Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1872-02-20
BROWNLUW on BECK.
The Kentuclian's Back Made to SIN

OH Senator BroWnlow and others, charg'
ing them with taking refuge in the Senate
to escape from the Penitentiary. The re-
ply to this slander by the CHRONICLE was
the first information Senator Brownlow
had of Beck's screed.
His reply, made In the Senate OH last
| Thursday is a stinger, and is as follows:
There was time in the history of my
life when Mr.. Beck would not have dared
| to put this or any other insult upon me,
| for fear | would have taken from his hand
| the slave-Whip with which, as OVerseer on
a Kentucky plantation, he was accuS-
toned to whip negroes for pay, and laid it
across his own back. The code by which
the gentlemen of Kentucky were govern
ed in those days, having in it certain prin-
ciples of honor, would not have reached
low enough down in the social scale to find
his level; for when he abandoned the hon
orable pursuit of hOstler in livery stable
to become a slave-driver, he betrayed the
possession of qualities which the gentle
men of Old Kentucky never ceased to de-
spise
If the overseers of kentucky whipped
the negroes under their slave system of
labor, the gentlemen from Kentucky, be
it said to their credit, sometimes whipped
the overseers they did not fight with
them Their code of honor forbade it.
But both of these methods have gone out
of date, and in the upheavals of the civil
war, We find men who were once Overseers
aspiring to the seats formerly filled by
CLAW and CrittendGn denOuncing the Sen
ate as a house of refuge for thieves, and
vet canvaSsing their States to secure a seat
in it. If it be a mere refuge from the pen
itentiary, why, / would like to ask, is Mr..
Beck so anxious to come to the Senate? Is
he affrighted by the rapidly closing career
of his Democratic cOmpatriOts, Boss
Tweed, Peter B. Sweeney, Connolly and
Hall? Does the shadow of Sing Sing
reach all the way to kentucky? Does it
forewarn him Of his impending doom that
be should strive to find refuge here,
like the guilty king of England, who eX-
claimed:
" By the apostle Paul, shadows tonight
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard,
Than can the substance of ten thousand SOL
dicrs ?'
/ am refugee, and while the short limit
of my life endureS cannot recover from its
outward signs. These feeble limbs that
need assistance to bring me to this Cham
Der; these paIsied hands that ask for help
to write; my whispering voice that can
not speak my thoughts, all bear testimony
to the fact-I am refugee. 1t is cow
ards part to call me one, but yet / hold
the title as an honor.
] first became a refugee on the 9th day
of November, 1861, having remained at
my home in Knoxville defending the
cause of my country against organized
treason at the risk of my life until that
day. How | had escaped immOlatiOn do
not know, except that it was in the mercy
of Gods providence which sustained me
off, TO TO hnIl
belliOn. My paper had been suppressed
and my arrest for treason against the
Southern Confederacy determined upon.
In my last issue of the Knoxville Wig,
dated October "A, 1861, addressed my sub
scribers in the following terms:
81 shall in no degree feel humbled by
being cast into prison whenever it is the
will and pleasure of this august Govern
ment to put me there but on the contra
ry, / shall feel proud of my confinement.
| shall go to jail as John Rodgers went to
the stake-for my principles. [ shall go
because [ failed to recognize the hand of
God in the work of breaking up the Ameri-
can Government, and the Inauguration of
the most wicked, cruel, unnatural and
uncalled-for war ever recorded in history.
/ go because have refused to laud to the
the skies the acts of tyranny, usurpation,
and oppression inflicted upon the people
of East Tennessee for their devotion to the
Constitution and laws of the Government
handed down to them by their fathers and
the liberties secured to them by war of
seven long years Of gloom, poverty, and
trial Exchanging
with proud satisfaction the editorial chair
and the sweet endearments of home for
cell in the prison or the lot of an exile,
have the honor to be, &c,
WILLIAM G.. BROWNIOW
Editor Of KIaOrUiUc IVBig.p
The utterance of words like these made
me a refugee" and on the 5th of the sue
ceeding month 1 found a hiding place
from the bIoodhounds of rebellion in the
Smoky Mountains which separate North
Carolina from Tennessee, beyond the pre-
cints of civilization. Amid the high sum-
mits of this range, and in one OF their deep
gOrCes where no vehicle had ever penetrat-
ed, 1 found temporary refuge until rebel
scouts discovered my hiding place. was
then induced by false promises of prOtec-
ton and being sent through the lines to
deliver myself up to the rebel authorities
of the Confederacy in Tennessee, but they
treacherously threw me into prison. l will
not detail the dreary horrors of that incar-
ceratiOn, in which [ saw men led from my
side to an execution / expected daily to
share; others dying of fever; the agOnized
cries Of wives and children of men sent to
death for loving their country. I, who
was second to no man in strength and
vigor of body and constitution, came out
of prison sick, and have never recovered
from the shock my system there received.
After this l was eXiled by the rebel gov
ernment, sent through their lines, and be-
came a refugee north of the Ohio. WhiIehe
who assails me did what? had liked to
have said he dOnned his rebel uniform and
ioined the army of traitors to fight against
his country; but that would be paying an
undeserved tribute to a courage he never
possessed. He obtained his commission,
he cot his uniform and equipments ready,
but he never wore them. Like Falstaff:
he though discretion the better part of
valor," and skulked. Whipping Union
soldiers was a different sort of pastime
from whipping slaves, as the . most hoeDa cOur, +
fighting game in which the opposite
nartv held as good hand as he.