Now, fellow-citizens, it was in this connection, as well as in the most offensive language, that Gov. Johnson introduced the name of Andrew J. Donelson, repeating it more than once, emphasizing upon it, and repeating it with scorn and bitterness. This is the report, in substance, I made of his speech through my paper, and in a letter I addressed to Major Donelson. And to the truth of my report, there are one hundred respectable gentlemen in Knoxville who will make oath upon the Holy Bible. There are now a half-dozen respectable gentlemen in this crowd who were in the street at Knoxville on that occasion, and heard every word the Governor said, and will sustain me in my account of it. Among these I will name Messrs. White and Armstrong, members of the House, Senator Rogers, Col. James C. Luttrell, and Mr. Fleming, the editor of the Knoxville Register.
Well, gentlemen—and I am proud to have an opportunity of vindicating myself before so large a Nashville audience as this is—I say Major Donelson came to Nashville, after receiving intelligence of the abuse of the Governor, and was seen walking these streets with a large and homely stick in his hand, looking grum, as any gentleman would do under the circumstances. The friends of Gov. Johnson seeing what would likely be the result of this affair, asked for, and very properly obtained that letter, with a view to laying it before their slanderous and abusive Executive officer, that he might lie out of what he said about an honorable and brave man; and thereby avoid the disgrace of a cudgelling! Did he lie out of the scrape? He did: aye, he ingloriously lied out of what he had said—leaving Major Donelson no ground for any difficulty with him: although the Major had a right to suppose that any man base enough to make such charges, would have no hesitancy in lying out of his disreputable and cowardly abuse. I therefore pronounce your Governor, here upon his own dunghill, an unmitigated liar and calumniator, and a villainous coward, wanting the nerve to stand up to his abuse of better men than himself!
But it will be said that the Governor proves me a liar, by a citizen of Nashville, who was present at Knoxville and heard his speech. That is so, but I prove both him and his witness liars, by a multitude of witnesses who were also present, and who are gentlemen of the first standing. But who is it that testifies that I have lied? It is E. G. Eastman, the editor of the Sag Nicht organ in this city. And who is E. G. Eastman? He is a dirty, lying, and unscrupulous Abolitionist, from Massachusetts, who once conducted an Abolitionist paper either in that State, or the State of New Hampshire. He was brought out to this State to lie for the unscrupulous leaders of his party. He is paid for telling and writing falsehoods, and would, if the interests of his party required it, and a consideration were paid him in hand, swear lies as readily as he would write them down for publication. He is a poor devil, as void of truth and honor as he has shown himself to be of courage and resentment. He edits a low, dirty, scurrilous sheet; and, like his master, Gov. Johnson, never could elevate himself above the level of a common blackguard. No epithet is too low, too degrading, or disgraceful to be applied to the members of the American party, by either of these Billingsgate graduates. Decent men shun coming in contact with either of them, as they would avoid a night-cart, or other vehicle of filth. As some fish thrive only in dirty water, so the Nashville Union and American would not exist a week out of the atmosphere of slang and vituperation. A fit organ, this, for all who arrange themselves under the dark piratical flag of Andrew Johnson and his progressive Democracy. I am the more specific in reference to Eastman, because I understand he is in this assembly!
But, fellow-citizens, I am not yet through with this Knoxville speech of the Governor. Maj. Donelson visited Knoxville, one month after this slanderous speech was made against him; he visited there upon the invitation of the American party, to address a Mass Meeting. I waited upon Maj. Donelson, upon his arrival, and found him at the house of Doct. Curry. I told the Major that I was tired of having questions of veracity between me and Governors and Ex-Governors of Tennessee, and that I desired that others should state to him what had been said by the Governor. Accordingly, different gentlemen, citizens of character, informed him that they were in the crowd and heard Johnson, and that he did say all that was attributed to him, both in the letter he had received from me, and in the two Knoxville papers. Consequently, when Maj. Donelson made his speech next day, he denounced the Governor as a miserable calumniator, and refuted his villainous charges, in a manner becoming the occasion, and with a frankness which carried with it a conviction of its truth, and gave satisfaction to his numerous friends.
And now, gentlemen, I take occasion to state, that there is no longer an adjourned question of veracity between me and Johnson and Eastman. The issue is between Johnson and Eastman, on the one hand, and various respectable gentlemen of Knoxville, on the other hand. Either the Governor and his man Friday have basely lied, or a number of the citizens of Knoxville and vicinity, have testified to what is false. I assert, once more, that the Governor and his dirty Editor have lied out of the villainous abuse the former heaped upon better men than himself. And if their friends are willing to see them remain under the charge, the American party are satisfied with the settlement of the question.
Fellow-citizens, while I am on the stand, I will notice some other points personal to myself. And before I enter upon these, I will call your attention to the wholesale abuse of the Governor, of some thirty-five or forty thousand voters in Tennessee. In his Murfreesboro' speech, he asserted that "the Devil, his Satanic Majesty, presides over all the secret conclaves" held by the Know Nothings, and that "they are the allies of the Prince of Darkness." I quote from his printed speeches from memory, but it will be found that I quote correctly. In that same speech, he asserts that all Know Nothings are "bound by terrible oaths to fix and carry a lie in their mouths!" In his Manchester speech, I believe it was, he called all members of the new party "Hyenas," and "huge reptiles, upon whose neck the feet of all honest men ought to be placed." And in this same speech he says he "would as soon be found in a clan of John A. Murrell's men, as in a Know Nothing Council!"
What an imputation upon nearly one half of the legal voters of Tennessee! He has used the most odious terms his limited knowledge of the English language would enable him to employ, to deride, defame, insult, and blackguard every man who has joined the new party, or dares to act with them in politics. In the plenitude of his bitter and supercilious arrogance, Andrew Johnson has indulged in language against the entire American party, which would not be tolerated within the precincts of Billingsgate, or the lowest fish-market in London. And from Johnson to Shelby counties, during the entire summer, this low-flung and ill-bred scoundrel, pursued this same strain of vulgar and disgusting abuse. And whether speaking of the most enlightened statesman, the purest patriot, or the most pious clergyman, he pursued the same strain of abuse. With him, a vile demagogue, whose daily employment is to administer to the very worst appetites of mankind, no virtue, no honor, no truth, exists anywhere, but in the breasts of such as are either corrupt enough or fool enough to follow him, and a few malignant falsifiers who worship at his shrine. He is a wretched and vile caterer to the morbid foreign and Catholic appetite of this country. "It is a dirty bird that fouls its own nest," says the proverb; and it applies to this man Johnson with as much force as to the dirtiest of the feathered tribe.
"Where is the wretch, so lost, so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!"
He now disgraces the Executive Chair of this gallant State. Most of God's creatures, human and brute, have an attachment to "home, sweet home;" but here is a contemptible and selfish demagogue who discards all such feelings, and would transfer his country and home to strangers and outlaws, to European paupers and criminals, if he could thereby receive a temporary election, or receive a pocket-full of money. For such a wretch I have no sympathy, and no feelings but those of scorn and contempt, and hence it is that I speak of him in such terms.
On every stump in Tennessee, he held me up as "the High Priest of the Order," representing Col. Gentry as my candidate. Since I came to Middle Tennessee, I have been informed that he pointed to the fancied fact that I was the head of the Order, as an evidence of its utter want of respectability. Turning up his nose, and grinning significantly, he would inquire, Who is William G. Brownlow?