Brownlow's Knoxville Whig. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1866-1869, 1868-04-01

t@S-~ $780,
of men 1 esteem above Others they are that class.
And now, sir, viii give you an item of history
don't offer it in Justification of the mob spirit in
this county nor even in extenuation of the ofense
You ought to be aware of the fact that the COned-
crate Congress at Richmond passed what they called
the conscript act and issued their orders that all
citizens subject to military duty, over Is and under
IS years of age should report themselves at Knox
vile, or at some specified point in Tennessee againss
8 given day. What next? When they refused to
report, there were companies organized and armed
and sent into every nook and corner, with reward
of thirty dollars for every they delivered st the
place designated Then it was that more than saw
age cruelty commenced One of my brothers who
was 8 conscript was captured and taken to Knox
vile and lay in prison there about four months and
he said for part of the time it was every days
business to take the conscrpts out to their camps
and give them 80 lashes on their naked backs.
What do you think of that. Mr.. Holstein Hun
dreds of these young men, at the risk of their lives
made their way into the Federal lines under the
cover of night. Three of my nephews were cap
tured, mot all however at the same time). One Of
them they shot down in less thGn half an hour after
be was prisoner without any provocation what
ever. Another of them, by good management and
a little cunning, got away from them in the night
The third attempted, and did escape in the night
not however without having several rounds fred
at him as he ran Two other nephews were run
ont of Sewer county. One of them died in the
Federal army, the other was lost on that Inflated
boat upon the Mississippi the Sultana. 1 lost a
brother-in-aw on that boat leaving my sister with
two helpless children to brook the storms and dan
gers of life without a father. After they were
driven from their homes their families were robbed
of their horses cattle, cows and their provisions
generally, and in some instances of their clothing
could give many more instances of like character,
but fOrbear. I Hicken when think of it. Oh
but I-I-I-we--we -were opposed to all such
such proceedings. WE preachers never approved
Of. such conduct. Didn't you, indeed? Then,
what did you do will tell you what most OF
yOm' preachers did do. All the editors Of your
Church papers advocated the rebellion, majority
Of your preachers preached, talked and prayed for
the success of the Confederate arms; some of them
went into the army as chaplains, officers, &c. You
acted the part that Aaron and Hur did when Joshua
NioSOAiAtSN kWtsu -tsultS
you held up the hands Of the Confederacy by your
groans prayers and crocodile tears, until it was
"hoPing against h2pe." Now, sir, is it any marvel
that those returned soldiers should hate and despise
you, and in some instances, should seek to redress
their own wrongs
You assume another thing without any Just
ground-that the Southern ministry is of purer
character than the clergy of the North their piety
deeper, &c Now, fir, I have always understood
even from Southern preachers-that the purest
Wesleyan Methdisra existed in the. New England
Conference. There you will find more old gray
headed ministers in that Conference than any other
in the United States. There they have always adj
hered strictly to Nh. Wesleys opinion of slavery.
Mr.. Wesley published tract of twenty-four pages
in l774, upon slavery, in which he takes stronger
grounds against this institution than any author
have ever met with. In connection with this tract
is letter dated London February 20 1871, (only
four days before his death) supposed to have been
addressed 10 Mr.. Wilberforce in which he de-
nOunces it Slavery as the "most execrable vii
lainy." This tract and letter are now before me.
wish million copies of them were re-published
and circulated over the South. About seyen-tenths
of the Methodist people South believe that Wesley
was pro-slavery man. You make great flourish
over the legal decision of Church property South
that the Supreme Court of the United States ,
gave the Southern division of the Church all the
property, including churches parsonages, cenete-
ries, &c. did not know anything was in litiga-
ton but the Book Concern and Chartered Fund
Do you If so you are wiser than most men, How
ever, suppose it was the same Court that decided
the bred Scott case. When Judge McClane and
Curtis, believe it was, dissented when Judge Nc
Clsne gave his opinion, he said that decision was
contrary to every decision of like character both in
England and the United States, for the last hundred
years, and gives the decision of the highest Court
in England in the case of Somerset precisely sim
liar 20 that of bred Scott and the Court unan
imously agreed that Somerset was free. So far as
you have prsuged the decision Of the courts in re-
gard TO Church property, 1 think you had better
nat and see. Whatever that may be- Herewith will
be content fol- intend to be "subject to the powers
that be-" am loyal" sir. If in your i've letters
which have read there is any of the spirit which
was in Christ, I have not been able to see it. On
the other hand, they abound in coarse and vulgar
epithets more betting ale seller than minister
of Righteousness. We hope in your next general
episle you will come out over your own proper sig
nature.
You may have been born with golden spoon in
your mouth, or you may have come up from the
plebeisn ranks who believe in and practice squat
ter sovereignty by which l mean they enter the
itinerancy badly mounted and worse clad, travel
from two to four years, marry some rich mans
daughter and then squat dO'on upon some of his
broad acres, take the hccups or bronchitis" To-
cate or take superannuated relation, and then 90
to overseeing your dsrkeys. l could give rich
biography of Methodist preachers within the bounds
of the Holston Conference during the last quarter
of century; some of them marrying rich widows
nearly or quite old enough for their mothers be-
lieve il is settled principle in philosophy DR.
Clarke has endorsed it) that we partske to great
extent of the nature and disposition of the animal
whose food we sabaist on; if that is so, there is
marked differences between Us and the YANKEES
they live on beef and mutton, and we ca hog and |
postum. This ID no joke; can prove by good
men that they car find plenty of opossums in the
Nashville market.) The disposition Of the hog is
when be meets stranger, fight or q foot-racs; as
10 the rossum, he makes his living BIZ plumber and
pecuation, making his nocturnal visits when honest
people are asleep and he is known as one of the
most deceptive, pusilanimous, grinning sneaks in
The animal kingdom, while the sheer has been re-
garded as the emblem of innocence and virtue in |
81 ages.
The last sweet morsel have seen from your pen /
IS in the Nashville .fdrocafs of March 9Th, in the
following language: Let the brethren in Holston /