William Blount

William Blount
Speaker of the Tennessee Senate
In office
1798–1799
Preceded byJames White
Succeeded byAlexander Outlaw
United States Senator
from Tennessee
In office
August 2, 1796 – July 8, 1797
Preceded byHimself (Shadow Senator from the Southwest Territory)
Succeeded byJoseph Anderson
United States Shadow Senator
from the Southwest Territory
In office
March 30, 1796 – August 2, 1796
Preceded bySeat established
Succeeded byHimself (U.S. Senator from Tennessee)
Governor of the Southwest Territory
In office
September 20, 1790 – March 30, 1796
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byJohn Sevier (Tennessee)
Member of the Congress of the Confederation
from North Carolina
In office
1786–1787
In office
1782–1783
Personal details
Born(1749-04-06)April 6, 1749
(March 29, 1749 (O.S.))
Windsor, Province of North Carolina, British America
DiedMarch 21, 1800(1800-03-21) (aged 50)
Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.
Resting placeFirst Presbyterian Church Cemetery
Political partyDemocratic-Republican
SpouseMary Grainger
Children6, including William Grainger
Relatives
Signature

William Blount (April 6, 1749 – March 21, 1800)[1] was an American politician, landowner and Founding Father who was one of the signers of the Constitution of the United States. He was a member of the North Carolina delegation at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and led the efforts for North Carolina to ratify the Constitution in 1789 at the Fayetteville Convention. He then served as the only governor of the Southwest Territory and played a leading role in helping the territory gain admission to the union as the state of Tennessee. He was selected as one of Tennessee's initial United States Senators in 1796, serving until he was expelled for treason in 1797.[2][3]

Born to a prominent North Carolina family, Blount served as a paymaster during the American Revolutionary War. He was elected to the North Carolina legislature in 1781, where he remained in one role or another for most of the decade, except for two terms in the Continental Congress in 1782 and 1786. Blount pushed efforts in the legislature to open the lands west of the Appalachians to settlement. As governor of the Southwest Territory, he negotiated the Treaty of Holston in 1791, bringing thousands of acres of Indian lands under U.S. control.[2]

An aggressive land speculator, Blount gradually acquired millions of acres in Tennessee and the Trans-Appalachian West. He owned slaves as well.[4] His risky land investments left him in debt, and in the 1790s, he conspired of his own accord to have Great Britain take over Spanish-controlled Louisiana and Florida in the hope of boosting local land prices. When the conspiracy was uncovered in 1797, he was expelled from the Senate and became the first federal official to face impeachment.[5] However, Blount remained popular in Tennessee and served in the state senate during the last years of his life.[2]

  1. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Blount, William" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  2. ^ a b c Terry Weeks, "William Blount," Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, 2010. Accessed 10 September 2012.
  3. ^ "U.S. Senate: Expulsion Case of William Blount of Tennessee (1797)". www.senate.gov. Retrieved 2022-01-30.
  4. ^ "Congress slaveowners", The Washington Post, 2022-01-19, retrieved 2022-07-10
  5. ^ "To Arrest an Impeached Senator." United States Senate website. Accessed 10 September 2012.

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