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zidents occurring in the congressional career of Gov. Brown, may be seen in the Daily Globe of December 14, 1844. A reply to Mr. Adams, on the Oregon bill, may be seen in the "Constitution" of January 29, 1845, and also a reply to another speech of Mr. Adams may be seen in the National Intelligencer of February 3, 1845.

On the 12th March, 1844, Gov. Brown, as chairman of the committee on territories, reported a bill to extend the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the several courts of the territory of Iowa over the territory of Oregon, and for other purposes. At the next session he reported another bill, organizing a territorial government for Oregon, which passed the house by a large majority, but was lost in the senate.

Governor Brown's service in Congress ended with the commencement of President Polk's administration. He declined any office under the administration, and determined to return home and devote himself to the education of his children and the management of his own private affairs. Before he reached home, however, he was nominated by the democratic party as its candidate for governor. He met the news of this nomination at Pittsburg, and hesitated many days whether he would accept it or not. It conflicted with all his purposes to retire to private life to accept it, and opened a wide field of labor with but little prospect of success. Mr. Polk had failed twice for the same office, and could not carry the state in his presidential race, under all the zeal and excitement which it created. Besides this, Mr. Polk, in organizing his administration, and selecting his friends for different offices, had withdrawn from the state some of the most influential and powerful members of the party. He himself, was gone, Hon. Cave Johnson was gone, General Robert Armstrong was gone, and several others whose weight had been always felt in state elections. Discouraging, however, as were the prospects, he finally determined to take the field against Col. Foster, a late senator, and one of the most popular and able men of the whig party. The discussion of the canvass turned chiefly on the tariff, the Texas and Oregon questions.

In this canvass Gov. Brown was elected by a majority of one thousand five hundred or one thousand six hundred; but in that of 1847, he was defeated by about half that number. For the last twelve years parties have been so nearly balanced in Tennessee that they have carried the state alternately against each other. The one last defeated brings to the polls at the next election a little more zeal and determination to retrieve their last misfortune, and are therefore ve y apt to prove triumphant.

In the next year, 1848, Gov. Brown was a candidate for elector for the state at large, and canvassed it with great vigor, sustaining and even surpassing the reputation which he had previonsly acquired.

In 1850, he was a member of the Southern Convention held at Nashville. He concurred fully in the resolutions passed at the first session of that body, but dissented from and protested against the address. At the second session of that body in November following, Gov. Brown dissented altogether from the report submitted by the committee on resolutions; and, to exhibit his own views and those of the democracy of the state, prepared what was called and known as the Tennessee Platform, which, after being submitted to the delega

tion of the state and being approved by them, was by their order submitted by General Pillow to the convention. His whole course at both sessions was eminently conservative. At neither session, and at no stage of the slavery agitation, would he hear or think of a dissolution of the Union. He considered secession or a dissolution of the Union as no remedy for alleged grievances.His favorite remedy against the whole series of aggressions was retaliation, as set forth in the Tennessee Platform. This he believed would soon exhibit to the North a greater power to injure them than they have had to injure the South; and that, upon the simple principle of self-interest, both sections would presently cease the profitless controversy.

The last public station which Gov. Brown has occupied was that of a delegate from the state at large in the late Baltimore convention. He introduced a very important resolution into that body, raising a committee of one from each state, to be appointed by the delegates from each state, to whom all resolutions relative to the principles or platform of the democratic party should be referred without debate. The importance of such a reference, without debate, was instantly perceived, and the resolution was adopted. He was unanimously appointed the chairman, and subsequently reported the platform, which has given such general satisfaction to his party in every portion of the United States. Gov. Brown has reason to be proud of the concurrence of his party in the platforms which, at different times, he has prepared for them. He was the author of the Tennessee platform in the Southern Convention. He prepared and presented the platform which was unanimously sanctioned in the convention at Nashville, on which the last gubernatorial battle was fought in Tennessee; and that he had the honor assigned to him of reporting the national platform of democratic principles at the late convention was highly gratifying to his numerous friends.

PART I.

CONGRESSIONAL SPEECHES.

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