to and from the court-room every time court aajourns, with a sheriff and his deputy on either side, wearing cocked hats, and carrying drawn swords in their hands! We have witnessed this mock-royalty time and again, and laughed in our sleeves, as these dignitaries approached!

These are not the people to head a Confederacy for Tennesseeans to fall into. Their notions of royalty, and their contempt for the common people, will never suit Tennesseeans. In Tennessee, free white men vote who are twenty-one years of age, and they are not required to own land and negroes before they are qualified to vote. In a late speech made by R. Barnwell Rhett-who, by the way, was the leading spirit in this Convention-he distinctly enunciated that capital and property must hereafter be represented at the ballot-box. It is not strange that Andy Johnson, a tailor by trade, should denounce this whole movement in a speech in the Senate! And nine-tenths of our people will veto this Southern Confederacy at the ballot-box, and vote to stay in the Confederacy founded by GEORGE WASHINGTON and others, who thought a poor but honest man should be entitled to vote for or against those who were to rule over him! Let Tennessee once go into this Empire of Cotton States, and all poor men will at once become the free negroes of the Empire! We are down upon the whole scheme.

Knoxville Whig. Jan. 12, 1861.

CHAPTER V.

THREATENING TO HANG US FOR OUR PRINCIPLES-CHARGES US WITH BEING A YANKEE THE WICKEDNESS OF SECESSION-ORIGIN OF SECESSION-SOUTH CAROLINA FIRES THE FIRST GUN-FREEDOM OF SPEECH TO BE DENIED-STANDING OUT FOR THE UNION.

Threatening to Hang us!

WE call attention to the two following letters, as they are from men responsible in the ranks of the Secessionists, and reflect the sentiments and feelings of the great Southern mob known by this name. The Georgia letter regards us as seceding from the South, and threatens violence. This letter we give entire. The one from Mississippi comes out in the proscriptive and mobocratic spirit of this whole party in the South. We give an extract:

"BROTHER BROWNLOW:

"COVINGTON, Jan. 8, 1861.

Having been a subscriber to your once readable paper for a goodly number of years, and having through the agency of its columns formed an opinion of your character which I must in candor own was favorable, I take the privilege which my age, experience, and position in society afford me, to advise, entreat, and warn

you of your approaching danger. Among the most important things in which we have noticed your deviation from the path of rectitude is, that in this present political commotion you have dabbled more than becomes you. From all appearances, you have turred from a private and respected citizen to a contenticus, quarrelsome politician,—from a Southern-Rights man to a friend of the North,—from a Union man to a Secessionist. Can these charges be true? Am I not deceived? I hope so. Yet these reports come from every quarter, and are strengthened by the tone of your paper. With you alone, my dear brother, it remains to refute them by your future conduct. These remarks are prompted by a generous heart, and the feeling that causes a friend to inform another of his errors, hoping thereby to correct them. We will close, as 'a word to the wise is sufficient.' That a speedy reformation may take place, is the wish of

"Your affectionate friend,

"GEORGE P. NICKOLS."

"CORINTH, MIss., Jan. 10, 1861.

"MR. BROWNLOW, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: -I see, in a late issue of your dirty sheet, that you are full of braggadocio, and that you declare positively that if Tennessee, and the South generally, secede, you will still cling to that most abominable of all abominations, the Union. Now, Parson, if you adopt this policy,

what do you think will be the consequence? You will certainly be hung, as all dogs should be, until you are 'dead, dead.' Your crime will be treason of the deepest dye.

“I have never believed you to be a Southern man, but a shrewd, money-making Yankee; and, if you will give me time, I will look into your nativity. When Tennessee secedes, I will head a company of Tennesseeans and Mississippians and proceed to hang you by law, or by force if need be. The South can look upon you in no other light than as a traitor and a Tory, and the twin brother of Andrew Johnson. Remember, and beware, you shall be hung in the year 1861, unless you conclude to live the life of an exile.

"Yours, &c.,

"W. M. YANCEY."

KNOXVILLE, Jan. 15, 1861.

MATCHLESS SIRS:

In a brief reply to your letters, I will first correct the error into which one of you has fallen as it regards my nativity, &c. I am not "a shrewd, money-making Yankee," nor am I a money-making man at all,-never was. My town-property and printing-office I estimate to be worth about ten thousand dollars. This is all I have, and is fully as much as I ever did own at any one time. I am, therefore, a poor man, and never expect to be any thing else. It would have been other

wise with me, if I had not given away half of all I ever did make, and if I had sought to make money.

As it regards my nativity, I was born and raised in Wythe county, Virginia, and my parents were both natives of the same State. I have lived in East Tennessee for thirty years; and, although I am now fiftyfive years of age, I walk erect, have but few gray hairs, and look to be younger than any whiskey-drinking, tobacco-chewing, profane-swearing Secessionist in any of the Cotton States, of forty years.

As it regards your threats, (and both of your letters are of a threatening character,) they have no terrors for me. I have no doubt but there are thousands of Secessionists in the South who would be willing to see me hung, and would assist in swinging me up, could they have the slightest pretext for so doing, and meet with an opportunity. When you come to East Tennessee, with a company of Tennesseeans, Mississippians, and Georgians, to hang me, please give me ten days' notice, and I will muster men enough in the county where I reside, to hang the last rascal among you, and then use your carcasses for wolf-bait !

This whole scheme of Secession is the most wicked, diabolical, and infernal scheme ever set on foot for the ruin of any country. It has long been contemplated by the Tory leaders of the Cotton States, and the details of it, I see, have just come to light through the National Intelligencer, one of the most reliable journals in