William Gannaway "Parson" Brownlow (August 29, 1805April 29, 1877) was an American newspaper publisher, Methodist minister, book author, prisoner of war, lecturer, and politician who served as the 17th governor of Tennessee from 1865 to 1869 and as a United States senator from Tennessee from 1869 to 1875. Brownlow rose to prominence in the late 1830s and early 1840s as editor of the Whig, a polemical newspaper in East Tennessee that promoted Henry Clay and the Whig Party ideals, and also that repeated Brownlow's opposition to secession by the southern slave states in the years leading up to the American Civil War. Brownlow's uncompromising and radical viewpoints made him one of the most divisive figures in Tennessee political history and one of the most controversial Reconstruction era politicians of the United States.
Beginning his career as a Methodist circuit rider in the 1820s, Brownlow was both censured and praised by his superiors for his vicious verbal debates responding to rival missionaries of other sectarian Christian beliefs. Later, as a newspaper publisher and editor, he was notorious for his relentless replies in the form of personal attacks against his religious and political opponents, sometimes to the point of being physically assaulted. At the same time, Brownlow was successfully building a large base of fiercely loyal subscribers.
Brownlow returned to Tennessee in 1863 and in 1865 became governor with support of the U.S. Army behind him. Brownlow aligned with the Radical Republicans in the state, supporting President Abraham Lincoln's policies and spent much of his term opposing the policies of conservative Republicans. Brownlow's gubernatorial policies, which were both autocratic and progressive, helped Tennessee become the first former Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union in 1866, exempting it from the lengthy federal military reconstruction inflicted on most of the South.Forrest Conklin, William Gannaway "Parson" Brownlow. Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, 2009. Retrieved on October 18, 2012.Jack Neely, "Requiem for Parson Brownlow," Metro Pulse, 6 April 2011] Accessed at the Internet Archive, September 20, 2017 After the Civil War, Brownlow again resumed his opposition to longtime political foe President Andrew Johnson, an often bitter and biting dislike for each other that both Brownlow and Johnson had put aside during the dark days of the Civil War.
Soon after the Civil War, Brownlow and Radical Republicans utilized their control of state government to enfranchise male African-American former slaves with the right to vote and run for public office in Tennessee and extend other civil rights to all former slaves. Conservative Republicans generally opposed these actions by Brownlow and his Radical Republican base, and ex-Confederate political leaders and military officers joined into this opposition directed against Brownlow, utilizing the Ku Klux Klan and likeminded vigilante groups in efforts to disenfranchise African-Americans across Tennessee.
Early life 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.E. Merton Coulter, William G. Brownlow: Fighting Parson of the Southern Highlands (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1999).
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." He abandoned the carpentry trade and began studying to become a Methodist minister. In the fall of 1826, he attended the annual meeting of the Holston Conference of the Methodist Church in Abingdon. He applied to join the travelling ministry (commonly called "circuit riders") and was admitted in 1826 by Bishop Joshua Soule.
Soule gave Brownlow his first assignment as a circuit rider: the Black Mountain circuit in North Carolina. It was here that Brownlow first ran afoul of the Baptists—who were spreading quickly throughout the Southern Appalachian region—and developed an immediate dislike of them, considering them narrow-minded bigots who engaged in "dirty" rituals such as foot washing.
The competition in southern Appalachia for both converts and their tithes among the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians was fierce, and diatribes in both speech and print against rival sectarian Christian beliefs and leaders were commonplace among missionaries. In defending his Methodist Church and its early leaders, Brownlow took such debates to a whole new level, attacking Baptist and Presbyterian theology as well as the character of his rival missionaries.
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. In 1828, Brownlow was sued for slander, but the suit was dismissed. In 1831, Brownlow was sued for libel by a Baptist preacher and ordered to pay his accuser $5.
In 1832, Brownlow was assigned as a circuit rider to the Pickens District in South Carolina, which he claimed was "overrun with Baptists" and "nullifiers." Unable to make headway in the district, Brownlow circulated his venomous 70-page pamphlet blasting the district's Baptists, and narrowly galloped safely back into the mountains as the district's enraged residents demanded he be hanged. Brownlow's run-in with the South Carolina nullifiers would influence his later views on secession.
Brownlow soon afterward had his 1834 tome Helps To The Study of Presbyterianism (addressing, in part, Brownlow's advancement of the separation of church and state in the United States and the Presbyterian Church domination of the American Sunday School Union) published in Knoxville, Tennessee, by Frederick S. Heiskell.
Marriage In 1836 Brownlow married Eliza Ann O'Brien in Carter County, Tennessee, where the two resided in her hometown of Elizabethton. Brownlow began working as a clerk managing her family's O'Brien Furnace (iron foundry), which was located along the banks of the Doe River."Early History of Carter County 1760-1861", p. 55. Frank Merritt, 1950. East Tennessee Historical Society, Knoxville, Tennessee."O'Brien Furnace ~ 1A 73 ~ Valley Forge, TN - Tennessee Historical Markers on Waymarking.com" 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."That D--d Brownlow!", p. 176. Steve Humphrey. Appalachian Consortium Press, 1978.
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.
Historian Stephen Ash says:
What made the Parson stand out was, more than anything else, his vitriolic tongue and pen. Over the course of his long career, he took up many causes. These included not only Methodism, Whiggery, and the Union, but also temperance, Know-Nothingism, and slavery. His favorite method of promoting those causes was to chastise and ridicule his opponents, and few men could do so with as much venomous wit as he. Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Mormons, Democrats, Republicans, secessionists, drunks, immigrants, and abolitionists—all were at one time or another on the receiving end of Brownlow's merciless broadsides. Not surprisingly, he made many enemies. A number of them replied in kind; some tried to kill him.Stephen V. Ash, "Introduction" in E. Merton Coulter, William G. Brownlow (Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1999) p xi
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."Early History of Carter County 1760-1861", pp. 55-56. Frank Merritt, 1950. East Tennessee Historical Society, Knoxville, Tennessee. Brownlow and Lyon launched their weekly on May 16, 1839, and within several weeks, Brownlow and Lyon rebranded the paper as the Elizabethton Whig.Paul Fink, Jonesborough: The First Century of Tennessee's First Town (Johnson City, Tenn.: Overmountain Press, 2002), pp. 140-145.
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."Early History of Carter County 1760-1861", pp. 58. Frank Merritt, 1950. East Tennessee Historical Society, Knoxville, Tennessee. 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. In 1841 Haynes was later became editor of the competing Democratic Tennessee Sentinel, and Brownlow and Haynes continued to publish polemics targeting each other within their respective newspapers over the next several years.
In 1845, Brownlow ran against Andrew Johnson for the state's 1st District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Using the Whig to support his campaign, he accused Johnson of being illegitimate, suggested Johnson's relatives were murderers and thieves, and stated that Johnson was an atheist. Johnson won the election by 1,300 votes, out of just over 10,000 votes cast.
Brownlow supported Whig policies such as a national bank, federal funding for internal improvements (more specifically, public improvements to the Moccasin Bend area of the Tennessee River near Chattanooga allowing for better steamboat transportation of goods to New Orleans), developing industries within northeast Tennessee, and a weakened presidency. In his 1844 book, A Political Register, he calls Andrew Jackson the "greatest curse that ever yet befell this nation,"Jonesborough Whig and Independent Journal, 18 June 1845. and attacks Jackson's supporters, the Locofocos. Brownlow supported Whig candidates such as John Bell, James C. Jones, and Kentucky Senator Henry Clay. Clay was consistently Brownlow's first choice for the party's presidential candidate throughout the 1840s. Brownlow's son John recalled that one of the few times he ever saw his father cry was after he had received the news of Clay's defeat in the 1844 presidential election.