William Brownlow - Portrait and Biography of Parson Brownlow, The Tennessee Patriot

The biography of great men always has been, and always will be read with interest and profit. Great actions command admiration, and none of modern times excel those of the patriot exile, Parson Brownlow, of Tennessee.

In this work the spirit-stirring scenes of his late eventful life are vividly portrayed in his own characteristic and inimitable style. The descriptions of his trials and triumphs in the cause of the Union will send a thrill of admiration to every reader's heart; will strengthen the wavering loyalty of many a young man, and incite him to pursue with unquenchable ardor, the path which all true patriots have marked out, and whose beacon lights are justice, truth and right. To the truly loyal, whose steps "keep time to the music of the Union," the work will be its own recommendation, and we commend it to these, both of the North and South, with the confidence that it will meet with their cordial approbation.

William G. Brownlow was born in Wythe County, Virginia, August 5, 1805. His parents were poor, and died when he was about ten years old. They were both Virginians, and his father was a school-mate of General Houston, in Rockbridge County. After the death of his parents he lived with his mother's relations, and was raised to hard labor until he was some eighteen years old, when he served a regular apprenticeship to the trade of a house-carpenter.

His education was imperfect and irregular, even in those branches taught in the common schools of the country. He entered the Traveling Ministry, in 1826, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and traveled ten years without intermission, and was a member of the General Conference held in Philadelphia. He was untiring in his energy, and availed himself of the advantages of the Methodist Itinerancy to study and improve his education, which he did in all the English branches.

Mr. Brownlow is about six feet high, and weighs about 175 pounds; has had as fine a constitution as any man ever had. He has no gray hairs in his head, and will pass for a man of thirty-five years. He has had the strongest voice of any man in East Tennessee, where he has resided for the last thirty years, and raised an interesting family. He has been speaking all that time, taking a part in all the controversies of the day.

He is the author of several books; but the one which has had the largest run is one of over four hundred pages, being a vindication of the Methodist Church against the attacks of Rev. J. R. Graves, in Nashville. Brownlow's work was published by the Southern Methodist Publishing House, and something like 100,000 copies have been circulated in the South and West. It is a work of great severity, but of marked ability.

In 1858 he was engaged in a debate upon the slavery question in Philadelphia, with the Rev. Mr. Prym, of New York, in which he defended the institution of slavery with marked ability, exhibiting a familiar acquaintance with the vexed question in all its bearings. The debate, a volume of some four hundred pages, is for sale by J. B. Lippincott & Co.

He is known throughout the length and breadth of this land as the "Fighting Parson;" but no man is more peaceable, or more highly esteemed by his neighbors. Few men are more charitable, and few, of his means – for he is not rich – give away as much in the course of a year.

He is quite a politician, though he has never been an office-seeker or an office-holder. He commenced his political career in Tennessee in 1828, by espousing the cause of John Quincy Adams as against Andrew Jackson. He has been all his life an ardent Whig, and Clay and Webster were his standards of political orthodoxy. His paper, the Knoxville Whig , which he has edited for twenty-two years, had the largest circulation of any political paper in Tennessee, and exerted a controlling influence in the politics of the State.

When Secession first raised its hydra-head our hero stood up manfully for the Union and the Constitution, and amid an almost overwhelming torrent of abuse heaped upon him by the Press throughout the State. Darker and darker grew the storm around him; fiercer and fiercer the denunciations hurled at him by the enemies of the Union; yet, with an iron will, and sustained by an inward consciousness that he was doing his duty, he continued to battle nobly for the cause of his country, and in each and every number of his paper poured down on the rebel crew his scathing sarcasm and scorching repartee.

At last the Confederate authorities determined on his arrest and punishment. In October, 1861, he was indicted by the Grand Jury, and his paper suppressed. We here give his farewell address, which will be read with mournful interest and high admiration. His words are those of a spirit not seeking martyrdom, but ready to confront it in all its terrors in the cause of truth and patriotism.

Prentice, of the Louisville Journal , in publishing this last editorial, made the following very truthful comment: "He may be consigned by trembling tyrants to a dungeon, but there will be more of God's sunshine in his soul than can ever visit the eye-balls of his own and his country's enemies. If a million prayers can avail, the naked stones of his cell will be a softer and sweeter bed than his traitor foes will enjoy:"

This issue of the Whig must necessarily be the last for some time to come – I am unable to say how long. The Confederate authorities have determined upon my arrest, and I am to be indicted before the Grand Jury of the Confederate Court, which commenced its session in Nashville on Monday last. I would have awaited the indictment and arrest before announcing the remarkable event to the world, but, as I only publish a weekly paper, my hurried removal to Nashville would deprive me of the privilege of saying to my subscribers what is alike due to myself and them. I have the fact of my indictment and consequent arrest, having been agreed upon for this week, from distinguished citizens, legislators, and lawyers at Nashville of both parties. Gentlemen of high positions and members of the Secession party say that the indictment will be made because of "some treasonable articles in late numbers of the Whig ." I have reproduced those two "treasonable articles" on the first page of this issue, that the unbiased people of the country may "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest" the treason. They relate to the culpable remissness of these Knoxville leaders in failing to volunteer in the cause of the Confederacy.

According to the usages of the Court, as heretofore established, I presume I could go free by taking the oath these authorities are administering to other Union men, but my settled purpose is not to do any such thing. I can doubtless be allowed my personal liberty by entering into bonds to keep the peace, and to demean myself towards the leaders of secession in Knoxville, who have been seeking to have me assassinated all Summer and Fall, as they desire me to do, for this is really the import of the thing, and one of the leading objects sought to be attained. Although I could give a bond for my good behavior, for one hundred thousand dollars, signed by fifty as good men as the country affords, I shall obstinately refuse to do even that; and, if such a bond is drawn up and signed by others, I will render it null and void by refusing to sign it. In default of both, I expect to go to jail, and I am ready to start upon one moment's warning. Not only so, but there I am prepared to lie, in solitary confinement, until I waste away because of imprisonment, or die from old age. Stimulated by a consciousness of innocent uprightness, I will submit to imprisonment for life, or die at the end of a rope, before I will make any humiliating concession to any power on earth!