Page:Disunion and restoration in Tennessee (IA disunionrestorat00neal).pdf/79

 even adjourn. It had no chairman, no secretary, and could not even transact any business. It met as if by chance, and dispersed from necessity. It was an agglomerate discord, an inflamed mob filled with mean whiskey and meaner passions. It was a meeting of mortal enemies under the guise of friendship to decide the spoils of misdeeds and crimes. They quarrelled and fought, and called each other liars and thieves, and all manner of epithets. Such a congregation of vulgar elements, so fierce, so bitter, and so reckless, was never seen before in this section of the Union.

"This assemblage of Radicals was called together to counsel for the good of the State, and present to the people a person of such fair name and true patriotism as to be worthy of them and the State for their chief executive!"

The above description was written by a "rebel" editor, but the following account, taken from the Knoxville Whig, is scarcely less severe: "We share in the regret of all good Republicans that the late Convention was so divided, boisterous, disrupted. We have attended many conventions, national and State. We never attended one in which such injustice, violence, and fraud were practised."

These two pictures of the Convention, drawn from different standpoints, give us some idea of the kind of men that had ruled Tennessee for four years. At last the household was divided against itself; it was only a matter of a few weeks until it should fall.

The Senter faction attempted to throw the blame for the disrupted Convention upon Mr. Stokes and his friends. They denied the charge, and asserted that at least sixty-four counties had been instructed for Mr. Stokes, which would have insured him the nomination. The result of the discussion was that Governor Senter and Mr. Stokes declared their intentions to "fight it to a finish at the polls." They began at Nashville, January 5th, a joint canvass of the State. A direct issue was soon made between them on the