William Blount
State: North Carolina
Age at Convention: 38
Date of Birth: March 26, 1749
Date of Death: March 21, 1800
Schooling: Unknown
Occupation: Politician, Public Security Interests, Planter, Merchant, Real Estate and Land Speculation, Educator
Prior Political Experience: Lower House of North Carolina 1783-1784, Speaker of Lower House 1784, Upper House of North Carolina 1782, 1788-1790, Confederation Congress 1782-1783, 1786-1788
Committee Assignments: None
Convention Contributions: Arrived June 20, and except for taking his seat in the Confederation Congress from July 5-August 7, was present through the signing of the Constitution. William Pierce stated that “Mr. Blount is a character strongly marked for integrity and honor. …He is plain, honest, and sincere.”
New Government Participation: Attended the ratification convention of North Carolina, and supported the ratification of the Constitution. President Washington appointed him the governor of the Territory South of the River Ohio (1790-1796). He presided over the Constitutional Convention of the State of Tennessee, and was elected as one of its first U.S. Senators (1796 – 1797).
Biography from the National Archives:William Blount was the great-grandson of Thomas Blount, who came from England to Virginia soon after 1660 and settled on a North Carolina plantation. William, the eldest in a large family, was born in 1749 while his mother was visiting his grandfather’s Rosefield estate, on the site of present Windsor near Pamlico Sound. The youth apparently received a good education.
Shortly after the War for Independence began, in 1776, Blount enlisted as a paymaster in the North Carolina forces. Two years later, he wed Mary Grainier (Granger); of their six children who reached adulthood, one son also became prominent in Tennessee politics.
Blount spent most of the remainder of his life in public office. He sat in the lower house of the North Carolina legislature (1780-84), including service as speaker, as well as in the upper (1788-90). In addition, he took part in national politics, serving in the Continental Congress in 1782-83 and 1786-87.
Appointed as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention at the age of 38, Blount was absent for more than a month because he chose to attend the Continental Congress on behalf of his state. He said almost nothing in the debates and signed the Constitution reluctantly—only, he said, to make it “the unanimous act of the States in Convention.” Nonetheless, he favored his state’s ratification of the completed document.
Blount hoped to be elected to the first U.S. Senate. When he failed to achieve that end, in 1790 he pushed westward beyond the Appalachians, where he held speculative land interests and had represented North Carolina in dealings with the Indians. He settled in what became Tennessee, to which he devoted the rest of his life. He resided first at Rocky Mount, a cabin near present Johnson City and in 1792 built a mansion in Knoxville.
Two years earlier, Washington had appointed Blount as Governor for the Territory South of the River Ohio (which included Tennessee) and also as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Department, in which positions he increased his popularity with the frontiersmen. In 1796 he presided over the constitutional convention that transformed part of the territory into the State of Tennessee. He was elected as one of its first U.S. senators (1796-97).
During this period, Blount’s affairs took a sharp turn for the worse. In 1797 his speculations in western lands led him into serious financial difficulties. That same year, he also apparently concocted a plan involving use of Indians, frontiersmen, and British naval forces to conquer for Britain the Spanish provinces of Florida and Louisiana. A letter he wrote alluding to the plan fell into the hands of President Adams, who turned it over to the Senate on July 3, 1797. Five days later, that body voted 25 to 1 to expel Blount. The House impeached him, but the Senate dropped the charges in 1799 on the grounds that no further action could be taken beyond his dismissal.
The episode did not hamper Blount’s career in Tennessee. In 1798 he was elected to the senate and rose to the speakership. He died 2 years later at Knoxville in his early fifties. He is buried there in the cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church.
Related:
* indicates delegates who did not sign the Constitution
Connecticut
William Samuel Johnson – Roger Sherman – Oliver Ellsworth (Elsworth)*
Delaware
George Read – Gunning Bedford, Jr. – John Dickinson – Richard Bassett – Jacob Broom
Georgia
William Few – Abraham Baldwin – William Houstoun* - William L. Pierce*
Maryland
James McHenry – Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer – Daniel Carroll – Luther Martin* - John F. Mercer*
Massachusetts
Nathaniel Gorham – Rufus King – Elbridge Gerry* - Caleb Strong*
New Hampshire
John Langdon – Nicholas Gilman
New Jersey
William Livingston – David Brearly (Brearley) - William Paterson (Patterson) - Jonathan Dayton – William C. Houston*
New York
Alexander Hamilton – John Lansing, Jr.* - Robert Yates*
North Carolina
William Blount – Richard Dobbs Spaight – Hugh Williamson – William R. Davie* - Alexander Martin*
Pennsylvania
Benjamin Franklin – Thomas Mifflin – Robert Morris – George Clymer – Thomas Fitzsimons (FitzSimons; Fitzsimmons) - Jared Ingersoll – James Wilson – Gouverneur Morris
South Carolina
John Rutledge – Charles Cotesworth Pinckney – Charles Pinckney – Pierce Butler
Rhode Island
Rhode Island did not send delegates to the Convention.
Virginia
John Blair – James Madison Jr. – George Washington – George Mason* - James McClurg* - Edmund J. Randolph* - George Wythe*
Other:
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