George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

The cause of liberty obtained in him a friend who was independent of party allegiance and traditions, just at the time when the passion for ruling America by the central authority was producing anarchy in the Colonies. In South Carolina, whose sons esteemed themselves disfranchised on their own soil by the appointment of strangers to every office, the Governor had for four years negatived every taxbill in the hope of controlling the appropriations. In North Carolina, the law establishing courts of justice had expired; in the conflict of claims of power between the Governor and the Legislature, every new law on the subject was negatived, and there were no courts of any kind in the Province.² The most orderly and best governed part of Carolina was the self-organized Republic of Watauga, beyond the mountains, where the settlements were extending along the Holston, as well as south of the Nollichucky.

Every where an intrepid, hardy and industrious population, heedless of proclamations, was moving westward through all the gates of the Alleghanies;