The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1905-03-30
JOHNSON CITY, TENNESSEE THURSDAY MARCH 80 1905.
TENNESSEE MUST REMAIN.
Col. John B, BrOwnlow Opposes New
State.


Col. John B. Brownlow said to a
Sentinel reporter today that he was un-
alterably opposed, in toto, to the some
what talked of scheme to create a new
state out of certain detached portions
of Tennessee, Virginia and Kentucky,
which movement it is reported Con-
gresham Walter P. Brownlow favors.
He said there was neither necessity,
nor justification for it from any point
OF view, and that the proposition was
so chimerical as to be considered mere
ly joke; that old Tennessee was good
enough for him, and he hoped to see it
always preserved, unimpaired and in
tact geographically and in all its glor-
ious memories and record and abhieve-
ments.
He said that if the proposed move
ment should, unfortunately, proceed
far enough as to reach congress, re-
publican majority of that body might
perhaps give its sanction and assent to
it, hoping thereby to secure two addi-
tional republican senators, but that for
one he infinitely preferred to see Ten
nessee remain as it is, immortalized
and unshorn, without the two addition
al senators than to see it the component
part of new state represented by two
republican senators. He said that many
persons ignorantly supposed that the
only modus operandi necessary to Sc
cure the organization and the admis-
sion of new state carved out of an old
state or composed of certain portions
OF two or more states was resolution Of
congress favorable to and endorsing
said movement, when so-called state
government had been formed, whereas
the legal requirements provided, as a
precedent to such organization, the as
sent of the state or states from which
| it was proposed to form the new state.
He said it was true these legal and es-
sential requirements had been ignored
and disregarded in the case of the ad-
mission of West Virginia into the Un-
ion during the war, where the assent of
the old Dominion was not first had and
obtained, but that that was a sort Of
retaliatory measure sanctioned and put
through by PARTISAN mojority of con
gress under the leadership of Charles
Sumner and was intended as lasting
rebuke to Virginia for seeding from
the Union and casting her fortune in
the Southern Confederacy. He said
that for this unwarranted and unpre-
cedented proceeding on the part of con-
gress, there was no justification per-
haps, except the claim and theory of
the old romance Inter arma leges 81
lent" which being literally translated
means everything is fair in war.
Further speaking of Tennessee
greatness, it's vast wealth and bound
less resources, he said if an impossible
wall should be built aronnd its entire
area, it could exist indefinitely sell
sustaining and Independent of the out
side world; that observation and sta
tistics would abundantly show thai
so far as variety Of crops, fertility Of
soil, healthfulness, pure inexaustible
water supply and unlimited timber and
mineral resources of almost every kind
was concerned, Tennessee was not only
the richest and most desirable state in
the Union, but that in all these par
ticulars it surpassed any country o.
like area on the habitable globe. He
said he wanted Tennessee to be The
Tennessee of yesterday, today ant
forever. Knoxville Sentinel.