Parson Brownlow

Brownlow was born in Wythe County, Virginia, in 1805, the eldest son of Joseph A. Brownlow and Catherine Gannaway. His father and mother both died when he was 10. Brownlow and his four siblings were split up among relatives, with Brownlow spending the remainder of his childhood on his uncle John Gannaway's farm. At age 18, Brownlow went to Abingdon where he learned the trade of carpentry from another uncle, George Winniford. . In 1825, Brownlow attended a camp meeting near Sulphur Springs, Virginia, where he experienced a dramatic spiritual rebirth. He later recalled that, suddenly, "all my anxieties were at an end, all my hopes were realized, my happiness was complete." In 1827, Brownlow was assigned as a circuit rider in Maryville, Tennessee, area, where there was a strong Presbyterian presence, and he later recalled being constantly harassed by a young Presbyterian missionary who taunted him with Calvinistic criticisms of Methodism. Brownlow would often travel by flatboat on both the Watauga River and the Holston River, bringing shipments of iron castings from the O'Brien Furnance to Knoxville. Although Brownlow left the circuit shortly after his marriage during 1836, he continued his staunch defense of Methodism and Methodist leaders against the published attacks by religious leaders and writers of other Christian beliefs within his newspaper columns, books, and speeches. For the remainder of his life, Brownlow was known to friend and foe alike as the "Fighting Parson". ==Newspaper editor==

In 1838 Brownlow wrote for the short-lived ''Elizabethton Republican and Manufacturer's Advocate'', initially under its editor William Gott. This weekly Elizabethton newspaper advanced Whig politics, and by the time that Brownlow was promoted as editor, the paper had some 300 subscribers. Elizabethton attorney Thomas A. R. Nelson suggested that Brownlow should launch a newspaper to support Whig Party candidates in the upcoming elections. Brownlow partnered with Elizabethton newspaper publisher Mason R. Lyon, and as the editor within their partnership, with the agreement that Brownlow would receive one-third of the new profits from the Tennessee Whig. Brownlow and Lyon launched their weekly on May 16, 1839, and within several weeks, Brownlow and Lyon rebranded the paper as the Elizabethton Whig. As Brownlow's vituperative editorial style quickly brought bitter division to Elizabethton, and he began quarreling with local Whig-turned-Democrat Landon Carter Haynes. Haynes had read law under Nelson, and Haynes later followed Nelson to Jonesborough, Tennessee, during 1840, where Haynes would eventually edit a Jonesborough newspaper. Brownlow and the Elizabethton Whig also relocated from Elizabethton to Jonesborough during the same year, where the newspaper was again rebranded as the Jonesboro Whig. Brownlow accosted Haynes in the street and proceeded to beat Haynes with a sword cane, prompting Haynes to draw out his pistol and shoot Brownlow in the thigh. and attacks Jackson's supporters, the Locofocos, . Brownlow joined the Sons of Temperance in 1850 and promoted temperance policies in the Whig (one of his more common personal attacks was to accuse his opponents of being "drunkards"). Following the collapse of the Whig Party in the mid-1850s, he aligned himself with the Know Nothing movement, as he had long shared this movement's anti-Catholic and nativist sentiments. Partially a result of Brownlow's persistent opposition to secession within the pages of his newspapers (and partially due to his long-time feud with Ramsey, who was a Confederate sympathizer), he was later jailed by Confederate States military authorities (the CSA district attorney in Knoxville was related to Ramsey) in December 1861, pardoned, and subsequently forced into exile in the northern United States. ==Sectarian debates==

While Brownlow left the preaching circuit in the 1830s, he continued responding to the critics attacking the Methodist faith. In 1843, his feud with Haynes led to Haynes being barred from the Methodist clergy. That same year, J.M. Smith, editor of the Abingdon Virginian, accused Brownlow of having stolen jewelry at a camp meeting. Brownlow denied the charge and accused Smith of being an adulterer. At the Methodists' Holston Conference that year, Smith tried unsuccessfully to have Brownlow expelled from the church. In the late 1840s, Brownlow quarreled with Presbyterian minister Frederick Augustus Ross. Ross had "declared war" on Methodism as a co-editor in his Calvinist Magazine, published from 1827 to 1832. Although distracted by internecine conflict within the Presbyterian Church for nearly a decade, he relaunched the Calvinist Magazine in 1845. Ross argued that the Methodist Church was despotic, comparing it to a "great iron wheel" that would crush American liberty. He stated that most Methodists were descended from Revolutionary War Loyalists and accused the Methodist Church founder John Wesley of believing in ghosts and witches. for slander. Brownlow initially responded to Ross with a running column, "F.A. Ross' Corner," in the Jonesborough Whig. In 1847, he launched a separate paper, the Jonesborough Quarterly Review, which was dedicated to refuting Ross's attacks, and embarked on a speaking tour that summer. Brownlow argued that while it was common in Wesley's time for people to believe in ghosts, he provided evidence that many Presbyterian ministers still believed in such things. He derided Ross as a "habitual adulterer" and the son of a slave, and accused his relatives of stealing and committing indecent acts (Ross's son responded to the latter charge with a death threat). This quarrel continued until Brownlow moved to Knoxville in 1849. In 1856, James Robinson Graves, the Landmark Baptist minister of Nashville's Second Baptist Church, ripped Methodists in his book, The Great Iron Wheel, which used terminology and attacks similar to the ones Ross had used in the previous decade. Brownlow fired back with The Great Iron Wheel Examined; Or, Its False Spokes Extracted, published that same year. In it he accuses Graves of slandering an ex-congressman, argues that Baptist ministers are mostly illiterate and opposed to learning, and charges that the Baptist religion is wrought with "selfishness, bigotry, intolerance, and shameful want of Christian liberality." Brownlow also mocked the Baptist's use of immersion baptism. ==Slavery and secession==

Brownlow's views on slavery changed over time. While his pre-Civil War writings reveal a strong pro-slavery slant, his name appears on an 1834 abolitionist petition. In the early 1840s, Brownlow supported the American Colonization Society, which sought to recolonize freed slaves in Liberia. Brownlow's friend and colleague, Oliver Perry Temple, stated that social pressure in the 1830s pushed most abolitionist Southerners to adopt pro-slavery views. Historian Robert McKenzie, however, suggests that Brownlow's pro-slavery shift might have been rooted in the rivalry between Northern and Southern Methodists over the issue in the 1840s. By the 1850s, Brownlow was radically pro-slavery, arguing that the institution was "ordained by God." During the course of the Civil War, Brownlow returned to an anti-slavery stance, calling for emancipation. ==American Civil War==

On October 24, 1861, Brownlow suspended publication of the Whig after announcing Confederate authorities were preparing to arrest him. Brownlow returned to Nashville in early 1863 and followed Ambrose Burnsides's forces back to Knoxville in September. In November 1863, using proceeds from his speaking tour, he relaunched the Whig under the title Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ventilator and began vengefully pursuing ex-Confederates. He spent a portion of 1864 attempting to reorganize his church's Holston Conference and realign it with the northern Methodists. ==Governor of Tennessee==

Brownlow was nominated for governor by a convention of Tennessee Unionists in January 1865. He was the only nominee. This convention also submitted state constitutional amendments outlawing slavery and repealing the Ordinance of Secession, thus making his state the first of the Southern states to leave the Confederacy. The military Governor Andrew Johnson had enacted a series of measures that essentially prevented ex-Confederates from voting, and on March 4 Brownlow was elected by a 23,352 to 35 vote, and the amendments passed by a similarly lopsided margin. He was sworn in on April 5 and submitted the 13th Amendment for ratification the following day. The Radicals nominated Brownlow for a second term for governor in February 1867. His opponent was Emerson Etheridge, a frequent critic of the Brownlow administration. The legislature passed a bill giving the state's black residents the right to vote, and Union Leagues were organized to help freed slaves in this process. Members of these leagues frequently clashed with disfranchised ex-Confederates, including members of the burgeoning Ku Klux Klan, and Brownlow organized a state guard, led by General Joseph Alexander Cooper, to protect voters (and harass the opposition). The William G. Brownlow Family Papers, 1836-1900, archived by the Tennessee Secretary of State, contains one letter dated July 4, 1868, from the Great-Grand Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan Stella Morton, in which Morton threatens Governor Brownlow's life. In an interview with the Cincinnati Commercial, Forrest stated, "I have never recognized the present government in Tennessee as having any legal existence." He objected to Brownlow calling out the militia and warned if they "committed outrages...they and Mr. Brownloe's government will be swept out of existence not a Radical will be left alive." Forrest claimed the Klan had more than 40,000 members in Tennessee and 550,000 in the southern states. He said the Klan supported the Democratic Party. Forrest suggested that a proclamation of Brownlow called for shooting members of the Klan. Forrest denied being a member of the Klan himself. Forrest and twelve other Klan members submitted a petition to Brownlow, stating they would cease their activities if Confederates were given the right to vote. Brownlow rejected this, however, and set about reorganizing the state guard and pressing the legislature for still greater enforcement powers. Brownlow endorsed Ulysses S. Grant for president in 1868 and asked for federal troops to be stationed in 21 Tennessee counties to counter rising Klan activity. The state legislature granted him the power to throw out entire counties' voter registrations if he thought they included disfranchised voters. In October 1868, prior to the election, Brownlow discarded all registered voters in Lincoln County. Following the election, two of the Radicals' congressional candidates, Lewis Tillman in the 4th District and William J. Smith in the 8th District, were initially defeated. Brownlow, believing Klan intimidation to be the reason for their defeat, rejected the votes from Marshall and Coffee counties, allowing Tillman to win, and rejected the votes from Fayette and Tipton counties, allowing Smith to win. In February 1869, as Brownlow's final term was near its end, he placed nine counties under martial law, arguing this was necessary to quell rising Klan violence. He also dispatched five state guard companies to occupy Pulaski, where the Klan had been founded. After Brownlow left office in March, Forrest ordered the Klan to destroy its costumes and cease all activities. ==U.S. Senate and later life==

Brownlow decided he would not seek a third gubernatorial term and instead sought election to the U.S. Senate seat that would be vacated by David T. Patterson, Andrew Johnson's son-in-law, in 1869. In October 1867, the state legislature elected Brownlow over William B. Stokes by a 63 to 39 vote. After his Senate term ended in 1875, Brownlow returned to Knoxville. Governor Dewitt Clinton Senter had undone most of his Radical initiatives, allowing Democrats to regain control of the state government. Having sold the Whig in 1869, Brownlow purchased an interest in the Knoxville Chronicle, a Republican newspaper published by his old protégé, William Rule. The paper's name was changed to the Knoxville Whig and Chronicle. On the night of April 28, 1877, Brownlow collapsed at his home, and died the following afternoon. The cause of death was given as "paralysis of the bowels." ==Legacy==

Rule continued editing the Knoxville Chronicle, which was eventually renamed The Knoxville Journal. The Knoxville Journal remained one of Knoxville's daily newspapers until it folded in 1991. Adolph Ochs, who later became publisher of the New York Times, began his career at the Chronicle in the early 1870s. Rule writes that Brownlow was "a master of invective and burning sarcasm, and he flourished in an age when such things were expected of a public journalist." J. Austin Sperry, Brownlow's rival editor in pre-Civil War Knoxville, admitted that Brownlow was a remarkable judge of human nature. Brownlow remained a divisive figure for decades after his death. Historian Stephen Ash writes, "more than 120 years after his death, merely mentioning his name in the Volunteer State can evoke raucous laughter or bitter curses." A 1981 poll of 52 Tennessee historians that ranked the state's governors on ability, accomplishments, and statesmanship placed Brownlow last on the list. Journalist Steve Humphrey argues that Brownlow was a talented newspaper editor and reporter, as evidenced by his reporting on events such as the opening of the Gayoso Hotel in Memphis and Knoxville's 1854 cholera epidemic. The Capitol Committee of the Tennessee General Assembly removed the official portrait of Brownlow that had only been briefly installed during April 1987 within the Legislative Library of state capitol building, upon the recommendation of Democratic Tennessee State Senator Douglas Henry. ==Family==

by the Ladies of Philadelphia, June 13, 1862 (East Tennessee Historical Society) Brownlow and his wife Eliza had seven children: Susan, John Bell, James Patton, Mary, Fannie, Annie, and Caledonia Temple. Eliza was a grand-niece of Edmund P. Gaines and George Strother Gaines. Her father was 25 years older than her mother; James O'Brien and three of his brothers operated iron mines in East Tennessee. James Patton Brownlow was also a colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War, though he was later brevetted to brigadier general by President Johnson. He served as an adjutant general in the state guard during his father's term as governor. Susan Brownlow Sawyers Boynton and her four younger sisters all survived to adulthood, married, and had children of their own. Walter P. Brownlow, a nephew of Parson Brownlow, served as a U.S. congressman from Tennessee's 1st district from 1897 until his death. James Stewart Martin, another nephew of Parson Brownlow (the son of his sister Nancy), served as a U.S. congressman from Illinois in the mid-1870s. Louis Brownlow, a prominent 20th-century political scientist and city planner, was a grandson of one of Parson Brownlow's first cousins. He served a tumultuous 3-year term as Knoxville's city manager in the 1920s. ==Works==

Newspapers • The Whig, Brownlow's primary mouthpiece, was published under the following masthead titles: • Tennessee Whig (May 16, 1839 in Elizabethton – June 13, 1839) • Elizabethton Whig (June 13, 1839 in Elizabethton – nameplate change) • The Whig (May 6, 1840 in Jonesborough – November 3, 1841) • Jonesborough Whig (November 10, 1841 – May 11, 1842) • Jonesborough Whig and Independent Journal (May 18, 1842 – April 19, 1849) • ''Brownlow's Knoxville Whig and Independent Journal'' (May 19, 1849 in Knoxville – April 7, 1855) • ''Brownlow's Knoxville Whig'' (April 14, 1855 – July 27, 1861) • ''Brownlow's Weekly Whig'' (August 3, 1861 – October 26, 1861) • ''Brownlow's Knoxville Whig, and Rebel Ventilator'' (November 11, 1863 – February 21, 1866) • ''Brownlow's Knoxville Whig'' (February 28, 1866 – January 27, 1869) • Knoxville Weekly Whig (February 3, 1869 – March 1870) • Weekly Whig and Register (c. 1870 – 1871) • The Knoxville Whig and Chronicle (1875–1877), co-owner with William Rule Books • Helps to the Study of Presbyterianism: Or, An Unsophisticated Exposition of Calvinism, with Hopkinsian Modifications and Policy, with a View to a More Easy Interpretation of the Same (1834) • A Narrative of the Life, Travels, and Circumstances Incident Thereto, of William G. Brownlow (1834, a book supplement bound within Helps to the Study of Presbyterianism:) • Baptism Examined: Or, the True State of the Case (1842) • A Political Register, Setting Forth the Principles of the Whig and Locofoco Parties in the United States, With the Life and Public Services of Henry Clay (1844) • Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism and Bogus Democracy, In the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; In Which Certain Demagogues in Tennessee, and Elsewhere, are Shown Up in Their True Colors (1856) • The Great Iron Wheel Examined; Or, Its False Spokes Extracted, and an Exhibition of Elder Graves, Its Builder (1856) • Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession; With a Narrative of Personal Adventures Among the Rebels (1862) Speeches and debates • "Speech, Being a Reply to Thomas Dog Arnold, Ass, Who Appeared Before the Invitation, On Saturday Night, the 18th of September, 1852, in the Hearing of a Large Audience, and Assailed Said Brownlow" (Knoxville, Tennessee, September 19, 1852) • "A Sermon on Slavery: A Vindication of the Methodist Church, South: Her Position Stated" (Knoxville, Tennessee, August 9, 1857) • "Ought American Slavery to be Perpetuated? A Debate Between Rev. W.G. Brownlow and Rev. A. Pryne Held At Philadelphia, September, 1858" (1858) • "Speech of Parson Brownlow, of Tennessee, Against the Great Rebellion" (New York, May 15, 1862) • "Address to the Loyal People of Tennessee" (Knoxville, Tennessee, March 18, 1868) ==References==