Year: 1872

Skinned.


Senator Brownlow has favored us with
a copy of his speech as it was printed at
the Congressional Globe office, to which
he adds the following scathing remarks
in answer TO Becl1's second iIl-natured ef-
fort:


Since the foregoing remarks were deliv-
cred, Mr.. Beck has attempted to Vindicate
himself by rising to a personal eXplana-
ton in the House of Representatives, the
substance of which, for the most part, was
an attack upon my administration while
Governor of Tennessee. | could not eX-
pect man who SympathiZed with the
usurpations of Isham q. Harris, the Gov
ernOr who forced Tennessee into rebellion,
and justified the military dislocatiOn of
Tennessee as a member of the Union body
against the expressed will of its citizens,
to approve of my course. Had he done
so, should have doubted it's justice The
man whose reasonable heart reioiced in
the prospect of the destruction of our
great Republic, and who cOuntenanced, if
he did not applaud, the hanging of its
friends in East Tennessee, and the robbery
Of the school fund and other public mon
eys to assist rebellious warfare, is not the
man whose judgment l care to consult or
whose support | should value.


He attempts to assail the validity of my
election, and falsely assumes it to have re-
suited from military interference. Every
body in Tennessee knows that the war left
his friends in no condition to make a pO-
litical contest, they being prisoners Of war
on parole, and thousands of them still
serving in the rebel armies when l was
first elected Governor; and that | was
peacebly elected by large majority of the
legal voters of Tennessee.


l.. 1Iol 4,
suit of the ballot; let those who, after
failing to elect their President in 1860,
REASONABLY appealed to force, exclaim at
my triumph as they may. l stood by the
Constitution and laws then; they attempt
ed to overthrow both, and had tempo
rary triumph. 1t is mainly in them to
keep up an everlasting whine at being
whipped.


The Kentucky member assumes to be
the special champion of the people of the
South. 1t appears to make great deal of
difference to him which particular people,
and his zeal to save them from oppression
has only manifested itself since the poi
sOned chalice they presented to others has
returned to their own lips. Had the South
obeyed my counsels she would not now
have needed his sympathy; and yet de-
ny that it is any greater than my own.
have never chosen to justify her folly or
palliate her treason, and in opposing both
tried honestly to save her from her present
fate. The South owes her distress to trai-
tors, and cannot point her finger at me and
say did it. AS 1 tried to save her in the
beginning, have tried to restore her since
her fall; but Mr. Beck has not agreed with
the wisdom of my method in either case.
That only proves that the college educa-
ton he boasts of has not developed in him
much common sense.


In his reply to my defense against his
unwarrantable attack, the Kentucky Rep
resentative avoids the main issue. He
says he charged that 1 made a Pandemo-
MUM of Tennessee, about which 1 clearly
stated did not care for his opinion, and
then goes OH to Justify his remarks in re-
producing my militia proclamation and
other acts, as Governor of that State, uutil
he had worn out the patience Of the House
and everybody inquired what that had to
do with his so-called personal explanation.


He does not reproduce, however, the
contemporaneous statement of the rebel
general, n. B. Forrest, over his own sig
nature, that he had forty thousand organ
lied kuklux in the State, nor the confirm
alton given to that statement by the acts
of the kukluX.


There is nothing in my prOclamatiOns
and the military orders issued III pursuance
thereof requiring an answering from me;
but am gratified to observe on reading
them over that 1 adhered all through to
my temperance principles, ordered the
general in command to enforce rigid dls-
cipline and to show no quarter to officers
or privates who should be found guilty OF
excessive drinking.


He objects that l called out soldiers 10
keep the peace in Tennessee, when l mad
been advised by the authorities at Wasn-
ington that sufficient military force to aid
the civil government would be furnished
by the United States" That is, that be-
ing the chief executive of Tennessee, ana