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How did state lines originate? Some state lines are obvious. At one point the straight line border between Virginia and North Carolina was clearly a line laid out by a surveyor dating back to the British. Then the N.C. border turns southwest, following the mountain crests of the Smokies, the Snowbirds and the Unakas.
It is said that the blunt Western border of North Carolina ceases following the ridge crests not because of any geographical reason, but because that is the point the surveying party ran out of liquor and heard of a stillhouse at the Georgia line.
The N. C. border with north Georgia is also a straight line, until it reaches a river border between Georgia and South Carolina.
After winning the French and Indian War, and ending French claims on the territory, King George established the Western boundary of the British colonies as the crest of the Blue Ridge, a bit east of and close to Asheville. Hold that thought for a minute as I digress.
In those ancient times when I attended Hiwassee Dam School and boldly dodged dinosaurs to get there, our basketball schedule included trips to Glenville and Highlands, long all day and into the night trips that required missing afternoon classes and traveling hours to the distant destination.
Respective athletic conferences were and are restricted to within state lines. Thus we went on long trips when we had numerous other schools, all with basketball teams, some with football teams, within a 45-minute drive of Murphy or Hiwassee Dam. The problem was, and is, state lines get in the way of what should be logical sense. Student athletes are safer on a bus for 30-40 minutes than they are a couple of hours and traversing the Nantahala Gorge and points West.
We did occasionally cross state lines. We played Copper Basin while I was in high school – once. I recall a 1971 Cleveland team ventured into Bulldog territory, and thanks to a couple of great runs by a state champion runner named Robert Ware, Murphy was down 14 points within the first minute of the game. Murphy lost – but went on that same year to win the N.C. State Championship.
Consider if our respective states could get their collective heads together with the goal of allowing student athletes to compete against others within their geographic and environmental background and shared way of life.
I have much more in common with people from Hiawassee, Blairsville, Blue Ridge, Copperhill and Tellico Plains than I do with anyone east of Asheville.
Add to the equation rural Eastern Oregon has a movement underfoot to secede from Oregon, thanks to the extreme liberalism evidenced in coastal Oregon and cities like Portland and Eugene.
Secession did not end well for the South when it was tried. The attempt to form a new government under the former U.S. Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, was defeated. After Jefferson Davis was captured in Erwinville, Ga., he was held in prison, in chains, in Washington while the government figured out what to do with him. After all he had led a rebellion against the United State of America, an obvious act of treason and a death sentence.
However to try Jefferson Davis for treason meant a trial. Davis wanted a trial. He contended secession was legal under the Constitution, as the states had joined and “United” to form the country, and thus the states had the right to unjoin.
Every state that had seceded did so under a majority vote of the residents.
After almost two years of prison the government cut a deal with Davis along the lines of, “We will let you go with no charges and you say no more about the legality of this secession stuff. We whipped your butt now go home and behave yourself.”
Davis went home to Mississippi and did just that.
If we open our minds combine closer schools over state lines, the sometimes quirky way state lines were created, and debatable legality of secession, it is a logical conclusion. We mountain communities and counties of east Tennessee, north Georgia and extreme western North Carolina should secede from our respective states and form a new one that will be more responsive to our united needs. I say extreme western North Carolina as any look at a road map will show you that western North Carolina ends only miles west of Asheville.
This new state, with a working title of Cherokee, would combine the counties of Cherokee, Clay, Swain, Graham and Macon in North Carolina, Towns, Union and Fannin in Georgia, and Polk, Monroe and Madison counties in Tennessee. Common people with a common background and with the benefit of being only a couple of hours from our state capitol, no matter where that might be. (Yes, Murphy would be close to the center of the proposed new state).
John Sevier tried to do something similar with the state of Franklin seceding from North Carolina. He failed, but did he? Because only a few years later a new state of Tennessee was formed.
The scary reality is if we did secede would we lose anything?
A look at the boundaries of such a proposed state seem to run frighteningly close to what was common Cherokee land before the removal. The Cherokees domain covered all of the counties aforementioned in all three states. They made it work until the U.S. government decided to come in and fix it for everyone by forcing a bad deal on the Native American tribes east of the Mississippi River.
I understand funding might be an issue without the more prosperous tax bases, but then again how many of those dollars filter down to us now? We could mimic South Carolina, raise the tax rate for non-12 month residents and crack down on residents faking being from their prior state but still running that state’s tags to avoid paying state income tax. It could work.
Bruce Voyles’ local history column runs every other week in the Cherokee Scout. Email him at RoadsLessTraveled@cherokeescout.com.