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The Tyrant's Rod
One hundred and ninety nine years ago, on February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln, the eventual central figure of the American Civil War was born. To this day, Lincoln is considered by many historians and poets as possibly the greatest American of all time. With little formal education, this frontier lawyer held our nation together through the worst catastrophe in its history. A leader of less will or vision may well have failed to win the war that ended the evil institution of slavery in America . With good reason, he is remembered by many as the "Great Emancipator."

Abraham Lincoln never personally visited Tennessee . However, as President, Tennessee became a source of great concern. Less than two months after he took office, he received a letter from then Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris protesting the Union seizure of a steamboat. "This seizure was made on the Mississippi River, a short distance above Cairo Illinois . The boat was owned by citizens of Tennessee , and its cargo was the property of this State and her citizens. It is believed that the force employed in this work is a part of the force recently called into the service by the proclamation of the President," wrote Isham. "This interruption of the free navigation of the Mississippi river and the seizure of property belonging to the State of Tennessee and her citizens is aggressive and hostile, and without commenting upon the character and lawlessness of the outrage, it becomes my imperative duty to inquire by what authority the said acts were committed."

Lincoln was already annoyed by a previous letter the Governor sent the Secretary of War a few weeks earlier. Isham boasted, "Your dispatch of the 15th, informing me that Tennessee is called upon for two regiments of Militia for immediate service is received. Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand if necessary for the defense of our rights, and those of our Southern Brethren." Consequently, the President coolly responded to Isham's inquiry of the steamboat, "In answer I have to say this Government has no official information of such seizure; but assuming that the seizure was made, and that the cargo consisted chiefly of munitions of war owned by the State of Tennessee, and passing into the control of it's Governor, this Government avows the seizure"

Tennessee fell firmly in the Confederate orbit for the first year of the war, but in February 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant captured two key Confederate forts on the Cumberland River . For the next two years, Tennessee was the key battleground of the conflict. Ironically, it was Middle and West Tennessee, where Confederate sentiment was strongest, that first succumbed to Union control when on February 24, 1863, the boys in blue occupied Nashville . President Lincoln had special reverence for the pro-Union attitudes in the mountains of East Tennessee where Confederate sentiment was weak. With the appointment of Andrew Johnson as the Union military governor in March, Isham Harris effectively ceased to function as the governor, instead acting as a Confederate army officer. Like in East Tennessee, Johnson's home, the Union flag again flew across the whole of Tennessee .
In the end, a Convention composed of more than 500 delegates from across the State convened and unanimously adopted an amendment to the constitution "forever abolishing slavery" in Tennessee , denying the power of the Legislature from passing any law "creating property in man." Finally, the tyrant's rod had been broken when Tennesseans overwhelmingly supported Lincoln 's amendment by a vote of 25,293 to 48. Happy Birthday Mr. President!

Learn more about this author, Henry Piarrot.
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