Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Andrew Johnson’s Mission to Tennessee


Colonel Forney writes to the Philadelphia Press:

“This mission of Andrew Johnson, who goes forward as the military governor of the State of Tennessee, is at least one way of cutting the Gordian knot of complications which have resulted from the conquest of the rebels in that State, and will certainly follow their overthrow in other quarters.  It will prove to be most effective.  He will enter the State, of which he is the proud and peerless Senator, not only as a Brigadier General at the head of an overwhelming force, but as the deliverer of his own people, long held in chains by their oppressors.  His first step will be to seize upon the machinery of the State government, to carry out the idea that no act of secession can annihilate a State of this Union, and to prepare the way for the election of a legislature, chosen by the loyal people of Tennessee, who will co-operate with him in the great purpose of constitutional obligation and obedience to the laws passed in pursuance of the constitution.  All this has been done by the government, you will perceive, without the aid of Congress, and it is a significant evidence of the justice and expediency of this policy,that no portion of the representatives and senators in Congress are found to object to it.”

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 15, 1862, p. 2

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