ct 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?_

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 t