Now, gentlemen, since he makes this issue of respectability with me, I will accept it. Since he throws down the glove, I will take it up, and I will show you that he is the last man on God's green earth to call in question the respectability of other men, or their families! It would be both cruel and unbecoming in me to speak of what the dishonest and villainous relatives of Gov. Johnson have done, if he conducted himself prudently, and did not abuse others with such great profusion. I am not aware of any relative of mine ever having been hung, sent to the penitentiary, or being placed in the stocks. I have no doubt that persons related to me, directly or remotely, have deserved such a fate long since. There is not a man in this vast assembly who can say, and tell the truth, that he has no mean kin. Can Gov. Johnson say so? Rather, can he say he has any other kind? He is a member of a numerous family of Johnsons, in North Carolina, who are generally thieves and liars; and though he is the best one of the family I have ever met with, I unhesitatingly affirm, to-night, that there are better men than Andrew Johnson in our Penitentiary! His relatives in the Old North State, have stood in the Stocks for crimes they have committed. And his own born cousin, Madison Johnson, was hung in Raleigh, for murder and robbery! I told him of this years ago, in Jonesboro', and he denied it, and put me to the trouble of procuring the testimony of Gov. John M. Morehead to prove it! The Governor was petitioned to pardon Madison Johnson, and declined, as he knew he suffered justly. This explains why this scape-gallows has been so bitter against Whig and Know Nothing Governors. They have been so unfeeling, as to suffer his dear relatives to pull hemp without foothold, when a jury of twelve honest men have said that they deserved death! Is he not one of the last men living to talk about a want of respectability on the part of any one? Certainly he is!
Well, gentlemen, Johnson is again the Governor of Tennessee; but if he could be mortified, he would have the mortification to know that he is the Governor with a majority of the legal native votes of the State cast in opposition to him. We all committed one capital blunder in the late canvass, and that alone defeated Gentry, and elected Johnson. We copied from the Book of Pardons a list of FORTY-SEVEN names of culprits pardoned out of our State Prison by Johnson—some for negro-stealing, some for counterfeiting, house-breaking, rape, and other Democratic measures—more pardons than all his "illustrious predecessors" ever granted. In copying this list, we said to the voters of the State that Johnson had spoken his honest sentiments when he said he preferred being among a clan of Murrell men, to being found in a Know Nothing Council; and in the same breath we assured them that if Gentry was elected, he would let all such rascals stay in prison as long as the courts of the country decreed they should. And while thousands of honorable, high-minded men voted for Johnson, under the lash of party, or because they were blinded by his glaring demerits, it is not to be disguised that all the petit larceny and Penitentiary men in the State voted for him. There never was a time in Tennessee when there were not five thousand voters who either had been stealing, or intended to steal! These would naturally look to where they would find a friend, in the event of their being overtaken by justice. In the person of Andrew Johnson, they felt assured of "a friend indeed, because a friend in need." He had publicly told them that he preferred the company of Murrell men to the society of the most respectable lawyers, doctors, preachers, farmers, and mechanics in the State, who met in certain councils. The fact of his turning so many Murrell men out of the State Prison, and of his having been raised up in such society, left no doubt of the sincerity of his profession!
In conclusion, fellow-citizens, if Gov. Johnson cannot lawfully canvass the State a third time for the office he now fills, I hope the Legislature will legalize such a race by a special act, and I propose to be the candidate against him. I will show the people of the State in his presence, from the same stand, who are Murrell men, and who are not able to look honest men in the face!
If I have said any thing to-night offensive to your Governor, or any of his friends or understrappers in this city, they know where to find me. When I am not on the streets, I can be found at No. 43, on the lower floor of Sam Scott's City Hotel, opposite the ladies' parlor. I shall remain here for the next ten days only, and whatever punishment any one may wish to inflict upon me, it must be done in that time. I say this, not because I seek a difficulty, but because I don't intend it shall be said that I made this speech and took to flight!
I thank you, gentlemen, for the patience with which you have heard me in a matter personal to myself, and I hope you are prepared to acquit me of lying in the Donelson case, although Gov. Johnson and Editor Eastman bear testimony against me. I thank you, and now bid you good night!
We beg leave to add, that in March, 1842, Andrew Johnson laid hold of us in a speech in Blountville, when we were in Jonesborough, distant twenty miles. He held up a picture or drawing of us, and accompanied it with many abusive remarks. In turn, we held him up in the Whig of the 29th of the same month, and gave his pedigree in full, and with it a representation of his cousin Madison Johnson, under the gallows in Raleigh!
The first Monday in April following, Johnson spoke in Jonesborough, and denied most solemnly that he ever had a relative by the name of Madison Johnson—denied that a man of that name had ever been hung in Raleigh—and asserted that the man hung there in 1841 was by the name of Scott—a nephew, he said, of General Winfield Scott! This bold denial, made in the presence of a large and anxious crowd, overwhelmed us for the time being, as Johnson was raised in the vicinity of Raleigh, and had learned his trade there. He was supposed to know, and for the moment we were branded with falsehood. To aid him in his war upon us, the "Jonesborough Sentinel," Johnson's organ, came out upon us, and noticed his denial of our charge and his speech, in an article of which the following is an extract:
"Brownlow said, some time back, that Col. Johnson had a cousin hung in North Carolina. The Colonel developed the fact the day he used up or skinned Brownlow alive in Jonesborough, that instead of its being his cousin, it was the nephew of Gen. Winfield Scott, now a quasi Coon candidate for the Presidency. Brownlow is so silent!"
After this, the Sentinel noticed us again, and this notice drew out Weston R. Gales, the then editor of the Raleigh Register, in the following: