Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1871-12-13
ANOTHER REASON GIVEN.


ed, that the passage of the bill creating
the office of Attorney General for Knox
county was a purely partisan measure. We
are not certain that Senator Gibson got at
the real motives of those who pressed the
passage of the bill, when he charged on
the floor of the Senate that it was
devised for the purpose of putting Dem
ocrat in office. This we have no doubt
was one of the objects, but not the sole OBJ
ject, as a great many people believe.
1t is well known that Colonel Thorn-
burgh is one of the ablest and most
vigorous prosecuting attorneys in the State.
He spares neither friend nor foe but
discharges what he conceives to be his duty
regardless of who it affects. Take this
fact in connection with the fact, that those
who have been most active in pushing
this bill to law, are men who are either
indicted in the Criminal Court Of RnoG
county, or are the attorneys of those in
dicted, and we can begin to see another
motive than the one heretofore attributed.
There are number of important cases in
the Criminal Court, where if the law is
rigidly enforced, and the parties are found
guilty. the punishment would be of Sc
we're nature. Col. Thornburgh would have
prosecuted these cases with his whole abil-
ity, and in strict accordance with what he
believed to be law. He could not have been
bribed or bullied into the abandonment of
any case. Then the object might have
been to get rid of him on this ground,
more than from any political considera-
ton. AS we said yesterday, if the object
was merely to facilitate the business of the
courts as was claimed, why was not Sta
ley's amendment adopted. We produce
said amendment as we find II reported in
the Union and american:
Mr.. Staley offered an amendment to the sec
ond section, declaring the present incumbent of
the Office of attorney in the third judicial cir
cult attorney for said criminal district until the
next biennial election for civil officers, when an
attorney for the State shall be elected by the
qualified voters of the district; the office of
Attorney General for the third judicial circuit
shall be filled by executive appointment, until
the next biennial election, when he shall be
elected
Now if any sane man, with an unbiased
mind, will read this amendment, and say
that it should not have been adopted,
if the object was merely to facili-
tate business before the courts, we
will give up that we are in er-
ror, and that the passage of this bill
was prompted with no other feeling than
for the public good. And again, the last
view of the case, as proposed above, seems
reasonable, when we take in connection
the fact that the appointee is one of the
parties against whom there is an indict-
Knox county. A great many people be-
lieve, and have good reason for believing
that the law is passed in order that certain
cases now pending on the docket may be
tried by n less vigorous prosecutor than
Col Thornburgh.
There is one other matter that was spok-
en- of in the acrimonious debate had in the
Senate, on the subject of this bill, to which
we will allude. Senator Coulter, of Glib
son county, who was one of the Legisla-
tive committee which visited our Agricul-
tural College few days since, stated that
while he was here he was "importuned
and spoken to on this subject by many
citizens of Knox comfy, many of whom
claimed to be members of the Republican
party" Now we do not propose to deny
what the honorable gentleman stated, or
to accuse him of falsehood, but we have
conversed with fifty men in Knox county
since the bill was first introduced, where
he has spoken to one, and we have never
met a half dozen men, who were at all
anxious for the bill to pass, aside
from thost who expected to derive
personal benefit from its passage. We
have, in Knox county, about six thousand
votes, and we have no idea that there are
one hundred men in the county who had
enough interest in the passage of the bill
to write letter of ten lines in its favor.
And, as to Republicans favoring the bill,
we Oe1y any man 10 ma UOzSn hepuD-
licans in Knox county, whose minds are
unprejudiced, who favored the passage of
this bill, and we have no idea that flee such
can be found.
The spirit which animated the friends of
the bill in the Senate was not such as char
acterizes men who wish nothing but fair
legislation. 1t is not the bill we oppose so
much as the spirit which animated its
friends, showing clearly that other objects
| were to be reached than that of facilitating
| the business of the Criminal Court.
In our criticisms of the bill, passed, as
we believe, for an infamous purpose, we do
not wish to be understood as impugning
The motives of the gentleman who first in
| reduced it. We do not charge that he
understood the objects of the bill to be
what we consider them. We do not be-
lieve that he would lend himself to the
work of providing court with officers for
the accommodation of those who were
charged with grave offenses. We accord
to him honesty of purpose, but We believe
he was mistaken, and that in urging the
passage of the measure, he misrepresented
his constituents. In saying what we have
said, we have not been actuated by malice
towards any one, but believe we are only
discharging our duty as public journalists
| Atraafaus ganttmaufS