BLOUNT, WILLIAM

born March 26, 1749, Bertie County, N.C. died March 21, 1800, Knoxville, Tenn., U.S. first territorial governor of (179096) and later one of the first two U.S. senators from Tennessee (179697). Blount served in the North Carolina militia during the Revolutionary War. During the 1780s he was elected to six terms in the North Carolina legislature, represented his state in Congress under the Articles of Confederation, and was a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Later he was a member of the North Carolina convention that ratified the Constitution. Disappointed in his defeat for election to the U.S. Senate in 1789, Blount secured appointment as territorial governor of the lands west of the Alleghenies ceded to the U.S. in 1789 by North Carolina. When this territory became the state of Tennessee, Blount was elected one of its first two senators. Shortly thereafter, in financial difficulties arising from his speculations in Western lands, Blount became involved in a plan whose apparent aim was to organize an armed force of frontiersmen and Indians, and, with the help of the British fleet, to expel the Spanish from Florida and Louisiana and transfer control to Great Britain. When the plot came to the attention of Pres. John Adams, Blount was expelled from the Senate, and impeachment proceedings were begun, although they were dropped the following year. Blount returned to Tennessee, where his popularity was undiminished, and was elected in 1798 to the Tennessee senate, serving as speaker until his death.