USA > Tennessee > Notable men of Tennessee, from 1833 to 1875, their times and their contemporaries > Part 12
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fession. Unfortunately, he died in July, 1870, his useful life cut short at the age of fifty, in the very meridian of his fine mental powers.
In 1867 Mr. Fletcher was a prominent aspirant for a seat in the United States Senate, before Governor Brownlow an- nounced himself as a candidate. It is no disparagement to his worthy competitors, Maynard, Cooper, and Fletcher, that through the overwhelming popularity of Brownlow they were all defeated. No man in this State, however worthy, could have had the remotest chance of success against him.
In June, 1867, while Secretary of State, Fletcher made a notable speech at Cleveland, Tenn., on the "issues of the can- vass" in the State, in reply to one made a month earlier by John Baxter. William G. Brownlow was at that time a candi- date for re-election as Governor, being the unanimous nomi- nee of the Republican party. The dissatisfied spirits of the old Republican party, who had joined in the McClellan move- ment, and had supported President Johnson in his attempt to divide and destroy the party, nominated Emerson Etheridge in opposition to Brownlow. Etheridge took the stump and prose- cuted one of the ablest and bitterest canvasses ever made in the State. He was then forty-seven years of age-in the very prime of vigorous intellectual manhood. From the Mississippi to the Mountains in the East, his burning words of denunciation were heard. John Baxter, his inferior in eloquence, but his superior in intellectuality and courage, took the stump in support of Etheridge, and in an exceedingly malignant speech arraigned Brownlow's administration. Judge John S. Brien of Nashville, an old Whig leader, also joined in the crusade. At no time excepting in 1861 has the State been so stirred by angry passion as during this canvass of 1867. Governor Brownlow was disabled from speaking by the partial loss of voice. It therefore fell to the lot of his Secretary of State, Fletcher, to defend the administration, in shaping the policy of which he had had much influence. He made but a single speech : that was sufficient.
The speech of Mr. Fletcher created a sensation throughout the State. I read it on its first appearance, and have recently reread it. The second reading has confirmed my first opinion- that it is a complete and masterly vindication of the State Government under Governor Brownlow, as the conditions then
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existed. It was bold in utterance, perspicuous in statement, skillful in argument, thorough in detail, caustic in condemna- tion, and withal, even-tempered, as of one who spoke from a consciousness of right, fortified by an irrefutable array of facts. It is the best defense of Brownlow's administration ever made, and the only one needed. The flood of misstatement and falsehood which was pouring in rapid currents over the State was dissipated by the clear and lucid statement of facts taken from the records.
Mr. Fletcher was one of the first, if not the very first, in the State to denounce the hordes of greedy office-seekers who came from the North in the rear of the army in the closing days of the War. He was ready to welcome the genuine settler, but for the adventurer who came to prey on the people of the South he had an undisguised contempt and hatred. In a speech in Nashville he had the boldness to use an expression that has since become national, in reference to this class of men. He said :
"No one more gladly welcomes the Northern man who comes in all sincerity to make a home here, and to become one of our people, than I, but for the adventurer and the office-seeker who comes among us with one dirty shirt and a pair of dirty socks, in an old rusty carpet bag, and before his washing is done becomes a candidate for office, I have no welcome."
This was the origin of the term "carpet bag," and out of it grew the well known term "carpet-bag government."
A. J. Fletcher was an honest and truthful man; upright in all the relations of life. His example and influence were on the side of law, order, morality, and religion, and he always stood ready to do his duty as a good citizen. His courage, moral and physical, was of a high order. There were no concealments, no double dealing, but directness in all transactions. His ability was much above the average even among men counted clever. His quick mind was clear, logical, well balanced, and capable of the nicest thought and discrimination. As a lawyer, he studied cases thoroughly, mastered them, and was never caught unprepared. His adversary always knew that he had to do his best to win his cause. He labored under the disadvantage of always having lived in little towns, where there were poor libraries, and but little stimulus to high endeavor. If he had been more favorably situated for development and self culture,
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there can be no doubt of the fact that he would have become a distinguished Tennessee lawyer. As a writer, his style, while not elegant, was felicitous and lucid. He went in a few words, both in speaking and writing, right home to the point. He had the faculty, unfortunately, of saying, in a few words, sharp and pointed things, sometimes producing laughter, and sometimes leaving a sting behind. His sarcasm was bitter, his wit enlivening or annoying, according to the object of it. Mr. Fletcher was either a hearty, genial, sunshiny friend, or an open, defiant enemy.
LEONIDAS C. HOUK.
Born in Sevier County-Appearance Before Judge Alexander-Read Law at Night-Encounter with Foote in 1861-Contradictory Qualities- Member of Johnson Convention-Career in Congress.
ONE of the unique characters of East Tennessee, somewhat after the type of David Crockett, William G. Brownlow, and Thomas D. Arnold-all of the same section-was Leonidas C. Houk, who was born and reared in Sevier County, the place of the nativity of John H. Reagan, now of Texas. Mr. Houk's father died when he was a mere boy, leaving him in extreme pov- erty to shift for himself. The only education he had was ac- quired in a two months' course in an old field schoolhouse, where the teacher was but one degree above the boy in scholarship. At an early age he learned the cabinetmaker's trade, and worked at it a few years. About the time he was grown he became a Methodist preacher, but soon abandoned that calling and turned to the profession of the law. It may be suspected that the work of the ministry was too repressive for his naturally elastic, bounding spirits.
Mr. Houk's introduction to the bench and the bar took place about 1853, when he was still a boy. In the Circuit Court at Maryville a criminal case was called against someone for shoot- ing at a mark within two hundred yards of a public road. A bright, good-looking boy stepped forward to answer to the charge. Judge Alexander, who was presiding, asked if he had counsel. He said no, that he wished to submit. A witness was called, who testified to the facts. These showed plainly that the offense was wholly inadvertent, committed in ignorance of any such law. The Judge fined him in accordance with the statute. I was sitting in the bar and had become interested in the boy. I arose voluntarily, urging the Court to be merciful, suggesting that he was a mere youth, ignorant of the law, and would have to pay the fine and costs by hard labor, and that it was a case for the exercise of the greatest clemency. The Judge, though strict in the enforcement of law, was kind-hearted, and concluded, with the consent of W. G. McAdoo, the State's
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Attorney General, to let the boy off with a nominal fine, Mr. McAdoo agreeing to remit his fee. By this time the good looks of the defendant and his bright replies had made him quite a favorite with the bar. This incident perhaps first suggested to young Houk the idea of studying law. He more than once referred to it in after life, and always in grateful terms. It made him my lifelong friend.
Two years later, as Governor Neill S. Brown, William G. Brownlow, Judge John S. Brien, and I were on our way to Sevierville to make political speeches, we overtook a boy on foot going to the meeting. As we came up he hailed us with some jocular remark. We halted, and on approaching, he recognized me, and reminded me of the incident in Court at Maryville. I had forgotten him, but not the incident. Here was the sprightly boy once more, now nearly grown into manhood. We took him into our conveyance and carried him the balance of the way to town. Governor Brown and Judge Brien were quite struck with him, not dreaming, however, that he would some day become the leader of his party in the State.
In 1859, or early in 1860, L. C. Houk, now grown, came into my office, and told me he wished to read law. He said he had no money with which to purchase law books; that he wished to borrow them from me; that he intended working dur- ing the day and reading during odd hours at night. I gave him a book, perhaps Blackstone. From time to time he came over on horseback from Clinton, where he then resided, distant eighteen miles, to get a new book, taking it back in his saddle bags. In a few months he was a full-fledged lawyer with his sign hanging out in Clinton. He used to laugh heartily about his first case. Shortly after he went to the bar, he had an advertisement put in the newspapers, something like this : "Special attention given to the collection of debts." It so happened that Jesse Ayres of Knox County had a note on him for a small amount, say five dollars. He enclosed the note to Houk, in a letter, telling him that he sent him for collection a note on one L. C. Houk, directing him to collect it and remit the proceeds. Promptly came a reply, saying: letter enclosing the note on one L. C. Houk had been received, that the gentle- man had been seen, and that the note, amounting principal and interest to $6.33, had been promptly paid; that the fee for collecting was ten dollars, and crediting the account with that
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amount left a balance on fee of $3.67, which Mr. Ayres would please remit at his earliest convenience !
Ayres, as we can well imagine, was thunderstruck at the turn things had taken. Of course, this was simply one of Houk's characteristic jokes. No man paid his debts more willingly than he when he had the money, which was not always the case.
Young Houk was bright and witty, at times almost im- pertinent in his boldness. He made himself felt and heard wherever he went. He was embarrassed in the presence of no one. In 1861 the celebrated Henry S. Foote was sent by the secession leaders of Nashville into East Tennessee to make speeches to convert the Union men to secession. He had been until recently a Union man himself, and it was therefore thought he would have great influence. Among other places, he went to Clinton to speak. That was Houk's peculiar territory, and mere youth as he was, he suffered no man to make disunion speeches there without an answer. Accordingly he demanded of Governor Foote a division of time. Foote was almost breath- less with astonishment at the audacity of this boyish-looking fellow demanding a division of time with him who had debated with Clay, Webster, Benton, Davis, Yancey, and others. But being a man of high courtesy, he readily granted the request. Foote made his regular speech-high-toned, able, and full of elegant civility. Houk followed with the confidence and assur- ance of a veteran. He knew all the points of the Union side perfectly, as well as all the weak places on the other side. With daring boldness and sometimes with rudeness of speech, he arraigned the secession party, enlivening the debate by happy anecdotes, and by sallies of wit aimed at the Ex-Senator and Ex-Governor.
As Houk went on with his speech, Foote was filled with amazement at the shrewdness, the extent of information, the happy hits and the cool impudence of the young village poli- tician. Sometimes he would suddenly start, as was his custom under great excitement, as if to assault the speaker, and then resume his attitude of astonishment. This episode was such a surprise to Governor Foote that he could not tell which to admire the more, the bold assurance of the young man, or his sprightliness. Out of it there sprang a warm friendship be- tween the two men.
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I need hardly add that Mr. Houk was an enthusiastic Union man in 1861. He made Union speeches in his own, and perhaps in some of the adjoining counties. In the Greeneville Conven- tion in June, 1861, he was a member of the Committee of thirty- one, called the "Business Committee," and as such favored the violent and extreme measures proposed. Some time after the August election, in 1861, seeing that all was lost at home, he quietly crossed the mountains and sought refuge in Kentucky. Here he enlisted in the 6th Tennessee Regiment of Infantry, of which he was made Colonel. In about two years he resigned from the Army. In 1865 he was a member of Andrew Johnson's pretended Convention, which assumed to amend the Constitu- tion of the State. He was one of the few persons present- I do not say delegates, for there were no regularly appointed delegates there-who had the courage to oppose the alteration of the Constitution in that irregular and illegal manner.
After the State was reorganized and restored to its former relations with the Federal Union, Mr. Houk was elected Judge of the Circuit Court of the circuit embracing the county in which he resided. This office he held until about 1870, when he resigned, resuming the practice of law. In order to have a larger field of professional labor he moved to Knoxville, later forming a partnership with Henry R. Gibson. These two made a strong firm. In a short time their business became large and profitable. Mr. Gibson was already a good lawyer, and Judge Houk by hard study rapidly became one. They soon became one of the leading firms in East Tennessee. Judge Houk developed qualities hitherto not supposed to belong to him-industry, and the ability of patient and thorough investi- gation both of law and facts. He not only could seize and understand the most profound legal principles, but it afforded him the most sincere pleasure to be engaged in their investi- gation. Legal discussions, no matter how abstruse, excited his liveliest interest.
Mr. Houk unquestionably had a legal mind of a high order. Had he remained a few years longer at the bar, he would have become one of the foremost lawyers of Tennessee. He could state a legal proposition with the most exact precision. This was the more remarkable when it is recalled that he had no education, and had never studied the standard law books, except in the most cursory manner. Even when on the bench,
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where he studied little and frolicked a great deal, he sometimes wrote opinions in important cases which astonished the pro- fession. An able jurist who had made much reputation on the Supreme bench, and who did not like Houk, on reading one of these opinions, remarked to the author: "It is amazing where that man learned his law. He never studies, he never reads, he has no education, and yet he writes better opinions than we can after studying all our lives, and they are besides written in as exact and as good English as we college graduates can use."
The clear, terse, and generally correct language, of both Houk's written speeches and of his legal writings, was some- thing astonishing, considering his almost total want of education, something Andrew Johnson and Judge John Baxter, with all their ability, never acquired.
In 1878, just as Houk was beginning to make for himself a reputation as a lawyer, and had begun to accumulate property, he was, unfortunately for himself, tempted by favorable circum- stances, to enter the arena of politics. The field was open to go to Congress, and though contrary to his first inclination, as I happen to know,* he finally yielded to the temptation. He became a candidate, and was easily elected in the strong Repub- lican district of which Knoxville is the center. For seven succes- sive terms he was elected, generally with an increased majority. In each race he had opposition, sometimes bitter and determined, but his hold on the public was such that he could never be de- feated. Were he alive to-day, he would still no doubt be in Con- gress. But before the commencement of the seventh term, he died suddenly in Knoxville, June, 1890, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.
Leonidas C. Houk exhibited qualities that seemed contradic- tory. For example, he was a stalwart in politics. His speeches and utterances toward the opposite party were often bitter and defiant, and always positive, and yet at times he manifested a moderation perfectly inconsistent. During the violence and the bitterness of the period from 1865 to 1868, he disagreed with his party as to two important measures : disfranchisement and negro suffrage. He believed that the disfranchisement of the se-
*Before the question came up for final determination he urged me to accept this position, and offered to use all his influence for me, which offer was declined.
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cessionists should have been limited to those who were the active leaders in the secession movement, to those who had held office under the old government, and to those who accepted office under the Confederacy, including officers who served in its armies. He believed it was bad policy, as well as harsh and unjust, to exclude from the ballot box the thousands of privates in the army, and peaceable private citizens who had taken no active part in inaugurating the revolution. This was unquestionably so. Whether Judge Houk ever expressed these views publicly, I know not, but he certainly entertained them and expressed them privately. When the question of enfranchising the colored race of the State was first presented for consideration and adoption, he openly and publicly opposed it. In a circular addressed to the voters of the Second Congressional District, in 1867, he arraigned Mr. Maynard, his competitor, because he favored colored suffrage. All can now see how level-headed Houk was in reference to these policies.
The conduct of Judge Houk, in 1869, in the race for the Governorship between Senter and Stokes, was not so divergent as it at first appears. He gave his earnest support to Senter, and made speeches in his behalf, when it was well known that there existed an agreement, either expressed or implied, that the election laws, in reference to those laboring under dis- franchisement, were to be disregarded in the approaching elec- tion, on the condition that these persons voted for Senter. This they generally did. While firm in his opinions, and an un- faltering Republican, Houk was personally generous in his feelings toward his political enemies. He had not, as stated, approved of the wholesale disfranchisement of the secessionists in 1865; therefore in that respect he was consistent in support- ing Senter. But helping openly to overthrow the laws of the State presents quite another question. I choose not, at this late day, to enter upon its discussion, since those laws were very sweeping in their application, and the result reached was what had to come soon anyway, and the sooner the better, perhaps.
Judge Houk was ardent and impetuous in temperament, open, and bold in speech. He practiced little concealment of any kind. Feeling strongly, in the heat and excitement of debate, he naturally expressed himself strongly, even bitterly. But withal, he possessed a big, warm heart, and in private life all this bittterness entirely disappeared, except against his personal
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enemies. Even toward the latter he was magnanimous, and ready to forgive on the first indication of friendship. His sympathy for suffering was of the tenderest. Indeed his heart in its tender affection softened at all suffering, all sorrow, all want. He would borrow from a friend five or ten dollars for some immediate need, and give half of it to the first object of charity he met on the street. His tender heart could resist no appeal. It was the knowledge on the part of the people of this generous nature, of this undoubted sympathy with the hard- ships of the toiling masses, that gave him a hold on the affec- tions of the people without a parallel in our section except that of William G. Brownlow.
Judge Houk seldom made a mistake in politics. He was wise in forethought. A prominent, aspiring man from an adjoining county once wrote him a very indiscreet letter, proposing some kind of a political partnership. The proposition was well calculated to produce a sensation if made public. Houk after- ward was telling a friend about this episode, when the latter asked: "What did you do? Did you answer the letter?" "No," replied he, with a cunning smile, "I put nothing on paper. I carefully filed the letter, got on my horse and rode to his county to talk the matter over!" As long as Judge Houk lived, he kept that letter, and held it in terrorem over that man. One of his habits, like that of William G. Brownlow, was to pre- serve all letters, whether from friend or foe, never knowing when a present friend might become an enemy.
Leonidas C. Houk had great fondness for the humorous side of life. This made him a favorite in social circles and on the streets. Men delighted to listen to his ever overflowing good humor constantly bubbling up and breaking out in his speeches, as well as in private conversation. This was nearly always genial and kindly. When he appeared on the streets, he was sure to be surrounded by a crowd listening to his cheery, fresh, original remarks. These were not mere idle jests, but thoughts seasoned and flavored with sparkling humor. With all his flow of good feeling, there was mingled a keen wit, sharp and pointed, but, like his humor, nearly always good-natured. For years, perhaps yet, his bright sayings as a boy were quoted in Sevier, Blount, and Anderson counties, where he had resided. Seldom, if ever, did any man either at the bar, on the stump, or in Congress get the advantage of him in the play of wit, humor,
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or repartee. He rarely used this wit to wound and seldom in sarcasm. His nature was too kindly for the infliction of pain.
No one who knew Judge Houk ever questioned his ability. He had a well-rounded intellect, equally strong in every direc- tion. He could comprehend almost at a glance the most diffi- cult questions. But more than this, he could hold a question before his mind until he turned upon it all the concentrated light of his reason. His mind was not only logical, it was astute and discriminating. In a word, there seemed to be nothing, in intellectual effort, that he was not naturally equal to.
It may be strange for me to state that Judge Houk was exceedingly fond of the deeper problems of theology. He delighted in discussing these. He understood the leading tenets of every denomination in the State. When he had a little leisure, which seldom happened in the latter part of his life, he was fond of reading. He was especially fond of deep philosophical, ethical, or religious works. Does this sound strange to the reader? Let it be remembered that Judge Houk was a thinker, an investigator, and was naturally re- ligiously inclined. He had the most devout reverence for all things sacred. The strength and the breadth of his intellect led him to the belief that the stupendous and harmonious wonders of creation were not the result of chance, but the work of an infinitely wise and omnipotent power-an Almighty God! At home he was a regular attendant at the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he was a member.
In his later years, Judge Houk when not engaged in a can- vass, or in mingling with his friends, was an earnest worker. The amount of work he could do and the rapidity and ease with which he threw it off, were astonishing. When on the point of opening an important canvass, he would, in a few hours, dash off with his own hand, a speech which would be the key- note of the campaign, and deliver it nearly exactly as first written. He knew in advance what he wanted to say, and in his logical mind every thought presented itself in its natural order. There was no confusion of ideas, nor obscurity of meaning.
In his own State he was a leader, not a follower in politics. For years before his death he was the leading man in the Republican party in Tennessee. He generally wrote or largely
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dictated its platforms, and made the opening speech, indicating the lines along which the battle was to be fought. His judg- ment in regard to the issues to be presented in a canvass was almost unerring. He knew what would prove popular and what would prove otherwise. He scarcely ever committed an er- ror in this regard. Springing from the humble walks of life, it would be expected that he would exhibit more or less demagogism in his opinions and speeches. On the contrary he was exception- ally free from this spirit. He had the independence to think for himself, and to avow his opinions openly before the people. Where there was likely to be a difference in opinion, he trusted to his ability to convert them to his views.
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