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.