Brownlow's Knoxville Whig. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1866-1869, 1866-09-12


spared the cruetes of rebellion and the direct hor-
rors of civil war.
Here on the spot where freedom was proffered and
pledged by the fathers of the Republic we implore
your help against recognized oppression, whose
sole object TO remit the control of Our desnes to
the contryers OF the rebellion after they have been
vanqushed IN honorable battle-thus at once to pun
lsh US for our devotion to country, and to in
trench themselves in the official Notifications of the
Government
Others have related the thrilling story of our
wrongs from reading and observation. We come
before you as unehaanged witnesses, and speak from
personal knowledge our sad experience. Ii you fail
US, we are utterly deserted and betrayed than
if the contest of had been decided affainst
for in thai ease even victorious slavery would have
found profit in the speedy pardon of those who had
been among its bravest foes.
Unexpected perfdy IN the highest place of the
Government accidentally filed by one who adds
cruelty TO ngratitude and forgiyes the guilty as he
proscribes the innocent, has stimulated the almost
extinguished revenge of the beaten conspirators
and now the rebels who offered to yield everything
to save their own lives, seeking to consign to
bloody graves.
Where we expected benefactor we find perse-
cutor. Having lost our champion, we return to you
who can make Presidents and punish traitors.
| Our last hope under God is in the unity and firm
ness of the States that elected Abraham Lincoln and
defeated Jefferson Davis.
The best statement of our is the appalling,
vet unconscious confession of Andrew johnson, who
in savage hatred of his own record, proclans his
purpose to cohe four millions of traitors with the
power to impoverish and degrade eight millions of
loyal men.
Our wrongs bear alike upon all races, and ourty-
| rants, unchecked by you will award the same fate
| to white and black.
| We can remain as only interiors and
victims.
We may fly from our homes, but we should fear to
trust our fate with those who after denouncing and
defeating treason, refuse TO right those who had
bravely assisted them in the good work.
Till we wholly rescued, there is neither peace
for you nor prosperity for us.
We cannot better define at once our wrong and
| our wants than by declaring that, since Andrew
johnson affiliated with his early sanderers and our
constant enemies, his hand has been laid heavily
upon every earnest loyalist in the South. History
the Just Judgment of the present, and the certain
confirmation of the future, invite and command us
| to declare
That after rejecting his own remedies for res:or-
ing the Union he has resorted to the weapons of
traitors to bruise and beat down patriots.
That after declaring that but the loyal should
govern the reconstructed South, he has practised
upon the maxim that none but traitors shall rule.
That while in the North he has removed consci-
entious men from Office and filed many of the va
cancies with the sympathizers of treason, in the
South he has removed the proved and trusted patr-
OF and selected the equally proved and convicted
/ traitor.
That, after brave men who had fought for the old
flag have been nominated for positions, their names
| have been recalled and avowed rebels substituted.
That every original Unionis. in the South who
| stands fast to Andrew Johnsons covenants from
1861 to 1865 has been ostracised.
That he has corrupted the local courts by offering
premiums for defiance of the laws of Congress, and
by openly discouragng the observance of the oath
against treason.
That, while refusing to punish one single con-
spcious traitor, though thousands had earned the
penalty of death, more than thousand of devoted
Union citizens have been murdered in cold blood
since the surrender of Lee, and in have their
| assassins been brought to Judgment.
That he has pardoned some Of the worst of the
rebel criminals, North and South including some
who have taken human life under circumstances of
unparalleled atrocity.
That while denouncing and lettering the opera
tons of the Freedmens Bureau, he, with full
knowledge of the falsehood, has charged that the
black men are lazy and rebelious and has conceal
ed the fact that more whites than blacks have been
protected and fed by that noble organization, and
that while declaring that it corruptly managed
and expensive to the Government, he has conniVed
at system of profigacy in the use of the public
patronage and public money wholly without paral-
el when the traitors bankrupted the Treasury,
and sought to dsorganize and scatter the army and
the navy, only to make it more easy to capture and
destroy the Government.
That, while declaring against the injustice of leav-
ing eleven States unrepresented, he has refused TO
authorize the liberal plan of Congress- simply be-
it recognizes the loyal majority and refuses to
perpetuate the traitor minority.
That in every State south of Mason and Dixon's
line his policy has wrought the most deplorable
consequences-social, moral and political.
1t has emboldened returned rebels to threaten civil
war in Maryland, Missouri, West Virginia and Ten
unless the patriots who saved and sealed these
States to the old flag surrender before their arrogant
demands.
1t has corrupted high State officials, elected by
Union men and sworn TO enforce the laws against
returned rebels, and made them the mere instru-
ments Of the authors of the rebellion.
1t has encouraged alienation between the
sections and by impeding emigration to the South
has erected formidable barriers against free and
friendly intercourse with our countrymen in the
North and West.
1t has allowed the rebel soldiery to prosecute the
teachers of the colored schools, and to burn the
churches in which the freedmen have worshped the
living God.
That system so barbarous should have culmina-
ted in the frghtful riot at Memphis, and the still
more appalling massacre at New Orleans,
natural as that bloody war should flow from the
teachings of John c. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis.
Andrew johnson is responsible for all these I'M
speakable crimes and cruelties. As he provoked
he justifes and applauds them.
Sending his agents and emissaries into this refined
and patriotic metropolis TO insist upon making his
| reckless policy test upon Christian people, he
forgot that the protection extended to the l4th OF
August convention in Philadelphia has not only de-
MED to the free people of New Orleans the 30th
Of july when they assembled to discuss how best to
protect themselves but denied amidst the slaug hter
of hundreds of innocent men.
No page in the record of his recent outrages upon
human justice and constitutional law is revolt
ing than that which convcts him of refusing to
rest the preparations for that savage carnival and
not only of refusing to punish its authors, but of
toiling to throw the guilty responsibility upon the
unofending and Innocent freedmen.
The infatuated tyrant that stood ready TO crush his
own people In Tennessee when they were struggling
to maintain government erected by himself against
| his and their traitor prosecutors, even more
eager to illustrate his savage policy by clothing with
the more despotic power the mpenitent and revenge
full rebels of New Orleans.
Notwithstanding this heartess desertion and cruel
persecution by Andrew johnson in the States of
Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia,
Maryland, and Delaware democratic republican
principles-principles which the fathers of the Re-
public designed for all America-are now making
determined battle with the ogarchical enemies of
free constitutional government; and by the blessing
of God these States will soon range themselves in
line with the former free States and illustrate the
wisdom and benefcence of the great charter of
American liberty by their increasing population,
wealth, and prosperity.
In the remaining ten States the seeds of oligarchy
planted in the Constitution by its slavery features
have grown to be monster power Recognition
thus wrung from the reluctant trainers of that great
| instrument enabled these States to entrench them
selves behind the perverted doctrine of States rights
and sheltered by claim of constitutional obligation
to maintain slavery in the States to present to the
! American Government the alternatives Of oligarchy