State of Scott
| Free and Independent State of Scott | |||||||||||||
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| Unrecognized territorial enclave of the United States | |||||||||||||
| 1861–1986 | |||||||||||||
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Flag | |||||||||||||
Scott County in 1861 | |||||||||||||
| Capital | Huntsville, Tennessee | ||||||||||||
| • Type | Organized unrecognized State | ||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||||
• Secession from Tennessee | 1861 | ||||||||||||
• Proposed by Senator Andrew Johnson | June 4, 1861 | ||||||||||||
• Tennessee secedes from Union | June 8, 1861 | ||||||||||||
• Symbolic re-integration into the State of Tennessee | 1986 | ||||||||||||
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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 by either the Confederacy or the Union, the county did not officially rescind its act of secession until 1986.