State of Scott
The State of Scott was a Southern Unionist movement in Scott County, Tennessee, in which the county declared itself a "Free and Independent State" following Tennessee's decision to secede from the United States and align the state with the Confederacy on the eve of the American Civil War in 1861. Like much of East Tennessee, Scott became an enclave community of the Union during the war. Although its edict had never been officially recognized, the county did not officially rescind its act of secession until 1986. Background At the time of the secession from the Union, Tennessee's Scott County listed only 61 slaves in residence. It was one of only two counties in the entire state with fewer than 100 slaves. Tennessee was the last state to secede from the Union, in part due to the huge divide in resources and political power between the state's three divisions. East Tennessee, of which Scott County was a part, was less dependent on slavery than Middle and West Tennessee. Therefore, there was little incentive for the residents of the eastern part of the state to go to war to preserve that socio-economic institution. The people of East Tennessee largely favored an intact