LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--I appear before you in accordance with the
arrangement of a committee--a large committee--of intelligent and
influential citizens of your own town. I am not before you for the
purpose of making an effort as an orator, or a speaker, with any view or
wish to fascinate or to charm my audience with the style or the language
I employ in the brief address I am about to deliver.
I am before you for the purpose of relating facts and localities, and
giving you names in regard to the rebellion in the South, and the
persecutions of my fellow countrymen, and their sufferings even unto
death. I have met, since I came to this city, with not a few intelligent
and high-toned gentlemen--men of years and of knowledge--who have
inquired of me seriously: "Is it a fact that they hanged men, shot down
men, in your country, for their sentiments?" You cannot, it seems to me,
realize the state of things that has existed beyond the mountains.
In what I shall say to you, without effort at all at display, I shall
deal in nothing but facts. I will state nothing that I do not personally
know to be true--nothing that I cannot sustain, if a controversy is
raised in reference thereto.
I have seen the day when I was a young man, ladies (I speak of my age
with a great deal of freedom, for I have a wife who is likely never to
die)--[laughter]--I have seen the day when I could be heard by an
audience of any size--when I have been able for four or five dreadful
hours on a stretch to speak in the open air. Those days with me have
gone by, and are numbered with the days and years beyond the flood. For
some three years back I have labored under a disease of the throat--a
bronchial affection--a severe affliction it was. Until the last twelve
months I could but whisper. In the providence of God, and through his
agency, I am better now. In repeated denunciation of secession my voice
has been gaining all the time [applause,] and I shall not be astonished
if in six months "Richard is himself again." [Applause.]
You will bear with me, I know, for I shall not detain you long. I shall
by no means be tedious, but you will bear with me, I am certain, if I
make a few remarks, by way of "preliminary," personal to myself. The
circumstances surrounding me, the connection that my name has had for
the last twelve months with the rebellion and with this subject, will
justify me in so doing, without the dread of incurring the charge of
egotism.
I am a native of the Old Dominion--born, raised and educated in the
State of Virginia. I have the pleasure of announcing to you this evening
that you have before you the first man who ever made the acknowledgment
in public, that he was the descendant of one of the second families of
Virginia. [Laughter.]
My parents before me, on both sides, were Virginians. On both sides of
the house they were slaveholders, as most of the citizens of the Old
Dominion are and have been. Although I am branded at home, since the
inauguration of rebellion, with being myself an anti-slavery man, and a
tory and the descendant of tories, I take great pleasure and pride in
announcing to you that my father was a volunteer in the war of 1812,
under Old Hickory. My uncle William, after whom I was named, lived and
died a naval officer, and his remains sleep in the Navy Yard at Norfolk,
Virginia. My uncle Alexander was also a naval officer, and his remains
rest in the Navy Yard at New Orleans. My uncle John was also a navy
officer. He died at sea and was thrown overboard, and became food for
the fishes thereof. My uncle John was the third man who scaled the walls
at the battle of the Horseshoe. [Applause.] On my mother's side--the
Galloways--not a few lost their lives at Norfolk, from yellow fever,
camp diseases and fatigue. They did not fight for a section of the
country--not for the yellow fever swamps of the South--but for every
State, and every particle of this glorious Union of ours. [Applause.]
I may as well make a remark or two on the subject of politics. I am not
here for the purpose of reviving any old party prejudice--not at
all--nor yet with a view to drop a solitary remark that shall offend
even the most fastidious political partisan who may be under the sound
of my voice. In Tennessee, thank God, we have merged all political
party questions into the one great question of the Union and its
preservation. [Applause.]
In all time to come--though I have been a Whig of the strictest
sort--though I have lived up to the creed and fought Democracy in all
its ramifications, and in all its windings--I would, in the language of
Milton, see a man where cold performs the effect of fire--or, in the
still more nervous language of Pollock, I would see a man where
gravitation, shifting, turns the other way--even hell-ward--before I
would vote for any man who was not an unconditional, straight-out Union
man. [Great applause.]
I have fought Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, systematically,
perseveringly and untiringly, for the last twenty-five years of my
somewhat eventful life. He has scored me on every stump in the State of
Tennessee, and I have paid him back to the best of my ability. But
honors with us are easy. [Laughter.] We take each other by the hand now,
as brethren. [Applause.] Now I will fight for him, and under
him--engaged as we are in the same cause, against the same vile foe to
God and man, and especially to our country. [Applause.]
I have always been a Union man. I commenced my political career in
Tennessee in 1828. I remark again, ladies, that although I may have the
appearance of being--I confess the fact with more candor from the
consideration that I never expect to be--a widower [laughter], I
commenced my political career in Tennessee in 1828. I was one of the
corporal's guard who, in that State, got up the electoral ticket for
John Quincy Adams against Andrew Jackson. I name this fact simply to
show you that I was not a sectional man in '28; that I did not go for a
man because he was born and lived south of Mason and Dixon's line, nor
against him because he resided north of Mason and Dixon's line. Having
mentioned the name of Old Hickory, I take pleasure in saying that, while
I opposed him in his political aspirations, Jackson was always a patriot
and a true lover of his country. If my prayers and tears could have
brought him from his grave, during the last twelve months of the
iniquitous reign of James Buchanan, I would have brought him out, that
he might have destroyed secession as he did nullification--that might
have sunk South Carolina in some sort of Lake not unlike the Dead
Sea--where she will ultimately go. [Applause.]
In the next contest I was a supporter of Henry Clay. In the next contest
I was a supporter of Ulasu White. In the next I supported William Henry
Harrison, and I sung louder, jumped higher, and fell flatter and harder
than anybody else in the whole State of Tennessee. I wrote upon log
cabins, and waved coon-skins and water-gourds high and low. [Laughter.]
In succeeding contests, gentlemen and ladies, I supported Taylor,
Fillmore and Donelson. The last contest I was engaged in, was in the
support of the Bell and Everett ticket. The tail of that ticket is now
doing well enough in the State of Massachusetts. It stands erect, and
carries itself majestically. But the latter end of the ticket will yet
do to tie to, but as to the frontispiece--"pity the sorrows of a poor
old man." [Laughter.]
One word before I progress further--upon the subject of slavery. What I
have to say on that subject--all I have to say at home or abroad, I will
say to you now, for, ladies and gentlemen, I have no sentiments in the
South that I do not entertain when I am in the North. I have none in
Cincinnati that I do not entertain when I am at home in Knoxville.
[Applause.] The South, as I told them months ago, when I was surrounded
by three thousand Confederate troops--the South is more to blame for the
state of things that now exist than the North is. But yet, I have to
say, just in this connection, that if, about two years ago, I had been
authorized to collect--if I had been let hunt them up, for I know the
men I would have wanted--if I had been allowed to hunt up about one or
two hundred anti-slavery agitators and fanatics at the North, scattered
here and there, and about an equal number of our God-forsaken,
hell-deserving, corrupt secessionists and disunionists, I should have
marched the whole army of them into the District of Columbia, and dug a
common ditch, erected a common gallows, after embalming their bodies
with gipsy weed and dog-fennel. Had this been done, I should not have
been here to-night--we would have had none of the troubles which afflict
the country now.
One word more upon the subject of slavery. If the issue shall be made by
the South--if they are mad enough, if they are fools enough to make the
issue of Slavery and no Union, or Union and no Slavery--I am for the
Union. [Applause.] I have told them so at home upon the stump in my own
town. I will stand by the Union until you make the issue between the
Federal Union and the Christian religion; then I will back out from the
Union--but for no other institution. [Applause.]
The speaker here commenced the narrative of the doings of treason in
East Tennessee. About twelve months ago, he said, a stream of secession
fire, as hot as hell, commenced pouring out of the Southern States in
the direction of Leesburg, Richmond and Manassas, by way of Knoxville,
Tennessee. Then it was that the rebel soldiery of the South, made drunk
upon mean whisky, halted over night--day in and day out--in the town of
Knoxville, and commenced their depredations, visiting the houses of
Union men and stoning the inmates, blackguarding all whom they saw in
them, male and female. His (Mr. Brownlow's) house, in Cumberland street,
was more frequently visited by them than any other building in the town.
At the same time he was reading, in the Mobile and South Carolina
papers, that the best blood of the South had volunteered in the cause of
"Southern rights." He said to his wife, "If this is the flower of the
South, God deliver us from the Southern rabble."
The rebel soldiers became more and more insulting and overbearing.
Finally, in the month of May, they commenced to shoot down Union men in
the streets. The first man they singled out was Charles S. Douglas, a
gentleman who had been conspicuous at the election as a Union man. They
deliberately shot him down from the window of his house, in the day
time. Mr. Brownlow was in the street at the time they made propositions
to shoot down other Union men. Thinking prudence the better part of
discretion, they retired from the crowd, many of them slipping into
their houses quietly. But the work of murder and slaughter went on.
Finally, many of the loyal men had to flee to the mountains--to the
mountains of Hepsidam, if you please, said the speaker.
They remained away for several days, sleeping in the open air, and
subsisting on bread and meat brought from their homes, with a quantity
of game which they shot.
The rebel troops took possession of Mr. Brownlow's printing
office--destroyed his press and type, and converted the building into a
blacksmith shop for altering old flintlock muskets which Floyd had
stolen from the Government. They were contemplating the destruction of
his dwelling house, and would have accomplished it but for the timely
arrival of General Zollicoffer, who, being a personal friend of the
Dr.'s, set a guard around the premises, and issued an order confining
the Texan troops to their camps for two days.
Retiring to Knoxville, Mr. Brownlow received a letter from Gen. George
B. Crittenden, stating that he had been ordered by the Confederate
Secretary of War to give him (Brownlow) a passport beyond the
Confederate lines into the State of Kentucky to a Union neighborhood.
Mr. Brownlow was about to accept the General's proffer, when he was
arrested on a charge of treason, for writing and publishing what
appeared in the Knoxville _Whig_ as his farewell letter to his patrons
and subscribers. On the 6th of December he was thrust into the Knoxville
jail. He found in the jail one hundred and fifty Union men--the building
crowded to overflowing. Every man confined on a charge of treason was a
personal friend of Mr. Brownlow's. They ran around him in astonishment,
and asked him what he was thrown into prison for. Some of them shed
tears, others smiled when they saw him enter the iron gates. He told
them he was under arrest for treason on a warrant just issued. He had
been in jail ten or twelve days when a Confederate Brigadier General,
whom he had known as an old Union man, paid him a visit. Upon entering
the jail with two of his Aides he shook hands with him. The prisoners
all crowded round to see the "sight." After a while the Brigadier said
it was too bad to see Brownlow in such a place, and tried to impress
upon the patriot's mind the propriety of his taking the oath of
allegiance to the Confederacy, upon which condition he should be
released immediately. Brownlow was in a good humor until that
proposition was made. That stirred up the bile of his stomach. "Sir,"
said he to the officer, looking him full in the eye, "I will be here
till I die with old age, or till I rot in prison, before I will take the
oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy. You have no Government.
I deny that you are authorized to administer such an oath. You have
organized a big Southern mob--not a Government. You have never been
recognized by any civilized Government on the face of God Almighty's
earth, and you never will be. And yet you are here asking me to take the
oath of allegiance to the vilest mob that was ever organized South of
Mason and Dixon's line. Not wishing to be profane, nor desiring to be
regarded by you in that light, permit me to conclude my remarks by
saying that I will see your Southern Confederacy in the infernal
regions, and you high on top of it before I will take the oath." The
officer remarked that that was d--d plain talk. Mr. Brownlow replied
that it was the right way to make men understand each other. The General
turned upon his heel, tipped his duck-bill cap and walked off.
[Applause.]
When the speaker entered the jail he found among the inmates three
Baptist preachers. One of them, a Mr. Pope, 77 years of age, was charged
with having prayed to the Lord to bless the President of the United
States, to bless the General Government, and put an end to this unholy
war. Another old man--a minister--70 years of age, was thrust into jail
for having thrown up his hat and hurrahed for the stars and stripes when
a company of Union Home Guards marched by his house with the stars and
stripes flying over them. The third, a young man, was confined for
having volunteered as chaplain in a Union regiment.
The sufferings of the inmates of the jail the speaker described as
horrible. The food they were supplied with was rank and unwholesome. He,
himself, got permission to receive meals from his family, otherwise he
should not have been able to live through his long confinement.
Toward the conclusion of his address, Mr. Brownlow related several
instances in which prisoners had been taken from the jail and hung by
the troops after a few hours warning. Once they hung a father and son,
whose sole offence was their loyalty to the Government, on the same
gallows. They compelled the father to witness the agonies of the son
before permitting death to come to his relief. The most affecting case
mentioned was that of an old man, who, after a lengthy incarceration,
was sentenced at ten o'clock one morning to be hung at four that
afternoon. His name was William Henry Harrison Self. His daughter, a
highly intelligent and well educated lady, hearing this awful news
during the day, hastened to the jail, and, with great difficulty,
obtained permission to visit the condemned man. The meeting of father
and daughter was a scene which drew tears from the eyes of a hundred and
fifty men long used to hardship and suffering themselves. They embraced
and kissed each other, neither of them able to utter a word for some
time. At about one o'clock the young lady approached Dr. Brownlow, and
asked him to write, in her name, a despatch to Jeff. Davis, at
Richmond, asking him to grant a pardon to her father. The Dr. did this,
stating in the despatch, as follows:
"_Honorable Jefferson Davis_:
"My father, W. H. H. Self, is under sentence to hang to-day at four
o'clock. My mother is dead; my father is my only hope and stay. I
pray you pardon him. Let me hear from you by telegraph.
"ELIZABETH SELF."
The young lady carried this despatch to the telegraph office, a distance
of two miles, in greatest haste, and had it sent to Richmond
immediately. Shortly before three o'clock she received an answer from
"President" Davis commuting the old man's sentence to imprisonment, for
such length of time as the Commanding General should see proper. The joy
of his daughter was, of course, boundless. When Mr. Brownlow left
Knoxville, on the 3d of March, Self was still in jail. He has been
released before this time, Southern "justice" being satisfied in the
premises.