What Happened to Franklin?
“There is a sort of political marginalization being so far away from the seat of state power and not having your political interests represented,” Dr. Kevin Barksdale, a history professor at Marshall University and author of The Lost State of Franklin: America’s First Secession, said. One of the main concerns of the Franklinites was that the government of North Carolina and the federal government would sell the land from under their feet.
Source: smithsonianmag.com
In 1784, the US owed massive debts from the Revolutionary War. Without the power to impose taxes, the Continental Congress had to get creative in how to compensate their lenders. One way America did this was by accepting land abandoned from the 13 states and selling it to settlers.