as North Carolina seemed quite regardless of our interest and the Indians daily murdering our friends and relations without distinction of age or sex." Sympathizing with the precarious situation of the settlers, as well as desiring the cession, Congress urged North Carolina to amend the repealing act and execute a conveyance of the western territory to the Union.
Among the noteworthy features of the Franklin movement was the constitution prepared by a committee, headed by the Reverend Samuel Houston of Washington County, and presented at the meeting of the Franklin legislature, Greeneville, November 14, 1785.

This eccentric constitution was based in considerable part upon the North Carolina model; but it was "rejected in the lump" and the constitution of North Carolina, almost unchanged, was adopted.
Under this Houston constitution, the name "Frankland" was chosen for the new state.

The legislature was to consist of but a single house.

In a section excluding from the legislature "ministers of the gospel, attorneys at law, and doctors of physics," those were declared ineligible for office who were of immoral character or guilty of "such flagrant enormities as drunkenness, gaming, profane swearing, lewdness, Sabbath-breaking and such like," or who should deny the existence of God, of heaven, and of hell, the inspiration of the Scriptures, or the existence of the Trinity.
Full religious liberty and the rights of conscience were assured--but strict orthodoxy was a condition for eligibility to office.

No one should be chosen to office who was "not a scholar to do the business." This remarkable document, which provided for many other curious innovations in government, was the work of pioneer doctrinaires--Houston, Campbell, Cocke, and Tipton--and deserves study as a bizarre reflection of the spirit and genius of the western frontiersmen.
The liberal policy of Martin, followed by the no less conciliatory attitude of his successor, Caswell, for the time proved wholly abortive.