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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—North Carolina / TennesseeWilliam BLOUNT
(1749-1800)
Senate Years of Service:
1796-1797Party: Democratic
RepublicanBLOUNT, 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.
Bibliography
American 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 Constitution’s Framers and the
Case of Senator William Blount. Macon, Georgia: Mercer
University Press, 1998.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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