Elizabethton is the historical site of a semi-autonomous government provided a basis for what later developed into the state of what?
Watauga Association The Watauga Association (sometimes referred to as the Republic of Watauga) was a semi-autonomous government created in 1772 by frontier settlers living along the Watauga River in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. Although it lasted only a few years, the Watauga Association provided a basis for what later developed into the state of Tennessee and likely influenced other western frontier governments in the trans-Appalachian region. North Carolina annexed the Watauga settlement area, by then known as the Washington District, in November 1776. Within a year, the area was placed under a county government, becoming Washington County, North Carolina, in November 1777. (This is the present day Washington County, Carter County and other areas now located in the northeast part of the state of Tennessee.)
Commercial state The commercial state concept (and its important variant, commercial society) is sometimes associated with Adam Ferguson's concept of civil society and refers to a government or political state devoted primarily to the promotion and advancement of commercial interests. Ferguson, Adam Smith and other representatives of the Scottish Enlightenment (and who referred to themselves as the literati) were more likely to use the term commercial society. The underlying idea of the commercial state can also be linked to the American School of Economics (and in particular to the legacy of the political and economic approach of Alexander Hamilton). In its modern manifestation, national, state and local governments which pursue business and commercial development and other forms of economic and industrial development through tax policies and forms of positive incentives and inducements may properly be termed commercial states. Practical commercial state activities include governmental economic development efforts including encouraging plant relocations, tax rebates, zoning easements and assorted other incentives and concessions.