Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1872-09-19
Tennessee PnlificS.
DID ANDY JOHNSON ENCOURAGE sECE
SION q?


torial raises a question in the triangular
Congressional contest that is of interest tt
East Tennesseeans. Heretofore, the OBJ
lection urged against ex-President John
son was his alleged desertion of his 'South.
ern friends" This charges also, that he
encouraged secession in supporting Breck.
inridge, until he found he could not lead
when he changed. Here is what the Ap-
peal says:
| 1t would be as appropriate to accuse Ar
mold of loyalty, after he had apostatised for
price from the Continental cause, as to
charge johnson with "Unionism.n II
there be, in this Commonwealth, one class
of citizens who, more than another, should
oppose his return to political power, it is
the body of honest Unionionists who de-
veloped their strength at the bal
lot-boX in 1860 in voting for John Bell
and Stephen A. Douglass. There is
no man i'll the South who did more
to educate the popular mind of
Tennessee up to the doctrines of secession
than Andrew Johnson. There is no man
whose political teachings, political associ-
atoms and conduct, up to q certain time,
than did Andrew Johnson. An examina-
ton of the history of parties ill Tennessee
and the nation will show him associated
in action and utterance, with those now
designated as secession leaders, up to the
time when he found that it would pay
him better to go back on his record than
to pursue it consistently. When he made
this change and engaged in this betrayal of
his post, actuated precisely by the same
motives that induced the mercenary bands
of the middle ages to change sides in the
80 hot Ia Tor loft 70
draw the people from the strait, whittier
they had followed his teachings. Even in
the last Presidential contest that preceded
the war, he refused to take sides either
with Union Wings or Union Democrats
either to vote for Bell or Douglass. But
on the contrary he voted for and advocat-
ed the election of Breckenridge, whose
candidacy was the assertion of the right of
secession and well understood me-
mace of its exercise in the event
of the election of Mr.. Lincoln. None
this candidacy in the very nature of things
was an agitation of the extreme views of
the slave holder as to the legal status of his
slave property in the Union. These eX-
treme views were necessarily, and i'll the
South avowedly, accompanied with seces-
sion as the proper policy to pursue for tho
protection of their property in the slave
States, in the event of the success in that
canvass of the Republican party. Andrew
johnson was one Of the chiefest of these
agitators for the extension of slavery, and
fiery zealot for the triumph of that >po-
litical organization that held within all
this. eomhustible material. After the train
had been laid, in the laying of which he
had eminently and consciously assisted,
and after it had been fired, in the firing of
which he had assisted also, when it had
nearly reached the magazine, and when
it was too late to prevent the fatal result,
he claims to have warned the people not
to explode the magazine. His motives for
this late and tardy warning are well
known. These were purely selfish, and
simply because he discovered that he
could not play as leading a role in the
Confederate movement, rs he desired.
He became, then, not a Unionist, but
all apostate adversary of his people, just
as Arnold did not, i'll fact, become, on his
desertion of the patriotic forces, LOyallst
or Tory, but simply the enemies of the
colonies. If he had been moved in his
conduct after the commencement of the
war, by the sentiments Of honest Union
ISM he would as Southernor have either,
like Judge Nelson, retired from public life,
unable to 90 with his people in opinion
and unwilling to aid in their destruction
or, like Emerson Ethridge, endeavored to
shield them from the utmost rigors of war,
and to conserve in the bloody struggle con-
stitutional liberty. Grattan, in the Irish
rebellion of '9S, pursued the course of Mel
son, Curran that Of Etheridge, and An
drew Johnson did neither, but on the
contrary, like Alp, the renegade, mani
tested special ferocity toward the people
of his section. Whatever of weakness in
craftsmanship, whatever of crime attaches
to the ante-bellum leaders of secession, he
participated in, his note of counter in
struction was sounded too late to avert the
catastrophe, and under circumstances too
suspicious to bring him the poor credit of
even a deathbed repentance. If Breckin-
ridge, who had always been more moderate
man than Johnson, had drawn his sword
on the South, or had aided in her over
throw, all would instinctively have cried
ont "For shamen Johnson was as much
committed to the South as Breckenridge,
and far more responsible for the war.
Ought he not to be under as deep shame
as Breckinrige would have been if he had
failed to redeem his honor? Is it not be-
cause of Johnson's Unionism that he is OPP
posed, for of this he never, in fact, had any
But he is Justly reproached for basely
abandoning his people in war that was
the result of his own teachings as much as
of those ofanybody else. No man did more
than he to break down those Conservative
views as the relations of the States to the
Federal Government, and as to the policy,
with reference to the peculiar institution
which, if they had prevailed, would nave
averted war. The truth is that AFTER ne
had helped to put the Southern people into
the ditch, he not only deserted them, but
turned directly upon them, for his own IN
terest, just as he did OH Mrs. Surratt. Ills
for this, not for Unionism, of which he had
none, that we accuse him. Opposition 10
him is not opposition to Unionism, nor a
defense of the policies of secession or It's
leaders.
We copy the following special dispatch