfare for the first time in a
generation; nor was the peace interrupted until fifteen years
afterwards.

Growth of Tennessee.

Throngs of emigrants had come into Tennessee. A wagon road had been
chopped to the Cumberland District, and as the Indians gradually ceased
their ravages, the settlements about Nashville began to grow as rapidly
as the settlements along the Holston. In 1796 the required limit of
population had been reached, and Tennessee with over seventy-six
thousand inhabitants was formally admitted as a State of the Federal
Union; Sevier was elected Governor, Blount was made one of the Senators,
and Andrew Jackson was chosen Representative in Congress.

The Tennessee Constitution.

In their State Constitution the hard-working backwoods farmers showed a
conservative spirit which would seem strange to the radical democracy of
new Western States to-day. An elective Governor and two legislative
houses were provided; and the representation was proportioned, not to
the population at large, but to the citizen who paid taxes; for persons
with some little property were still considered to be the rightful
depositaries of political power. The Constitution established freedom of
the press, and complete religious liberty--a liberty then denied in the
parent State of North Carolina; but it contained some unwise and unjust
provision