Nashville Union And American

Here was a direct attempt to influence the jury in Carter county to decide in favor of the Radical and against the "Rebel," not because justice demanded such a decision of the case, but solely because the one was a Radical and the other a "Rebel." Would such a bold attempt to corrupt a jury by appeals to their political prejudice, to obstruct justice in the reprehensible manner, have been tolerated anywhere but in loyal East Tennessee, and in a court presided over by a bitter partisan Radical Judge?

The means adopted to inform the jury in Carter county that the defendant to the suit in question was a "loyal citizen," shows conclusively that he and his friends expected to gain his cause through political influences alone. Had the Judge of the court trying this case discharged his duty as an upright, fearless Judge would desire to do, he would have ordered the arrest and trial of the forty-seven men who signed the document "circulated around where loyal jurymen could see it," upon a charge of conspiracy to tamper with a jury and obstruct the administration of justice. Had "Rebels" been thus guilty, there can hardly be a doubt that they would have paid the penalty of their temerity. These facts explain why the Radicals of East Tennessee howl so piteously over the change in the judiciary provided for by the new constitution. They fear that judges who tolerate such scandalous proceedings as have been exposed by the Greeneville Union, will be shorn of their power to wink at a like desecration of the name of justice. The Radicals have only lacked the power to perpetrate these outrages in all parts of the State. When they held revel in the capitol, they enacted a law giving to "loyal" men the right to object to "Rebels" serving on juries, and this was done that "loyal" men having suits with "Rebels" might avail themselves of political prejudice in the jury-box. East Tennessee had a larger ratio of "loyal" men than the other sections of the State, and the Radicals there appear to have had every thing their own way in suits with "Rebels."