William Gannaway Brownlow

“ Like the skunk that the man would not kill, but confined until it stunk itself to death, slavery was destined, if left alone, to kill itself. It had been said that it would be best to divide the country, and let the secessionists have a country of their own. The channel of the Mississippi will never be permitted to be owned or obstructed by any other government, and no other flag will be allowed to wave but the proud ensign of the American Union. ”

“ Many of the arch traitors, not content to act with the popular voice of their States, joined the ranks of the rebels, endeavoring to force their States to disregard their allegiance to that glorious Union which, for nearly a century, had thrown its genial influence and protection over a united, happy, and prosperous people. Amidst all this horrid exhibition of treason, and malignant, hellish hate, when the heart grew sick at contemplating the dark and dismal scene before us ”

“ I am before you for the purpose of relating facts and localities, and giving you names in regard to the rebellion in the South, and the persecutions of my fellow countrymen, and their sufferings even unto death. I have met, since I came to this city, with not a few intelligent and high-toned gentlemen—men of years and of knowledge—who have inquired of me seriously: "Is it a fact that they hanged men, shot down men, in your country, for their sentiments?" You cannot, it seems to me, realize the state of things that has existed beyond the mountains. ”

“ It is my intention to go back to Knoxville and start my paper. I want to go with the army, and once more raise the flag of the stars and stripes, and then blaze away. They have been doing all of the hanging on one side, and I wish to superintend it on the other. My motto is, "Grape for the masses, but hemp for the leaders." They deserve hanging, for this is the most wicked rebellion ever known to the world. If you had given them a President and all the offices, there would have been no rebellion—for the "nigger" is a mere pretext. ”

“ God has given the American people a goodly heritage—the fairest the world has ever seen. There is not a nation under all the heaven where the pulse does not beat quicker, and the hopes rise higher, and the thoughts grow larger, at the very mention of the American Republic. Never have the hopes of humanity so centered in any nation. Our country had come to be regarded as the cradle of liberty, the home of plenty, and the asylum for the poor and oppressed of other lands. ”

“ The instinctive homage of the human heart to genuine courage we pay to an endurance like this. The historian who will record for the perusal of our children the list of heroes that this wicked rebellion has brought forth, will name none whose matchless courage is surpassed, or the bold outline of whose character for outspoken patriotism, so overshadows all cavil and criticism, as the hero of the pulpit and the press. I have now the honor of introducing Mr. W. G. Brownlow, of Knoxville, Tennessee. ”

“ I will only say, in conclusion—for I am not allowed the privilege to write—that the people of this country are unaccustomed to such wrongs; they can yet scarcely realize them. They are astounded, for the time being, with the quick succession of outrages that have come upon them, and they stand horror-stricken, like men expecting ruin and annihilation. I may not live to see the day, but thousands of my readers will, when the people of this once prosperous country will see that they are marching, by "double-quick time," from freedom to bondage. ”

“ In all time to come—though I have been a Whig of the strictest sort—though I have lived up to the creed and fought Democracy in all its ramifications, and in all its windings—I would, in the language of Milton, see a man where cold performs the effect of fire—or, in the still more nervous language of Pollock, I would see a man where gravitation, shifting, turns the other way—even hell-ward—before I would vote for any man who was not an unconditional, straight-out Union man. ”

“ After it was exhausted, the great crime of rebellion looms up in all its terrible proportions. God speed the day when we shall be delivered! And yet he had no hope for the country till all the remnants of miserable partyism are swept away; he had no hope for it, while politicians were busy at the Capital intriguing and scheming for the preservation of some old broken down faction called a party. We need patriotism, not party. ”

“ When this horrid rebellion assumed its gigantic proportions, the loyal men of the North watched with anxiety the course of many men of the South, whom we had delighted to honor with the highest positions of trust and power. With rare exceptions we saw them retreating into the ranks of the traitors, using their influence, wealth and position to strike down the mildest and most beneficent government which God in his mercy had ever permitted man to establish. ”

“ Fellow Citizen, Friend and Brother:—In behalf of the Methodist Clergymen of this vicinity, I welcome you to our city, our homes, our hearts. Our desires and prayers were never more sincere for anything, than for your preservation and deliverance, when we learned that you had been thrust into a cold, damp prison, for no other crime than loving your country, and hating treason. Thank God, the prayers of millions of loyal hearts have been heard in your behalf.
Paul, and Silas, and Peter, Apostles of the Gospel, were liberated from prison in answer to prayer. ”

“ So we conclude that Parson Brownlow and Andy Johnson are good against ten thousand rebels. With such pains and such pluck, such [41] nerves and such principles to guide, we trust the State of Tennessee will soon come right again.
We are aware that your Union principles have cost you something—cost you everything but life, and that which, to every true man, is dearer than life,—honor and rectitude. We bid you a warm welcome on this account. Situated as we have been, we deserve no praise for being Union men. To be otherwise would be to serve the devil just for its own sake. ”

“ It was fighting for self-preservation and a restoration of its authority, and it was its duty to send out all the troops necessary to put down the rebellion. We must fight for the preservation of the Constitution and Union, and we must preserve them or we cease to exist as a nation. If the rebellion succeeds the Government is at [39] an end, and our history as a nation terminates. We must fight to preserve them not only for ourselves, but the rising generation and those who shall come after them. ”

“ Citizens cast into dungeons without charges of crime against them, and without the formalities of a trial by a jury, private property confiscated at the beck of those in power, the press humbled, muzzled, and suppressed, or prostituted to serve the ends of tyranny! ”

“ Brownlow, respecting [37] the treatment that should be meted out to disunionists North and South, Mr. Carey said that while he respected the right of free speech, he was for hanging any man who favored disunion and dared to say so. Every man has his rights, the convict on the gallows, the thief in the penitentiary, but when a man abuses his rights, the right of free speech, to express himself in favor of disunion, be he Wendell Phillips, or any other man, cut him down.
The masses of the people in the North are in favor of a restoration of the Union as it existed before the war. ”

“ Let me assure you that the South has suffered no infringement upon her institutions; the slavery question was actually no pretext for this unholy, unrighteous conflict. Twelve Senators from the Cotton States, who had sworn to preserve inviolate the Constitution framed by our forefathers, plotted treason at night—a fit time for such a crime—and telegraphed to their States despatches advising them to pass ordinances of secession. Yes, gentlemen, twelve Senators swore allegiance in the day time, and unswore it at night. ”

“ Americans can never consent to be humiliated to ask passports into a foreign country to visit the tombs of Washington, Jackson or Clay, and Indianians should never consent to allow Kentuckians to give a quit claim deed to the ashes of their dead ancestry now mingling with the soil [64] of this State. The country never will be divided. Let us all unite then in extinguishing the rebellion, and vindicate ourselves by hanging Jeff. Davis and Toombs between the heavens and the earth. ”

“ And when we, of Eastern Tennessee came to vote at that election we did not vote at all, but we positively and utterly refused to have anything at all to do with it. The sheriffs, who were Union men, refused to open the polls, or to hold an election, thus giving the candidates the cold shoulder, and manifesting our contempt for the whole concern. And, gentlemen, you cannot fail to be surprised when I announce to you the fact that the great State of Tennessee, casting not less than 200,000 votes as her ordinary vote, gave Jeff. Davis and his colleague in villainy a miserable vote of 25,000. ”

“ The God in whom they trusted has also heard the prayer in behalf of an Apostle of Liberty and Union.
Your patriotic utterances in your noble paper were eagerly received by the friends of the Constitution, and, multiplied a thousand fold, those utterances sped upon the wings of lightning to the most distant parts of our country. They were inspiring to the loyal people of the United States. We were thankful to know that there was at least one Parson in Tennessee who could love God and his country too—his whole country. One such man can chase a thousand, and two can put ten thousand to flight. ”

“ The integrity of the Republic should be saved at all cost, and he would be willing for a still further sacrifice of life and expenditure of money, rather than compromise on any other principle or condition than that every leader of the rebellion should meet the death of a traitor upon the gallows.
He claimed that slavery was only a pretext with the conspirators who originated the rebellion—it was not the cause of the war. It was mainly hostility to popular government on the part of the aristocrats of South Carolina and other fire-eating States. ”

“ He appealed to mothers to exert their influence in kindling a spirit of exalted patriotism, and to teach their sons not to be Democrats or Republicans, but to be patriots; and appealed to the ladies of the city to visit the hospitals, comfort the sick, point the dying to the land where there is no secession and no rebels, and give of their time, sympathy, and means to soothe the sufferings and lighten the afflictions of those who had volunteered in defence of the Union. ”

“ He has sacrificed on the altar of his country all that man holds most dear, jeopardizing not only his own life, but the lives of his family and kindred in vindicating the sacred cause of his country. If we honor the bravery displayed on the battle-field, how much more should we honor him, who almost alone, sick and in prison, tempted by seducing offers of power and place, and with an ignominious death daily threatened, maintains for [25] weeks and months with unfaltering trust, his faith and virtue. ”

“ He commented at considerable length on the rebellion and its leaders, and declared, with great emphasis, that "if the issue was to be made between the Union without slavery, and slavery without the Union, he was for the Union and let slavery perish. (Great applause.) Let every institution die first, and until the issue was made between the Union and the religion of Jesus Christ, he [50] was for the Union." ”

“ Shall a few desperate men—desperate by their lust of power—desperate by disappointed ambition—desperate by their dark and damning apostacy from the faith of our fathers—shall these be allowed to destroy our glorious heritage? ”

“ Spurning bribes and offers of aggrandizement, scorning the threats and terrors of traitors, you have preferred to suffer privations, afflictions and imprisonment, rather than prove false to the Government that has protected us all. ”

“ Being destitute of nerve, moral courage, of fixed patriotic principles, the weak old man had succumbed to the hell-born and hell-bound heresy of secession.
The speaker here made allusion to the treatment he had received from the traitorous rabble in his own State, and gave a brief sketch of his imprisonment in the Knoxville jail; of the threats of immediate execution with which his ears were daily regaled; the actual hanging of many of his companions in the prison; and many interesting particulars of the struggle between treason and loyalty in Eastern Tennessee. ”

“ By thus, in the face of danger and death, taking your stand so nobly against all odds, all hazards, all temptations, and machinations of wicked seducers, you have won the undying admiration of a grateful people. ”

“ Surrounded by the armed band of desperate and cruel military despots, given up to the mercy of ignorant and vicious mobs, cut off from all communication with and support from a Government they were sacrificing themselves to maintain, these patriots of Tennessee were driven from their homes, suffered in jails, and sealed, when called on, with their lives on the scaffold their devotion to the Union and Constitution established by their fathers. ”

“ And I am sorry to say that the worst class of men now in the Southern Confederacy are the Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian preachers. High functionaries in the Episcopalian church are now drinking and swearing. Men who have met in our General Conferences with some of these aged brethren whom I now see around me, preach as chaplains on Sabbath, but swear and get drunk through the week. A Presbyterian minister in Knoxville invited all denominations to hold a union prayer meeting, to pray to the Lord to sink Burnside's fleet, and raise Lincoln's blockade. ”

“ Ledbetter, a man born and educated in the State of Maine, going down to Mobile and marrying a lot of negroes through another woman—the worst man, the biggest coward, and the blackest-hearted villain that ever made a track in East Tennessee—this man tied the knots with his own hands, and directed that the victims should be left hanging for four days and nights right over the iron track of the railroad, and ordered the engineers to run their trains slowly by the spot in order that the secessionists on board might feast their eyes upon the ghastly spectacle. ”

“ While in the Senate, in the day time, they made a show of keeping their oaths, but at night they held their secret caucuses, planning Secession, and advising their leaders to seize the prominent forts of the South, and arms of importance wherever they could find them. I have no doubt there are better men in hell, or in the Penitentiaries of this or any other State, than the prominent leaders in this Secession movement. ”

“ He is known throughout the length and breadth of this land as the "Fighting Parson;" but no man is more peaceable, or more highly esteemed by his neighbors. Few men are more charitable, and few, of his means—for he is not rich—give away as much in the course of a year.
He is quite a politician, though he has never been an office-seeker or an office-holder. He commenced his political career in Tennessee in 1828, by espousing the cause of John Quincy Adams as against Andrew Jackson. He has been all his life an ardent Whig, and Clay and Webster were his standards of political orthodoxy. ”

“ But if the war continues, and the people of the rebellious States are given over to hardness of heart, if they shoot our pickets, if it proves necessary to send a few more thousand men from the loyal States to put down the rebellion, and people Southern grave yards, a cry will go up from Maine to the Pacific to clean out the rebels, niggers and all. ”

“ We, the people of East Tennessee, have merged every other issue into [55] this great issue of the Union. (Loud applause.) You ought to do so in Indiana. You should never touch one of your aspiring politicians with a ten-foot pole unless he is totally and unconditionally opposed to this infernal rebellion. Where would I see a man who is base enough to sympathise with secession before I would vote for him for office? ”