Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-05-21

people, were handled IN mastery manner.
Last came the attempt to use the colored
vote TO retain political power, yet refusing
the right to sit on juries or hold office.
The curious fact that, like the great mass
of the Brownlow leaders, most Of the reg
listers of voters are old Rebel deserters
who, by appointing Rebel deserters as poll
clerks and judges, may be the only repre-
sentatiyes of loyalty, and may carry cleo
tons as their master wills, irrespective of
the votes Of the people
The fact was most scathingly elaborated
that the Brownlow officials don't care how
mean a man has been in the past, nor how
dislOyal he is now, if he will only vote for
them; nor do they care how loyal a man
is, if he opposes them they denounce and
villify him.
The great fact that, under the harsh mill
tary bill prescribed by Congress for the
States whose existence is ignored, only
about one man in a hundred of the in
habitants of any county will be debarred
from voting, while under BroWnlow legisla-
ton in Tennessee ninety-nine men in every
hundred are debarred from the elective
franchise, was eloquently and powerfully
explained, illustrated and denounced.
Extracts were read from Brownlow's
writings, wherein that great demagogue,
who is trying to win the votes of colored
men by professions of extreme regard, de-
Tended slavery in the most bitter, sweeping
and unreserved manner, declaring it was
right, and God ordained institution, that
to talk of abolishing it was heinous crime
that negroes were brutes, and that those
who talked of freeing them should be hung.
Nor these alone; the extracts from Brown
lows writings here read wherein he
threatened to tar and feather, and hang
men who desired the emancipation of the
slaves-extracts in which he spoke SO
foully Of the blacks that the reader omitted
the most offensive words as too indecent
for his hearers The extracts demonstrated
that Brownlow has ever-until since the
negroes were out of his poWer-been their
most bitter and brutal enemy.
An article of far more recent date, in
which he hopes that emancipation may
result in the extinction of the blacks, was
also read. Then having shown in such a
light the meanness and hypocrisy of the
great leader Of Tennessee Radicalism, that
no colored man of the least sense could
question it, the speaker pointed to the
shameful manner in which the finances of
the State have been mismanaged. The
expenses Of the State were 100000 before
the war; last year, in time of profound
peace and general restitution, it swelled to
1862 900, and now this year reaches the
enormous sum of 81, 524, 600 The Cover
nor's staff last year cost $28, 886 81, and of
this Brownlow's own son drew 1924, May
nard's son $4650, and a young man named
Thomas S6864.
This was the close of the argument, but
the great orakpr, in beautiful and eloquent
language, showed that in civil wars it was
alike unusual and impolitic to keep alive
feuds. He sketched English history, and
showed that the removal of Judges
had never been the custom during
the civil wars there. He pointed
to the fact that the great anti
slavery men, Gerritt Smith and Horace
Greeley, whose anti-slayery sentiments had
been known for years before the war, now
advocated equal rights to whites and
blacks, and had become the bondsmen for
the great State prisoner, Mr.. Davis. 1t
was renegade Rebels who were bitter
against those whom they duped into rebel
lion. The speaker paid an eloquent tribute
TO Gerritt Smiths goodness, and then de-
Tended his own course and principles. His
remarks on this point were bold and frank.
He had never, like Brownlow, been a negro
trader, bitter enemy of the blacks. He
had bought several negroes at their request,
and had never sold any. All those his
father left or owned, he had living on his
place now, and he loved them and they
him.
He had been constant friend of the
Union all the time, but no enemy of the
great body of the people of the State; and,
therefore, now while Brownlow wished to
put the negro above the white man, thus
engendering a hostility that could work no
good to colored men, he favored equal
rights to all.
The speaker, adverting briefly to the
steps by which usurpation had been accom-
plished, traced the franchise bills, the infa-
nous control of all judicial power, the
holding control of voters, poll clerks and
Judges, and lastly, the establishment, con-
trary to the constitution, of State militia,
subject to his orders, and to cost eight or
ten millions of dollars, to enable him to
have an army of eight thousand men con-
trolling elections in this so-called free
country, while in England soldiers are not
allowed to be quartered in any town in
which an election is held and it is made
felony for United States soldiers to inter-
fere in elections.
Stokes REPLY.
When Mr.. Etheridge sat down, the Hon.
w. B. Stokes was introduced by Mr.. Hud-
son.
He detailed the progress of the war to
show that Brownlow had followed in the
same track as Congress, and that Tennessee
Radicalism was, in entire accord with the
Republican party of the nation. He held
that the Federal soldiers and Union men
were nearly all on the side of Brognlow,
and all who had opposed the war were on
the other.
He defended the military bill, and ex-
pressed it as not unlikely that confscation
might follow If there was not reconstruction
under it. He detailed his services in the
Federal army, and assaiIed Mr. Etheridge
for not haviaRgdone likewise. He held that
the affinity 81 Federal soldiers with the
Brownlow Mfty and the proclamation of
emancipation should give the blacks conf
dence in it Having thus glanced at the
position of parties and the history of the
war, and rep4led the supposed imputation
that he had been a Rebel renegade, Mr..
Stokes opened on Dir. Etheridge by reading
an extract ffom some supposed speech Of
Mr.. Etheridge, the extract being kept
standing in a Radical organ daily. He
admitted that Brownlow had said some
hard things about blacks, but he didn't do
80 now. Several times Mr.. Stokes told
funny anecdotes, and drew out laugh from
| the crowd, but there was little applause.
THE REJoINDRR.
When he sat down, Mr.. Etheridge arose
again and in detail replied TO every point
made BY Mr.. Stokes. He charged Stokes
with writing the Duncan letter to induce
young men to go into the Rebel army. He
asked Stokes if he admitted writing
| it. Stokes said he did Mr.. Etheridge
wanted to know if that letter was true or
| false. Mr.. Stokes-"It was false" Great
cheering.
Mr.. Etheridge showed that if Stokes
would write falsehoods one time, and get
them printed to dupe young men into
the Rebel army, and then desert them when
Buell. had ended the war in Tennessee and
he could get a ColonePs commission, he
might be telling falsehoods now to 60 to
Congress.
Mr.. Etheridge then pointedly refuted
every calumney against himself He
| showed that the extract attributed to him
was base fabrication BY the same mali
cious sccomplice Of Brownlow, who had
him tried by a military commission, which
honorably acquitted him, although he did
| not bring a single witness He pointed to
his life as compared with Stokes and
Rrownlow's. He ridiculed mercilessly