The name Franklin was the one officially accepted. Franklin himself did not know of the honor he had received until some eighteen months after it had been conferred. He declined to be caught by this compliment, did not commit himself in favor of the new commonwealth, but advised the citizens of this pseudo-state to submit their claims to Congress, and indeed outlined to them the virtue of that centralized government which was later to be felt on both sides of the Alleghanies.
This new population now had a government and a scheme of education, and indeed a general plan of living and growth and progress, yet it lacked many of the advantages of an older civilization. There must, of course, be revenue, and hence taxes; and since a currency was not forthcoming, the legislature passed an act authorizing the payment of taxes and salaries in articles of trade. Legal tender were beaver, otter and deer skins, each at six shillings; raccoon and fox skins, worth one shilling and three pence each. Beeswax, at one shilling a pound, was also legal tender; and, most remarkable of all, though there were those who wondered not at the precedent, it was provided that taxes and official salaries might also be paid in rye whisky, at three shillings six pence a gallon, or in peach brandy at three shillings a gallon! As to the extent of the reward of practical politics in that day, we may cite an act passed by that same legislature.
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Franklin, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of same, that from and after the first day of January next, the salaries of this commonwealth shall be as follows:
"His Excellency, the Governor, per annum, a hundred deer skins.
"His Honor, the Chief Justice, five hundred deer skins.
"The Secretary to His Excellency, the Governor, five hundred raccoon skins.
"County Clerk, three hundred beaver skins.
"Clerk of the House of Commons, two hundred raccoon skins.
"Members of the Assembly, per diem, three raccoon skins.
"Justice fees for serving a warrant, one mink skin."
Crude enough seem such devices to us to-day, yet we must remember that we are in close chronological touch with those very times. Nor did the new state seem to do ill with its self-established machinery of government. Just as the people of America retained something of the vital and useful customs and standards of old England, discarding the ancient and outworn, so did the people of the state of Franklin cling to the standards of their mother state of North Carolina. The constitution of North Carolina was adopted without very great change.