The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1875-08-26
ANDY JoHNsoNs SUCCESSOR.
SENATOR ID. NJ. KEY,

/ TUNATE CANDIDACY EOR CONGRESS-fEfs
! SONAL CHARACTERISTICS.
II. V. R., the well-kDown correspondent
of the Cincinnati Commercial, contributes
{. the following sketch of the new senator
from Tennessee, who is a personal friend
and neighbor: / first met d. NJ. Key at
Jasper, Tenn, in the spring of 1866. Col.
Key was then AZ years old, bronzed vete-
ran from the wars, a tall, straight, we'll
formed man, with dark hair and dark eyes,
gray, and one of the kindest faces / ever
looked upon. He had gone into the war
and come out. The cause was lost, his
property gone, and he was casting about in
the counties OF lower East Tennessee, pick
ing up the fag ends of his ante bullum law
practice. Many of his old cases had
survived the shock OF war, strong
testimonial to their vitality, for pa
pers were lost, dockets gone, records
scattered, and witnesses dead. He bent his
energies to the building up of the Courts,
the setting OF fiOvernment wheels in motion,
and the work of bringing order out OF chaos.
And this, too, although by the laws of the
voting, and law was at the time before the
| legislature to prevent ex-rebels from prac-
ticing in the courts. The great mass of the
white people were debarred from voting or
sitting on juries. and Brownlow and his
vindictive legislature had everything their
own way, making farce of the very name
of government. Their ill-tempered rule
| brought forth its fruits, and for the years
1867 and 1868 Tennessee was the most dis
cordant and disorderly state in the
Union, and has so gone
upon record in the new American
Cyclopedia. The bearing of Colonel Key
through all this, his uniform gentleness
and conservatism, had wide influence in
keeping the peace in lower East Tennessee
through all these years of trial and despair,
when the most sanguine lost hope and the
bravest faltered before the dark picture of
| the future. But we will take events in their
order. David NJ. Key was born IN Greene
county, East Tennessee, January "a, 1924.
| Greene county is where Andrew Johnson
landed when he struck out from North Caro-
| lima, and where he lived more than forty
years, official residence elsewhere of course
excepted.
| HIS FATHER
was a minister of the gospel, and brought
up his family in the fear of God. When
young Key was two years old his father
moved to Monroe county, and the children
were reared on farm. David labored
between the plow handles from the time
he was a "chunk of lad" until twenty-one.
The largest return he has for his early
labors in the cornfeld is good constitu-
ton and well knit frame. His 1ather was
poor, and when David was twenty-one and
"A
offarming, though excellent, would not carry
him through the world except as a
farmer. He resolved to master one
OF the professions, and chose
| the law. Ee was backward in books,
and at twenty-one had to begin at point
which most young men with rich fathers
/ reach at sixteen. But, as is so often the
| case, the boy who makes his own way,
| makes it the best, and comes out sixteen
lengths ahead on the home stretch. Young
| way, but he stuck to it, and graduated
at SwaSsee College, Monroe county, when
| twenty six years of age / believe he taught
| school awhile after that, for have heard
his younger brother, Summerfeld, dryly re-
fer to the vast stores of information be i'm
| bibed when going to David's school. While
| teaching, he gave his spare time to those
| light and entertaining works, Blackstone's
Commentaries and Chitty's Plead
ings. He was soon after ad.
rank among East Tennessee lawyers. In
1855 he settled in Chattanooga, and has lived
here since, winning the respect and esteem
of wide circle. He has always been
| democrat. In $780, believe he supported
1 Breckenridge. Up to 1850 he never ran for
an office, claiming that lawyer politicians
were poor sticks; that man should be one
| or the other, and not try to be both. In
| 1861 ne Joined the southern army as Lieu
tenant Colonel of the Forty third Tennessee
l l0IdDLIY WncbQ6T Q6 WAS n S6c6SSlO1lSL OF
not in the early days OF trouble do not
know, but doubt it, as the great body OF the
people OF Tennessee were opposed to seces-
sion, and were fairly dragged into IL by the
action of the governor and the legislature,
in conjunction with the tire-esters in the
south. But he
/ CAST HIS LOT WITH HIS STATE
When Tennessee seeded, and served
through the war until the bloody chapter
had bloody end. The close of the war
found him in the pine woods of North Caro-
lima. with no money but Confederate, and
but little of that, and without knowledge
whether he was TO be hung or could practice
law. He describes his depression during
those days as extreme. He could form no
idea as to the future. He was separated
from his family. He did not know that he
could ever return to East Tennessee. As to
practicing law, there was no law to practice.
| Everything was in confusion. The policy
of the government was not defined; the
late southern soldiers had no status; the
officers did not know but what they
were to be tried for treason and
landed on the other shore in light marching
order. Such was the gloom and uncertainty
surrounding them that many an ex-Con-
federate has told me that were 1t not for his
family, he fairly envied those who reposed
in the everlasting sleep. Andrew Johnson
was then president, and his historic utter
ances about making treason odious, and
hanging traitors were not reassuring TO
Colonel Key. He had known Mr.. Johnson
in happier days, when they both pulled in
the same party harness in East Tennessee.
He had always supported him-that Is, until
the war cast them apart as wide as the poles.
Up to that event they had been fast friends.
Thinking the matter over in the North Caro-
lima woods, where he found himself when the
wreck of the Confedracy went to pieces, he
resolved to write his friend of other days a
letter, and ask If he was TO be hung; and, If
so, at what time, and il the ceremony was
: | to take place In North Carolina. He de-
picted his miserable situation truthfully,
. keeping nothing back, and asking for sd-
) vice and information. The president re-
ceived the letter. We may suppose that his