tauga, with some hints from that of Transylvania.
[Footnote: Phelan, the first historian who really grasped what this
movement meant, and to what it was due, gives rather too much weight to
the part Henderson played. Henderson certainly at this time did not
aspire to form a new State on the Cumberland; the compact especially
provided for the speedy admission of Cumberland as a county of North
Carolina. The marked difference between the Transylvania and the
Cumberland "constitutions," and the close agreement of the latter with
the Watauga articles, assuredly point to Robertson as the chief author.]
The settlers ratified the deeds of their delegates on May 13th, when
they signed the articles, binding themselves to obey them to the number
of two hundred and fifty-six men. The signers practically guaranteed one
another their rights in the land, and their personal security against
wrong-doers; those who did not sign were treated as having no rights
whatever--a proper and necessary measure as it was essential that the
naturally lawless elements should be forced to acknowledge some kind of
authority.

The compact provided that the affairs of the community should be
administered by a Court or Committee of twelve Judges, Triers or General
Arbitrators, to be elected in the different stations by vote of all the
freemen in them who were over twenty-one years of age. Three of the
Triers were to come from Nashborough, two from Mansker's, two from
Bledsoe's, and one from each of five other named stations. [Footnote:
Putnam speaks of these men as "notables"; apparently they called
themselves as above. Putnam's book contains much very valuable
information; but it is written in most curious style and he interlards
it with outside matter; much that he puts in quotation marks is
apparently his own material. It is difficult to make out whether his
"tribunal of notables" is his own expression or a quotation, but
apparently it is the former.] Whenever the freemen of any station were
dissatisfied with their Triers, they could at once call a new election,
at which others might be chosen in their stead. The Triers had no
salaries, but the Clerk of the Court was allowed some very small fees,
just enough to pay for the pens, ink, and paper, all of them scarce
commodities. [Footnote: Haywood, 126.] The Court had jurisdiction in all
cases of conflict over land titles; a land office being established and
an entry taker appointed. Over half of the com