Early Life and Background
William Blount was born on March 26, 1749, in Bertie County, North Carolina, into a prosperous planter family with deep colonial roots. He received a formal education and worked as a merchant and land speculator before entering politics.
Blount served in the North Carolina militia during the Revolutionary War and later held various administrative roles in the state government, including service as a delegate to the Continental Congress. By the 1780s, he had become a prominent figure in North Carolina’s political and economic life, especially through his involvement in western land speculation and development.
Constitutional Convention
Blount was selected by the North Carolina legislature as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Although he was not a prominent speaker at the Convention, he supported a stronger national government and voted in favor of the final draft of the Constitution. He signed the document on behalf of North Carolina on September 17, 1787.
While his role at the Convention was relatively quiet, his significance lay in his political influence and his investments in western lands. Blount saw a stronger federal government as essential to stabilizing frontier regions and facilitating commercial expansion into newly acquired territories.
Later Public Service and Legacy
After the Convention, Blount returned to North Carolina and played a role in securing the state’s eventual ratification of the Constitution in 1789 (North Carolina initially rejected the Constitution in 1788 and ratified it the following year). In 1790, President George Washington appointed him as governor of the newly created Southwest Territory, which included present-day Tennessee. He served as governor until 1796, during which time he negotiated treaties with Native American tribes and was instrumental in Tennessee’s admission to the Union as the 16th state.
In 1796, Blount was elected as one of Tennessee’s first two U.S. Senators. However, his federal political career was soon derailed by scandal. In 1797, he was implicated in a conspiracy to incite an attack on Spanish-controlled Florida and Louisiana by British forces and Native American allies. The scheme was aimed at increasing the value of western lands in which Blount and his associates had financial interests.
Although the U.S. Senate expelled Blount on July 8, 1797—the first expulsion of a Senator under the Constitution—he was not impeached by the House of Representatives, and the Senate later dismissed the impeachment charges, concluding it lacked jurisdiction over Senators in such proceedings.
Despite the scandal, Blount remained popular in Tennessee. He was elected to the Tennessee State Senate in 1798 and served until his death on March 21, 1800, in Knoxville. Today, Blount is remembered both for his contributions to westward expansion and his role in early American constitutional history, as well as for his involvement in the nation’s first major political scandal.
