USA > Tennessee > Notable men of Tennessee, from 1833 to 1875, their times and their contemporaries > Part 31
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"The night of Harris' arrival at home one of the Unionists of the place telegraphed the Governor that Harris had returned and suggested prompt and quiet measures for his arrest. Gov- ernor Brownlow replied that he was fully informed of Harris' movements, and that he was on a bond for his appearance.
"In the change of time and politics, Harris, upon whose head a price had been put by Brownlow for treason, came to represent his State in the Senate. The moment it came within
*This is the statement of this transaction given by Governor Brownlow in his lifetime, as well as by Ex-Governor Neill S. Brown, who negotiated for the return of Harris.
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his power to do so he used his influence to keep a relative of his old antagonist, but later friend, in place. * *"
Thus the leader of secession in Tennessee, the brains and the will power of his party, and one of the last men in the South to give up the struggle, returned peaceably to his home to resume his ordinary duties without arrest and without punish- ment. And yet such men complain of the cruel treatment they received at the hands of the Government after the war!
Governor Harris returned to his home, in Paris, Tenn., and resumed his old profession-the practice of law. In 1877 he was elected to the United States Senate, which position he still holds. He is serving his third term in the Senate. Notwith- standing his advanced age he is still the leader of his party in the State. There has been a singular inconsistency in his char- acter as a public man since he became Senator. At home, in Tennessee, he is regarded as bitter and extreme in his opinions. He always takes the side of extreme Bourbonism in his speeches. Evidently he fully understands how to cater to the rabid tastes of his followers. In the Senate, on the contrary, he seldom makes speeches, and when he does they are nearly entirely free from narrow partisanism and sectional bitterness. At Wash- ington he is regarded as a very broad and liberal-minded states- man, who has lifted himself above the narrowness of Southern politicians. Like wine, he is supposed to have grown milder with age. At home he is known to be what he was in 1861.
I record with pleasure, however, that wherever he may be he is always bold, open, and manly. No concealment nor deception marks his course. Among his fellow Senators he is held in high esteem and respect. His ability is conceded on all sides. In- deed, he is regarded as the ablest man in his party in the Senate from the South .*
During the first term of the administration of Governor Brownlow the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States were ratified by the Legisla- ture of the State on his recommendation. During their consid- eration President Johnson used all his influence and the promise of offices to defeat their ratification.
*Since the above was written Senator Harris departed this life in 1897. With faults he combined many noble traits. He was frank, inde- pendent, and straightforward. He was always honest, both as a man and a politician. There was no indirectness in him. His fidelity to his friends and his faithfulness to his promises were remarkable.
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In October, 1867, Governor Brownlow was elected by the Legislature to a seat in the United States Senate. His majority was twenty-five over all competitors. If he had announced him- self before members became committed to other candidates, his election would have been almost unanimous. His competitors were the Hon. Horace Maynard, Andrew J. Fletcher, Colonel William B. Stokes, and General Joseph A. Cooper. Mr. May- nard, on learning that Mr. Brownlow was a candidate, wisely withdrew from the race.
Mr. Brownlow remained in the discharge of his duties as Governor until the latter part of February, 1869. On March 4, the very day Mr. Johnson retired from the Presidency, and that on which General Grant became President, he took his seat as Senator, the successor of the Hon. David T. Patterson, the son-in-law of Mr. Johnson. Thus Mr. Johnson and Judge Pat- terson, who were placed in power by the opponents of the Demo- cratic party, having gone over to that party, were sent into retirement by public sentiment at the same time. On the same day they were succeeded in their respective offices by unflinching patriots, Grant and Brownlow. The credentials of Governor Brownlow as Senator were presented to the Senate by the great war Governor of Indiana, Oliver P. Morton.
While the race for Senator was pending Mr. Brownlow asked his son what people were saying about his candidacy. His son replied that some of his opponents said it was an outrage for him to seek the Senatorial term of six years when he was about to step into eternity. "They say," Brownlow replied, "I am going to die, do they? Well," said he with a smile, "I expect to live the term out, but, if I don't, the Senate chamber is not a bad place from which to depart for Heaven." Six years and four months after taking his seat as Senator a friend called to see him one morning in his home, in Knoxville, and finding him writing asked him what he was doing. He replied: "I am dic- tating an obituary notice of the death of Andrew Johnson. When I was elected to the Senate it was objected to me that I would not live out my term, and here I am, with a good appetite and a clear conscience, writing the obituary of my successor."
While Senator he was punctual in his attendance and faithful in the discharge of all his duties, though an invalid. While co- operating in all party questions with the Republicans, he at the same time preserved the right of individual judgment. General
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Grant as President had no firmer, truer friend, and yet on at least two important occasions, and perhaps oftener, he voted against the recommendations of the Executive. He yielded no blind subserviency to the President, though he greatly admired him. He regarded him as the best and truest man in the Re- publican party. Mr. Brownlow delivered no oral speeches. His voice was gone, and his nervous prostration was such that he had to recline on a couch all his time when not in the Senate chamber. Whatever he wished to say, therefore, was invariably written out and read by the Clerk. His speeches were always clear, pointed, and strong. There was no such thing as mis- understanding his crisp and ringing utterances. It was a pathetic sight to witness this noble old Roman, reclining day by day in his invalid chair, watching with intense interest the pro- ceedings of the Senate, his mind all alive as in the days of his wonderful physical vigor. His body was enfeebled, but not his intellect. The latter still glowed with all the fire and energy of 1861, when his pen electrified the hearts of loyal East Tennesseeans. And ill fared the man, even in his enfeebled old age, whose temerity roused the old lion.
During his term of six years it can be safely affirmed that Senator Brownlow did nothing to lower the dignity of his high office, nothing unworthy of the great State he had the honor to represent. Never were her people represented with more faith- fulness, or with more dignity. When he left the Senate he left it with the respect and confidence of all his fellow Senators. He left the office, too, as he had entered it-poor. No charges of ill-gotten wealth ever blurred his name. Even in Tennessee, with all the abuse that has been heaped upon his administration, no charge of venality or personal corruption has ever been laid at his door. No one has ever dared to say that he had ever been personally corrupt. With all the investigating committees raised by the Democrats, after they came into power in 1870, no spot nor stain was ever found in his record. Whatever may have been the case with the crowd of worthless and corrupt men who at the close of the war came to the surface and naturally gathered around those in power for the sake of plunder, as they did around both Brownlow and Grant, in none of the nefarious operations of these men was he a participant. Like Grant, too, his readiness to oblige, his devotion to his friends, and his too ready credulity, exposed him to the wiles of such men, of bad
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men, not in the least suspecting their purpose. This was the weakness of Governor Brownlow. No danger, no threat of an enemy, could move him, but it was hard, almost impossible for him to say no to a friend.
It is a singular circumstance that Mr. Johnson should have been the successor of Mr. Brownlow in the Senate as the latter had been his successor as Governor. Mr. Johnson was elected Senator in 1875, and took his seat on March 4 in an extraordi- nary session of the Senate. But for this extra session of the Senate he would never have entered on his duties as Senator under his election in 1875, for he died on the 31st day of the following July.
As it was, he was there long enough to revive his old quarrel with General Grant and Mr. Brownlow. It would seem that an ex-President of the United States, who had been restored to the Senate after two desperate contests, would have been con- tent to wear his fresh honors with peaceable dignity. But not so with this ex-President. The dark, deep, tempestuous pas- sions pent up in his bosom for long years must find an outlet. On the first opportunity he poured forth the hot lava of his heart on his great enemy, General Grant, and on his old rival, Brownlow. The former, from his height of exaltation and with the unaffected dignity which marks the superior mind, treated the assault with silence, more withering than the bitterest words. But the latter, from his sick couch, gathered up his remaining strength for his last struggle with his old enemy.
Johnson, in his blind rage, was floundering about to find something to say against the invalid who lately occupied the seat now held by himself. This invalid, who had held for six years a seat in the Senate with so much senatorial dignity, had gone home, as it was generally supposed, to die, carrying with him the respect and sympathy of a majority of his countrymen. Johnson, without the slightest ground, went out of his way to arraign Brownlow as the "refractory Governor" of Tennessee for his course while the Fourteenth Amendment was pending before the Legislature. He accused him of having tried "to control the Legislature." Mr. Brownlow, in his answer, shows what everybody at the time knew to be so, that he and the great body of both houses of the Legislature were in perfect accord as to the Fourteenth Amendment. He also shows that a few "refractory" members, through the influence of Mr. Johnson as
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President, had absented themselves from the Legislative hall, though present in the House, in order to prevent a quorum. He says on this point :
"Recurring to President Johnson's attempt to influence the action of the Legislature on the proposed Fourteenth Amend- ment, I will say that several days before the meeting of the Legislature Johnson ascertained that a majority of the body would vote for the Amendment. To carry out his lawless pur- pose to defeat the amendment, his emissaries came from Wash- ington to Tennessee and wrote from the Capitol to their friends in this State that 'the President desired that the Legislature be broken up rather than the amendment be ratified.' It was understood at Nashville that members who would 'bolt' and aid in the revolutionary scheme conceived and inaugurated by Presi- dent Johnson to defeat the amendment would be rewarded by Federal appointments.
"And it is a singular coincidence that many of the seditionists were subsequently rewarded by the President with Federal ap- pointments. Letters from the bosom friends of the President at Washington came to members of the Legislature, and those sup- posed to have influence with them, as thickly as autumn leaves in a brisk gale, advising the breaking up of the Legislature in order to defeat the amendment. One of the bolters received a letter from the Hon. Edmund Cooper, President Johnson's private secretary, 'advising him to absent himself from his seat in the Legislature that the amendment to the Constitution might be defeated at all hazards.'
"The Nashville Press and Times of July 18, 1866, contained this extract from the Cincinnati Gazette's Washington corre- spondent: 'Last night Mr. Cooper (the President's private secretary) declared to a company of gentlemen that if the Presi- dent could possibly prevent the assembling of a quorum of the Tennessee Legislature he would surely do it.' "
Again Mr. Brownlow says: "The whole question in contro- versy in Tennessee was whether in palpable violation of the Con- stitution of the State, a small minority of the Legislature, acting under the advice of Andrew Johnson, as President of the United States, should, by lawless revolutionary means, block legislation and break up the Legislature of the State. This was the sole question as the record shows. The statements of Senator John- son to the contrary are what you Northern people term 'mis-
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representing the truth of history,' but what we in Tennessee call 'unmitigated lying.'
"As Governor of the State, and contrary to the wishes of Andrew Johnson, I convened the Legislature in extraordinary session for the purpose of submitting to it the ratification or rejection of the Fourteenth Article of Amendment to the Con- stitution, which had only recently been passed by Congress. * But Andrew Johnson, as President, determined to interfere in the administration of the government of the State, and did interfere in as flagrant a manner as President Grant is even charged with doing by the Democratic press of to-day or by this same Andrew Johnson. He had the effrontery to en- deavor to browbeat and bully me and the loyal majority of the Legislature associated with me into acquiescence in that miser- able political abortion, known as 'My policy.'
"The sequel, however, proved that he was 'barking up the wrong tree,' and when he issued orders to me he was not dealing with Perry of South Carolina nor one of the Provisional Gov- ernors of the Cotton States, who held his commission and felt that they owed their position to him. I was nominated and elected by the loyal people of the State, and in defiance of the known opposition of Andrew Johnson. In a convention of five hundred and thirty or forty delegates I was nominated by acclamation, and that, too, after Andrew Johnson had been laboring for weeks to prevent it. Johnson opposed me because he desired to hold at the same time the offices of Vice-President and Governor of Tennessee. From his previous knowledge of my character he apprehended difficulty in running the State government of Tennessee while I held the office of Governor. ** *"
Finally, Mr. Brownlow, after a long and calm but searching review of the question at issue between him and Mr. Johnson, says :
"Andrew Johnson and myself made war on each other about thirty-eight years ago, and have kept it up without intermission ever since, save during a brief period when he 'threw up the sponge' and made overtures for peace. Now that he has re- newed the war in the Senate, I say to him :
66 Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be him who first cries, Hold, enough !"
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The refutation of the charges and insinuations of Mr. John- son was conclusive and overwhelming. The tone of the reply was in the main mild and dignified. It presented Mr. Johnson's overweening disposition to interfere with and control all legisla- tion in Congress, as well as in the late insurgent States, to suit his "policy" in so clear a light that it must have been exceed- ingly mortifying to him. This triumphant reply, coming on the heels of the almost universal cry of indignation against him for his indecent attack on President Grant, must have had a most depressing effect on his proud spirit. When his death occurred three months afterward I was disposed to believe that Mr. Brownlow's letter helped to hasten his end. General Grant re- marked afterward that he did not see "how anything more pointed and vigorous could be written" than this letter of Mr. Brownlow. This was the last fight of these two men. In three months Mr. Johnson passed away, "his last battle fought, his last victory won." Two years later Mr. Brownlow also silently passed away, amid the tears of a loyal people, grateful to his memory for his faithfulness when Mr. Johnson deserted them. On April 29, 1877, in the seventy-second year of his age, Wil- liam Gannaway Brownlow departed this life, in his home in Knoxville, sincerely mourned as but few men have ever been.
At the risk of being charged with indelicacy I venture to speak of my own personal relations with Mr. Brownlow, as they throw much light on his character. Our acquaintance- ship commenced in 1839 or 1840, while I was yet a boy. We lived in adjoining counties. From the first our relations were cordial. From 1844 up to the time of his death we were on the most intimate and confidential terms. There was never a break in this friendship. Twice during this time, namely, in the Presi- dential race of 1852, when he supported Mr. Webster, and again in the Gubernatorial canvass of 1869, when he supported Gov- ernor Senter, we differed widely as to men and supported dif- ferent candidates, but this wrought no change in our personal relations. In 1844, just after I left college, we published a joint list of appointments for public speaking, and were together in the counties of Sullivan, Carter, Greene, and Cocke, making speeches for Mr. Clay. Traveling together, on horseback, as we did in those days, and speaking together, we naturally be- came intimate.
Four years after this, in 1848, I removed away from my old
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home in Greeneville to Knoxville, a larger and far more im- portant town. In 1849 Mr. Brownlow visited Knoxville and held a consultation as to the advisability of his removing with his paper to this larger town. He decided to make a change of residence, and he at once put his purpose in execution. From that time forward his paper had a larger field for circulation and wider influence. It became a real power in the State.
After an experience of over fifty-five years with men, I can safely affirm that he was one of the truest and most unselfish of men in his friendship I ever knew. Daily and hourly he manifested his beneficence to those around him. I venture to say that he did more kindness to those with whom he came in contact than any man who ever lived in the State. No wonder he had a hold on the affections of the people who knew him, such as no other man I have ever met. He was a popular idol. On the other hand, his independence, his positive, brave, outspoken words of censure or condemnation made for him the bitterest enemies any man ever had. Yet many of these became in after life his truest friends. He bore no malice and was always ready for reconciliation. These reconciliations were always as simple and as natural as those of children. There was not a word of explanation-no ceremony, no apologies-but simply cordial speaking and acting as old friends.
A man who could excite in the hearts and minds of men the tenderest emotions of friendship, and for forty years retain this feeling by personal magnetism and noble acts alone, surely could not have been a bad man. Bad men do not attract, but repel.
When I was a young man Mr. Brownlow rendered me a favor, not of a pecuniary character, which was in part the foundation of whatever good fortune afterward attended me. For this I was always profoundly grateful. In after life the memory of this act always kept alive my faithfulness and devotion to him. He constantly rendered me acts of kindness all through life. And I, in return for all this, was constant in my efforts to serve him. I have the consciousness of having been faithful and of some service to him. Some extracts from a letter written to me, three years before his death, show how magnanimous he was and how appreciative of any acts of kindness on the part of others. I quote from it for the further purpose of showing his estimate of General Grant :
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UNITED STATES SENATE CHAMBER.
WASHINGTON, February 23, 1874.
DEAR JUDGE :
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your kind letter of a few days since in reply to my own informing you that you had been appointed by the President a Visitor to West Point.
I totally disagree with you in one position taken in your letter, viz., that I have done more for you than you for me. True, as you state, I have been your friend from boyhood, but you have been my friend from your boyhood, and I feel that you have done me as many kindnesses and been of as much service to me as I have done or been to you. Be this as it may, neither you nor I will ever stop, when either is called on by the other, to make a calculation as to who was ahead. The difference between you and others with whom I have been intimately associated consists simply in this-you have a more grateful appreciation of kind- nesses done you than most men.
There are no emoluments in the appointment which the President has given you, but I have been gratified at it, because it will enable you to become personally acquainted with Grant under favorable auspices. And after you have become acquainted with him, if you make a favorable impression on him, as I doubt not you will do, you will be enabled to exercise influence with him whether you shall be a member of Congress while his term lasts or not. There are many men not in Congress who have as much influence, if not more influence, with him than anybody in Congress. This fact is, among other things, why I like Grant. If a man has his friendship or esteen, he is not afraid to give him his support, whether he is supported by a member of Congress or not.
I have given the President an earnest and honest, but not obsequious support, and he understands this perfectly. I have reason to believe
that he has the most kindly feelings for me. I was for the confirmation of Williams [for one of the Judges of the Supreme Court], and believed then and now that the press of the country did Williams and Grant injustice in that matter. I was warmly opposed to the confirmation of Caleb Cushing [for the same position], and regarded the President as having made a grave mistake in appointing him. But, with all his faults, Grant is the best man in our party, and I hope he will be re-elected. He has more heart than any leader we have, and I admire his steadfast devotion to his friends.
You must come on to the West Point examination. I want you to meet the President, because I want him to esteem you as I do. It is but a year until I shall have forever bidden farewell to public life. When I retire I mean to retire in earnest. Advancing age and bad health admonish me that my course is rapidly drawing to a close. I shall not on that account, however, cease to feel an interest in a few tried and long-trusted friends like yourself.
I hope to see you in Congress or Judge of the U. S. District Court of Tennessee.
Your friend, W. G. BROWNLOW.
This was the Brownlow, the author I knew-full of kindliness, gentleness, frankness, and gratitude. And this was as he mani- fested himself in daily life to all his friends.
One word in reference to my going to Congress. I can truth-
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fully say that I did not desire the position. More than once the position was within my easy grasp. For many reasons I did not wish it. And now in my old age I look back with satisfaction that during all that time I was able to resist the sometimes most flattering prospects held out to me by my friends to seek Con- gressional honors. Nor did I ever seek the position of a United States District judgeship. Public offices have never had any special attractions for me. The attractions of home far out- weighed them with me.
CHAPTER VI.
Brownlow's Popularity-An Editor Rather than a Party Politician -- Remarkable Individuality-Compliment from Knoxville Register -- Press Tributes to Governor Brownlow-Memory-Place in History.
MR. BROWNLOW's modesty, perhaps I should say his self- abnegation, was equaled only by his boldness. There was in him no egotism, no boasting, no self-glorification. Flattery fell on him as water on a rock. He must have been well advanced in life, and long after his name had filled the land before he became conscious of his superior powers. When an election for Gov- ernor was to take place in 1865 he had apparently never thought of the office until he was urged to become a candidate. Again, in 1867, when a Senator was to be elected he did not seek the position, nor apparently think of it, until he was again pressed to become a candidate. In the meantime four candidates were seeking the office, among them Mr. Maynard, who had received many pledges of support. The Legislature at that time was composed almost exclusively of loyal old Whigs. With them he was the most popular man in the State. For them he had been making sacrifices all his life-time, money, and editorial labors- but seeking nothing for himself until pressed to do so. Unlike certain editors of this day, he did not expect to be liberally paid for praise and puffs. The columns of his paper, as well as his editorial labors, were given almost gratuitously to his party. He wrote from honest convictions alone. No hope of reward ever induced him to advocate men or measures he did not ap- prove. During his long editorial life he was conspicuously con- sistent in the advocacy of principles. He was a Whig in every fiber, and never departed from that faith. If his party put up for office objectional men, as it did at times, he refused to sup- port them, but remained true to his party. On account of these things he never lost prestige with it.
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