Knoxville Whig
Encyclopedia
The Whig was a polemical American newspaper published and edited by William G. "Parson" Brownlow
(1805–1877) in the mid-nineteenth century. As its name implies, the paper's primary purpose was the promotion and defense of Whig Party
political figures and ideals. In the years leading up to the Civil War
, the Whig became the mouthpiece for East Tennessee
's anti-secessionist
movement. The Whig was published under several names throughout its existence, namely the Tennessee Whig, the Jonesborough Whig, the Knoxville Whig, and similar variations.
The Whig was one of the most influential newspapers in nineteenth-century Tennessee
, due mainly to Brownlow's editorials, which often included vindictive personal attacks and fierce diatribes. A Methodist
circuit rider
by trade, Brownlow launched the Whig in 1839 to counter rising Democratic
sentiment in the region. He quickly made many enemies across the majority Democratic antebellum South
. During his career, Brownlow survived several assassination attempts, numerous libel lawsuits, and arrest and imprisonment by Confederate
authorities during the American Civil War
.
Brownlow's Whig editorials attacked Democrats and Methodism's two main competitors in East Tennessee: Baptists and Presbyterians. Brownlow also attacked groups who he believed supported Democrats, such as Catholics, Mormons
, and immigrants. In spite of its anti-secessionist sentiments, the Whig was staunchly pro-slavery in the early days of the Civil War but, upon Brownlow's return from exile in 1863, the paper adopted an abolitionist stance. After Brownlow was elected governor in 1865, his son became publisher of the Whig. In 1870, Whig reporter William Rule
(1839–1928) launched the Knoxville Chronicle (later renamed Knoxville Journal), which is often considered the "successor" to the Whig.
The motto, "Cry aloud, and spare not," taken from Isaiah 58:1
(KJV), appeared in the paper's nameplate
as early as 1839, and was used throughout much of the 1840s. In 1853, Brownlow began using the motto, "Independent in everything, neutral in nothing." For several months after the 1840 elections, the paper used Oliver Hazard Perry
's famous line, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours," as its nameplate motto.
, calling him the "greatest curse that ever yet befell this nation." The Whig supported, among other things, a strong central government, federal funding for internal improvements, a weakened presidency, a national bank
, and tariff
s to protect American products from foreign competition.
As Brownlow's political idol was Kentucky senator Henry Clay
, the publisher pleaded with the Whig Party to make Clay its presidential candidate. He became disenchanted when the party snubbed Clay in favor of William Henry Harrison
in 1840 and by 1842, Brownlow had turned outright hostile toward Harrison's successor, John Tyler
. After Clay's defeat in the presidential election of 1844, Brownlow was grief-stricken. When the party snubbed Clay in favor of Zachary Taylor
in 1848, Brownlow called on Whig electors to vote for Clay instead.
In the presidential election of 1852, Brownlow rejected Whig candidate Winfield Scott
and supported Daniel Webster
, although the Massachusetts senator died before the election. After the Whig Party disintegrated in 1854, Brownlow aligned with the Know Nothing
movement, and intensified his attacks on non-Anglo American immigrants. In 1860, after the secession debate had come to dominate politics in the region, the Whig supported Constitutional Union
presidential candidate John Bell
, helping him capture the state's electoral votes. After the war, the Whig became one of the few papers in the South to support the Radical Republicans.
was his theological idol. Brownlow consistently refuted Wesley's critics, and two of his favorite targets were Presbyterian minister F. A. Ross
and Baptist preacher J. R. Graves
. In 1847, the Whig ran a continuous column entitled "Frederick Ross's Corner," which bashed Ross's character.
In the 1840s, as Northern and Southern Methodists argued over the slavery issue, Brownlow was offended by what he perceived as poor treatment of Southern Methodist leaders, especially Bishop Joshua Soule
(who had ordained Brownlow as minister). When Northern Methodist leader Thomas Bond called for missionaries to be sent to the South, Brownlow warned that such missionaries would be lynched
. "The people of the South," he wrote, "cannot regard such men, whatever may be their claims to the character, as true and faithful ministers of Christianity."
Brownlow's anti-Catholic sentiment was present in the earliest editions of the Whig, and gradually intensified over the years. In 1846, Brownlow ran a multi-part series on "Romanism" in America, claiming that the Catholic Church had kept Europe in "mental slavery" for 1,200 years, and was inherently intolerant and opposed to democracy. Brownlow referred to Catholics as "lousy, sinful, obedient subjects of a foreign Despot," and warned of their encroachment into American government.
While Brownlow had supported Bell in 1860, he praised Lincoln as an "Old Clay Whig," and argued that opposition to him had more to do with sectionalism
than with slavery. He blasted the state of South Carolina
(the first state to secede) as the "home of traitors," and claimed that most South Carolinians were descended from Revolutionary War Loyalists
, and thus had a love of aristocracy that "will never suit Tennesseeans."
Brownlow's support for slavery remained unchanged throughout 1860 and 1861, and he and rival editors accused one another of secretly supporting abolitionism. In Parson Brownlow's Book, published in 1862, Brownlow maintains his support of slavery, but clarified that he would do away with it if it meant preserving the Union. By April 1864, however, he had adopted an abolitionist viewpoint, and led a faction calling for emancipation at a gathering of East Tennessee Unionists. After the meeting, he gave a speech in support of a series of resolutions that deemed slavery "incompatible with the perpetuity of free and republican institutions."
, and as early as 1828 Brownlow had been in court facing a slander charge. In the mid-1830s, Brownlow anonymously wrote several articles attacking nullification for the Washington Republican and Farmer's Journal, a Jonesborough-based paper published by retired state supreme court justice Thomas Emmerson (1773–1837). Impressed, Emmerson suggested Brownlow leave the ministry to pursue a career in journalism.
After his marriage in 1839, Brownlow settled in Elizabethton
, and began looking for steady income to support his family. T. A. R. Nelson
, then a local attorney, suggested Brownlow publish a newspaper to support the Whigs in the upcoming elections. Brownlow formed a partnership with Mason R. Lyon, who had assumed publication of the Republican after Emmerson's death. The first edition of the Tennessee Whig was published on May 16, 1839, with Brownlow as editor and Lyon as publisher. Within a few months, Brownlow's vitriolic editorial style had left Elizabethton bitterly divided.
One Elizabethtonian who developed an immediate dislike of Brownlow was Landon Carter Haynes
, a fellow Whig who had switched his support to the Democratic Party in 1839. In May 1840, following the Whigs relocation to Jonesborough
, Haynes wrote an article insulting Brownlow's lineage. Enraged, Brownlow accosted Haynes in the streets of Jonesborough, and began beating him with a cane, prompting Haynes to draw a pistol and shoot Brownlow in the thigh. In 1841, Haynes was hired as editor of the Tennessee Sentinel, a Democratic paper published by former Emmerson associate Lawson Gifford, and an intense editorial rivalry developed between Brownlow and Haynes.
In 1844, Brownlow ran for Congress against Andrew Johnson
, and used the Whig to promote his own campaign. Brownlow launched a barrage of attacks against Johnson, claiming (correctly) that Johnson's cousin had been hanged for murder, accusing (incorrectly) Johnson's father of being a chicken thief, and suggesting (incorrectly) that Johnson was illegitimate. Even after Johnson won the election, Brownlow continued his attacks. Johnson vowed to ignore him, arguing that Brownlow's "trade is to slander," and that Brownlow was "wholly irresponsible for what he says or does." Brownlow refuted Johnson's dismissal, calling him a "base coward and low-bred scullion" who was simply hiding from the facts.
Brownlow's views and vindictive style provoked numerous assaults and assassination attempts. In March 1840, a gunman fired two shots into Brownlow's house, although both shots missed. In August 1842, a mob attacked Brownlow at a camp meeting
, but Brownlow fended them off with a pistol. In April 1849, an unknown assailant clubbed Brownlow in the back of the head, leaving him bedridden for two weeks.
, Brownlow had become embroiled in a war of words with Knoxville Register
editor John Miller McKee that lasted until McKee's departure in 1855.
Andrew Johnson's political ascent in the mid-1850s was a constant source of frustration for Brownlow. The Whig rehashed claims that Johnson's relatives were criminals, and accused Johnson of being an atheist (Johnson never joined a church, but always insisted he was a Christian). After Johnson was reelected governor in 1855, Brownlow published a prayer in the Whig that begged God to forgive Tennessee for electing an "ungodly Governor."
In 1857, the Whig quarrelled with the radical Southern Citizen, published by Knoxville businessman William G. Swan
and Irish Patriot John Mitchel
, and Brownlow spent at least one night parading in front of Swan's home while brandishing a revolver. During the same period, Brownlow blasted the officers of the failed Bank of East Tennessee, namely William Churchwell
, J. G. M. Ramsey
, and John H. Crozier, and accused them of swindling money from low-level depositers to pay the bank's wealthy creditors.
in November 1860, the secession debate dominated the pages of the Whig, with Brownlow relentlessly attacking the idea of secession and its supporters. Knoxville's secessionists cited Brownlow as the source of East Tennessee's pro-Union support, complaining that the Whig was "deluding and poisoning the public mind." In hopes of countering this sentiment, the Knoxville Register installed as its editor J. Austin Sperry, a radical secessionist whom Brownlow described as a "scoundrel, debauchee, and coward."
In May 1861, the Whig announced it had exposed a forgery conspiracy involving several secessionists attempting to smear Andrew Johnson (with whom Brownlow had formed an uneasy alliance, since they were both pro-Union). Brownlow pushed this issue for several months, and accused the "corrupt liar, low-down drunkard, irresponsible vagabond, and infamous coward of the Register" of complicity in the matter. In August 1861, Sperry complained about visiting dignitaries spurning him in favor of Brownlow. This provoked taunts from Brownlow, who claimed that a paper with such "limited circulation" as the Register could not be called a "competitor" of the Whig, and cited Sperry's "bad morals" as the reason for dignitaries avoiding him.
Brownlow was eventually arrested but released. He went into exile in the North, where he published a book and played an important role in rallying support for the liberation of East Tennessee. He returned to Knoxville on the heels of the Union general Ambrose Burnside
's invading army in September 1863, and revived the Whig under the title, Knoxville Whig, and Rebel Ventilator. Brownlow used the Whig to harass Knoxville's Confederates, and had a number of them expelled. These included the Confederate diarist Ellen Renshaw House, who wrote that Brownlow was "the vilest thing that ever lived."
.
In 1869, Brownlow sold the Whig to T. Hawes and Company, which in turn sold it to Knoxville businessman Joseph A. Mabry. Mabry had supported secession during the Civil War, but had since become friends with Brownlow. Mabry tried to transform the Whig into a Democratic newspaper, but was unsuccessful, and the paper failed shortly afterward.
In 1870, William Rule, a former Whig editor, launched the Knoxville Chronicle, which continued the Whigs Republican leanings. Upon his return from the U.S. Senate in 1875, Brownlow purchased half ownership of the Chronicle, and it was renamed the Whig and Chronicle, which he edited until his death in 1877. Rule continued editing the paper, later renamed the Knoxville Journal, until his own death in 1928. The paper's publication continued in Knoxville until 1991.
William Gannaway Brownlow
William Gannaway "Parson" Brownlow was an American newspaper editor, minister, and politician who served as Governor of the state of Tennessee from 1865 to 1869 and as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1869 to 1875...
(1805–1877) in the mid-nineteenth century. As its name implies, the paper's primary purpose was the promotion and defense of Whig Party
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...
political figures and ideals. In the years leading up to the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, the Whig became the mouthpiece for East Tennessee
East Tennessee
East Tennessee is a name given to approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee, one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. East Tennessee consists of 33 counties, 30 located within the Eastern Time Zone and three counties in the Central Time Zone, namely...
's anti-secessionist
Secession in the United States
Secession in the United States can refer to secession of a state from the United States, secession of part of a state from that state to form a new state, or secession of an area from a city or county....
movement. The Whig was published under several names throughout its existence, namely the Tennessee Whig, the Jonesborough Whig, the Knoxville Whig, and similar variations.
The Whig was one of the most influential newspapers in nineteenth-century Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, due mainly to Brownlow's editorials, which often included vindictive personal attacks and fierce diatribes. A Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
circuit rider
Circuit rider (Religious)
Circuit rider is a popular term referring to clergy in the earliest years of the United States who were assigned to travel around specific geographic territories to minister to settlers and organize congregations...
by trade, Brownlow launched the Whig in 1839 to counter rising Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
sentiment in the region. He quickly made many enemies across the majority Democratic antebellum South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
. During his career, Brownlow survived several assassination attempts, numerous libel lawsuits, and arrest and imprisonment by Confederate
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
authorities during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
.
Brownlow's Whig editorials attacked Democrats and Methodism's two main competitors in East Tennessee: Baptists and Presbyterians. Brownlow also attacked groups who he believed supported Democrats, such as Catholics, Mormons
Mormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
, and immigrants. In spite of its anti-secessionist sentiments, the Whig was staunchly pro-slavery in the early days of the Civil War but, upon Brownlow's return from exile in 1863, the paper adopted an abolitionist stance. After Brownlow was elected governor in 1865, his son became publisher of the Whig. In 1870, Whig reporter William Rule
William Rule (American editor)
William Rule was an American newspaper editor and politician, best known as the founder of the Knoxville Journal, which was published in Knoxville, Tennessee, from 1870 until 1991. A protégé of vitriolic newspaper editor William G...
(1839–1928) launched the Knoxville Chronicle (later renamed Knoxville Journal), which is often considered the "successor" to the Whig.
Layout and publication
The Whig was a typical nineteenth-century broadsheet, usually containing four pages, each divided into five (later six) columns. Editorials and news typically occupied the first two-and-a-half pages, and advertisements occupied the last page-and-a-half. The first column often began with a song or poem, after which Brownlow launched into an editorial. Along with political and religious commentary, Brownlow also reported on his travels to various cities, dispensed advice on issues such as marriage and child-rearing, and published his own speeches in their entirety.The motto, "Cry aloud, and spare not," taken from Isaiah 58:1
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...
(KJV), appeared in the paper's nameplate
Nameplate (publishing)
In publishing, a nameplate is the title of a newspaper or other periodical in the type style and treatment in which it appears on the front page or cover of the periodical...
as early as 1839, and was used throughout much of the 1840s. In 1853, Brownlow began using the motto, "Independent in everything, neutral in nothing." For several months after the 1840 elections, the paper used Oliver Hazard Perry
Oliver Hazard Perry
United States Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island , the son of USN Captain Christopher Raymond Perry and Sarah Wallace Alexander, a direct descendant of William Wallace...
's famous line, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours," as its nameplate motto.
Titles
The Whig was published under the following titles:- Tennessee Whig (May 16, 1839 – 1840)
- The Whig (May 6, 1840 – November 3, 1841)
- Jonesborough Whig (November 10, 1841 – May 11, 1842)
- Jonesborough Whig and Independent Journal (May 18, 1842 – April 19, 1849)
- Brownlow's Knoxville Whig and Independent Journal (May 19, 1849 – April 7, 1855)
- Brownlow's Knoxville Whig (April 14, 1855 – July 27, 1861)
- Brownlow's Weekly Whig (August 3, 1861 – October 26, 1861)
- Brownlow's Knoxville Whig, and Rebel Ventilator (November 11, 1863 – February 21, 1866)
- Brownlow's Knoxville Whig (February 28, 1866 – January 27, 1869)
- Knoxville Weekly Whig (February 3, 1869 – March 1870)
- Weekly Whig and Register (c. 1870 – 1871)
Politics
In an 1842 description of the Whig, Brownlow wrote, "politically, we are WHIG— ultra whig, and of the old school— the 'sworn and eternal foe of locofocoism.'" Brownlow despised President Andrew JacksonAndrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...
, calling him the "greatest curse that ever yet befell this nation." The Whig supported, among other things, a strong central government, federal funding for internal improvements, a weakened presidency, a national bank
Second Bank of the United States
The Second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816, five years after the First Bank of the United States lost its own charter. The Second Bank of the United States was initially headquartered in Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, the same as the First Bank, and had branches throughout the...
, and tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
s to protect American products from foreign competition.
As Brownlow's political idol was Kentucky senator Henry Clay
Henry Clay
Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...
, the publisher pleaded with the Whig Party to make Clay its presidential candidate. He became disenchanted when the party snubbed Clay in favor of William Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison was the ninth President of the United States , an American military officer and politician, and the first president to die in office. He was 68 years, 23 days old when elected, the oldest president elected until Ronald Reagan in 1980, and last President to be born before the...
in 1840 and by 1842, Brownlow had turned outright hostile toward Harrison's successor, John Tyler
John Tyler
John Tyler was the tenth President of the United States . A native of Virginia, Tyler served as a state legislator, governor, U.S. representative, and U.S. senator before being elected Vice President . He was the first to succeed to the office of President following the death of a predecessor...
. After Clay's defeat in the presidential election of 1844, Brownlow was grief-stricken. When the party snubbed Clay in favor of Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...
in 1848, Brownlow called on Whig electors to vote for Clay instead.
In the presidential election of 1852, Brownlow rejected Whig candidate Winfield Scott
Winfield Scott
Winfield Scott was a United States Army general, and unsuccessful presidential candidate of the Whig Party in 1852....
and supported Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster was a leading American statesman and senator from Massachusetts during the period leading up to the Civil War. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests...
, although the Massachusetts senator died before the election. After the Whig Party disintegrated in 1854, Brownlow aligned with the Know Nothing
Know Nothing
The Know Nothing was a movement by the nativist American political faction of the 1840s and 1850s. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to Anglo-Saxon Protestant values and controlled by...
movement, and intensified his attacks on non-Anglo American immigrants. In 1860, after the secession debate had come to dominate politics in the region, the Whig supported Constitutional Union
Constitutional Union Party (United States)
The Constitutional Union Party was a political party in the United States created in 1860. It was made up of conservative former Whigs who wanted to avoid disunion over the slavery issue...
presidential candidate John Bell
John Bell (Tennessee politician)
John Bell was a U.S. politician, attorney, and plantation owner. A wealthy slaveholder from Tennessee, Bell served in the United States Congress in both the House of Representatives and Senate. He began his career as a Democrat, he eventually fell out with Andrew Jackson and became a Whig...
, helping him capture the state's electoral votes. After the war, the Whig became one of the few papers in the South to support the Radical Republicans.
Religion
While Clay was Brownlow's political idol, Methodism founder John WesleyJohn Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
was his theological idol. Brownlow consistently refuted Wesley's critics, and two of his favorite targets were Presbyterian minister F. A. Ross
Frederick Augustus Ross
Frederick Augustus Ross, was a Presbyterian clergyman.He was born in Cobham, Cumberland County, Virginia.He was educated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, entered the ministry,...
and Baptist preacher J. R. Graves
James Robinson Graves
James Robinson Graves was a US Baptist preacher, publisher, evangelist, debater, author, and editor. He was born in Chester, Vermont, the son of Z. C. Graves, and died in Memphis, Tennessee. His remains are interred in Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.Though raised in a Congregational background, he...
. In 1847, the Whig ran a continuous column entitled "Frederick Ross's Corner," which bashed Ross's character.
In the 1840s, as Northern and Southern Methodists argued over the slavery issue, Brownlow was offended by what he perceived as poor treatment of Southern Methodist leaders, especially Bishop Joshua Soule
Joshua Soule
Joshua Soule was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church , and then of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.-Birth and rebirth:...
(who had ordained Brownlow as minister). When Northern Methodist leader Thomas Bond called for missionaries to be sent to the South, Brownlow warned that such missionaries would be lynched
Lynching in the United States
Lynching, the practice of killing people by extrajudicial mob action, occurred in the United States chiefly from the late 18th century through the 1960s. Lynchings took place most frequently in the South from 1890 to the 1920s, with a peak in the annual toll in 1892.It is associated with...
. "The people of the South," he wrote, "cannot regard such men, whatever may be their claims to the character, as true and faithful ministers of Christianity."
Brownlow's anti-Catholic sentiment was present in the earliest editions of the Whig, and gradually intensified over the years. In 1846, Brownlow ran a multi-part series on "Romanism" in America, claiming that the Catholic Church had kept Europe in "mental slavery" for 1,200 years, and was inherently intolerant and opposed to democracy. Brownlow referred to Catholics as "lousy, sinful, obedient subjects of a foreign Despot," and warned of their encroachment into American government.
Secessionism
In January 1860, Brownlow asked Whig readers to "pray against the wicked leaders of Abolitionism and the equally ungodly advocates of Secessionism," a statement which sums up his pre-Civil War stance on both issues. Brownlow believed an independent South would continue to be run by the elite - Southern Democratic plantation owners, who would exploit small farmers. "The honest yeomanry of these border States," he wrote, "whose families live by their hard licks, four-fifths of whom own no negroes and never expect to own any, are to be drafted" to fight for the "purse-proud aristocrats of the Cotton States."While Brownlow had supported Bell in 1860, he praised Lincoln as an "Old Clay Whig," and argued that opposition to him had more to do with sectionalism
Sectionalism
-Defined:Sectionalism is loyalty to the interests of one's own region or section of the country, rather than to the country as a whole.-United States:...
than with slavery. He blasted the state of South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
(the first state to secede) as the "home of traitors," and claimed that most South Carolinians were descended from Revolutionary War Loyalists
Loyalist (American Revolution)
Loyalists were American colonists who remained loyal to the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. At the time they were often called Tories, Royalists, or King's Men. They were opposed by the Patriots, those who supported the revolution...
, and thus had a love of aristocracy that "will never suit Tennesseeans."
Slavery
Brownlow's views on slavery were complex, and changed over time. In the 1830s, he was opposed to slavery, but for obscure reasons, had changed his mind by the following decade. Historian Robert McKenzie suggests that the hostility of Northern Methodists (who were abolitionists) toward Southern Methodists (who tended to be pro-slavery) in the 1840s may have driven Brownlow into the pro-slavery camp. In any case, by the 1850s, Brownlow was staunchly pro-slavery, arguing that the institution had been "ordained by God."Brownlow's support for slavery remained unchanged throughout 1860 and 1861, and he and rival editors accused one another of secretly supporting abolitionism. In Parson Brownlow's Book, published in 1862, Brownlow maintains his support of slavery, but clarified that he would do away with it if it meant preserving the Union. By April 1864, however, he had adopted an abolitionist viewpoint, and led a faction calling for emancipation at a gathering of East Tennessee Unionists. After the meeting, he gave a speech in support of a series of resolutions that deemed slavery "incompatible with the perpetuity of free and republican institutions."
Early publication
As a Methodist circuit rider in the 1820s, Brownlow gained a reputation for vicious personal attacks against rival missionaries as they competed for converts across Southern AppalachiaAppalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
, and as early as 1828 Brownlow had been in court facing a slander charge. In the mid-1830s, Brownlow anonymously wrote several articles attacking nullification for the Washington Republican and Farmer's Journal, a Jonesborough-based paper published by retired state supreme court justice Thomas Emmerson (1773–1837). Impressed, Emmerson suggested Brownlow leave the ministry to pursue a career in journalism.
After his marriage in 1839, Brownlow settled in Elizabethton
Elizabethton, Tennessee
Elizabethton is the county seat of Carter County, Tennessee, United States. Elizabethton is also the historical site both of the first independent American government located west of both the Eastern Continental Divide and the original thirteen British American colonies.Elizabethton is also the...
, and began looking for steady income to support his family. T. A. R. Nelson
Thomas Amos Rogers Nelson
Thomas Amos Rogers Nelson was an American attorney, politician, and judge, active primarily in East Tennessee during the mid-19th century. He represented Tennessee's 1st Congressional District in the 36th U.S. Congress , where he gained a reputation as a staunch pro-Union southerner...
, then a local attorney, suggested Brownlow publish a newspaper to support the Whigs in the upcoming elections. Brownlow formed a partnership with Mason R. Lyon, who had assumed publication of the Republican after Emmerson's death. The first edition of the Tennessee Whig was published on May 16, 1839, with Brownlow as editor and Lyon as publisher. Within a few months, Brownlow's vitriolic editorial style had left Elizabethton bitterly divided.
One Elizabethtonian who developed an immediate dislike of Brownlow was Landon Carter Haynes
Landon Carter Haynes, Sr.
Landon Carter Haynes was a prominent Confederate politician during the American Civil War.-Biography:...
, a fellow Whig who had switched his support to the Democratic Party in 1839. In May 1840, following the Whigs relocation to Jonesborough
Jonesborough, Tennessee
Jonesborough is a town in and the county seat of Washington County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The population was 4,168 at the 2000 census...
, Haynes wrote an article insulting Brownlow's lineage. Enraged, Brownlow accosted Haynes in the streets of Jonesborough, and began beating him with a cane, prompting Haynes to draw a pistol and shoot Brownlow in the thigh. In 1841, Haynes was hired as editor of the Tennessee Sentinel, a Democratic paper published by former Emmerson associate Lawson Gifford, and an intense editorial rivalry developed between Brownlow and Haynes.
Jonesborough
The feud between Brownlow and Haynes continued through the early 1840s. Brownlow wrote that Haynes abounded in "hopeless rottenness," and accused him of cheating tenents out of corn and selling infected hogs to a North Carolina merchant, while Haynes dubbed Brownlow a "wretched abortion of sin" and a "tarnisher of female innocence." In 1842, Haynes attempted to join the Methodist ministry, but was denied due in part to a series of charges levied against him in the Whig. Haynes finally quit the newspaper business in 1845 to focus on his political career.In 1844, Brownlow ran for Congress against Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...
, and used the Whig to promote his own campaign. Brownlow launched a barrage of attacks against Johnson, claiming (correctly) that Johnson's cousin had been hanged for murder, accusing (incorrectly) Johnson's father of being a chicken thief, and suggesting (incorrectly) that Johnson was illegitimate. Even after Johnson won the election, Brownlow continued his attacks. Johnson vowed to ignore him, arguing that Brownlow's "trade is to slander," and that Brownlow was "wholly irresponsible for what he says or does." Brownlow refuted Johnson's dismissal, calling him a "base coward and low-bred scullion" who was simply hiding from the facts.
Brownlow's views and vindictive style provoked numerous assaults and assassination attempts. In March 1840, a gunman fired two shots into Brownlow's house, although both shots missed. In August 1842, a mob attacked Brownlow at a camp meeting
Camp meeting
The camp meeting is a form of Protestant Christian religious service originating in Britain and once common in some parts of the United States, wherein people would travel from a large area to a particular site to camp out, listen to itinerant preachers, and pray...
, but Brownlow fended them off with a pistol. In April 1849, an unknown assailant clubbed Brownlow in the back of the head, leaving him bedridden for two weeks.
Knoxville
By the time he relocated the Whig to Knoxville in May 1849, Brownlow was already well-known in the city. Brownlow had previously clashed with the Democratic Knoxville Standard, which he called a "filthy lying sheet," and blasted its editor, A. R. Crozier, as a "miserable mockery of a man." Before he had settled into his new printing office on Gay StreetGay Street (Knoxville)
Gay Street is a street in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, that traverses the heart of the city's downtown area. Since its development in the 1790s, Gay Street has served as the city's principal financial and commercial thoroughfare, and has played a primary role in the city's historical and cultural...
, Brownlow had become embroiled in a war of words with Knoxville Register
Knoxville Register
The Knoxville Register was an American newspaper published primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the 19th century. Founded in 1816, the paper was East Tennessee's dominant newspaper until 1863, when its pro-secession editor, Jacob Austin Sperry , was forced to flee advancing Union forces at the...
editor John Miller McKee that lasted until McKee's departure in 1855.
Andrew Johnson's political ascent in the mid-1850s was a constant source of frustration for Brownlow. The Whig rehashed claims that Johnson's relatives were criminals, and accused Johnson of being an atheist (Johnson never joined a church, but always insisted he was a Christian). After Johnson was reelected governor in 1855, Brownlow published a prayer in the Whig that begged God to forgive Tennessee for electing an "ungodly Governor."
In 1857, the Whig quarrelled with the radical Southern Citizen, published by Knoxville businessman William G. Swan
William Graham Swan
William Graham Swan was an American attorney and politician active primarily in East Tennessee during the mid-19th century. Swan served in the Confederate States Congress during the American Civil War, and served one term as mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, from 1855 until late 1856...
and Irish Patriot John Mitchel
John Mitchel
John Mitchel was an Irish nationalist activist, solicitor and political journalist. Born in Camnish, near Dungiven, County Londonderry, Ireland he became a leading member of both Young Ireland and the Irish Confederation...
, and Brownlow spent at least one night parading in front of Swan's home while brandishing a revolver. During the same period, Brownlow blasted the officers of the failed Bank of East Tennessee, namely William Churchwell
William Montgomery Churchwell
William Montgomery Churchwell was an American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives.-Biography:He was born near Knoxville, Tennessee in Knox County on February 20, 1826. He attended private schools and Emory and Henry College in Emory, Virginia from 1840 to 1843. He...
, J. G. M. Ramsey
J. G. M. Ramsey
James Gettys McGready Ramsey was an American historian, physician, and businessman, active primarily in East Tennessee during the nineteenth century. Ramsey is perhaps best known for his book, The Annals of Tennessee, a seminal work documenting the state's frontier and early statehood periods...
, and John H. Crozier, and accused them of swindling money from low-level depositers to pay the bank's wealthy creditors.
Secession crisis
After the election of Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
in November 1860, the secession debate dominated the pages of the Whig, with Brownlow relentlessly attacking the idea of secession and its supporters. Knoxville's secessionists cited Brownlow as the source of East Tennessee's pro-Union support, complaining that the Whig was "deluding and poisoning the public mind." In hopes of countering this sentiment, the Knoxville Register installed as its editor J. Austin Sperry, a radical secessionist whom Brownlow described as a "scoundrel, debauchee, and coward."
In May 1861, the Whig announced it had exposed a forgery conspiracy involving several secessionists attempting to smear Andrew Johnson (with whom Brownlow had formed an uneasy alliance, since they were both pro-Union). Brownlow pushed this issue for several months, and accused the "corrupt liar, low-down drunkard, irresponsible vagabond, and infamous coward of the Register" of complicity in the matter. In August 1861, Sperry complained about visiting dignitaries spurning him in favor of Brownlow. This provoked taunts from Brownlow, who claimed that a paper with such "limited circulation" as the Register could not be called a "competitor" of the Whig, and cited Sperry's "bad morals" as the reason for dignitaries avoiding him.
The Civil War
After Tennessee withdrew from the Union in June 1861, the Confederate Army occupied East Tennessee and arrested several noted Union supporters. Throughout the summer of that year, Brownlow dedicated much of the Whig to defending these Unionists. By October, the Whig was the last pro-Union newspaper in the Confederacy. Finally, on October 24, Brownlow announced he had become aware of an indictment issued against him and was suspending publication. The Confederate Army confiscated the Whig offices and used the printing machinery to convert muskets into rifles.Brownlow was eventually arrested but released. He went into exile in the North, where he published a book and played an important role in rallying support for the liberation of East Tennessee. He returned to Knoxville on the heels of the Union general Ambrose Burnside
Ambrose Burnside
Ambrose Everett Burnside was an American soldier, railroad executive, inventor, industrialist, and politician from Rhode Island, serving as governor and a U.S. Senator...
's invading army in September 1863, and revived the Whig under the title, Knoxville Whig, and Rebel Ventilator. Brownlow used the Whig to harass Knoxville's Confederates, and had a number of them expelled. These included the Confederate diarist Ellen Renshaw House, who wrote that Brownlow was "the vilest thing that ever lived."
Later years
After Brownlow was elected Governor of Tennessee in 1865, publication of the Whig was turned over to his son, John Bell Brownlow, although the elder Brownlow continued to write for the paper. As governor, Brownlow used the Whig to issue state proclamations, ignoring a Tennessee law requiring the Secretary of State's signature. In 1868, Brownlow revived his old rivalry with Andrew Johnson by supporting Johnson's impeachmentImpeachment of Andrew Johnson
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the United States, was one of the most dramatic events in the political life of the United States during Reconstruction, and the first impeachment in history of a sitting United States president....
.
In 1869, Brownlow sold the Whig to T. Hawes and Company, which in turn sold it to Knoxville businessman Joseph A. Mabry. Mabry had supported secession during the Civil War, but had since become friends with Brownlow. Mabry tried to transform the Whig into a Democratic newspaper, but was unsuccessful, and the paper failed shortly afterward.
In 1870, William Rule, a former Whig editor, launched the Knoxville Chronicle, which continued the Whigs Republican leanings. Upon his return from the U.S. Senate in 1875, Brownlow purchased half ownership of the Chronicle, and it was renamed the Whig and Chronicle, which he edited until his death in 1877. Rule continued editing the paper, later renamed the Knoxville Journal, until his own death in 1928. The paper's publication continued in Knoxville until 1991.