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Senate Years of Service: 1796-1797 Party: Democratic Republican
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BLOUNT, William, (father of William Grainger Blount and brother of Thomas Blount),
a Delegate from North Carolina and a Senator from Tennessee; born near Windsor,
Bertie County, N.C., March 26, 1749; pursued preparatory studies in New Bern, N.C.; paymaster of
the Continental troops, North Carolina Line, in 1777; member, State house of commons 1780-1784;
Member of the Continental Congress in 1782, 1783, 1786, and 1787; delegate to the convention that
framed the Federal Constitution in 1787; member, State senate 1788-1790; appointed Governor of
the Territory South of the Ohio river by President George Washington in 1790; Superintendent of
Indian Affairs 1790-1796; chairman of the convention which framed the first State constitution of
Tennessee 1796; upon the admission of Tennessee as a State into the Union was elected to the United
States Senate and served from August 2, 1796, until he was found guilty of a high misdemeanor,
entirely inconsistent with his public trust and duty as a Senator, because he had been active in a plan
to incite the Creek and Cherokee Indians to aid the British in conquering the Spanish territory of West
Florida; expelled from the Senate July 8, 1797; impeachment proceedings were instituted but
dismissed; during the trial was elected to the State senate of Tennessee and chosen its president; died
in Knoxville, Tenn., March 21, 1800; interment in the First Presbyterian Church Cemetery.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Masterson, William. William Blount.
1954. Reprint. New York: Greenwood Press, 1969; Melton, Buckner F., Jr. The First
Impeachment: The Constitutions Framers and the Case of Senator William Blount.
Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1998.
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