local newspapers, and was defeated by William Churchwell. In 1856, with the Knoxville Whig backing his campaign, he captured the 2nd District's congressional seat. In his 1858 reelection campaign, Maynard easily defeated fellow attorney J. C. Ramsey, winning 67% of the vote. Maynard initially supported the Whig Party, and served as a presidential elector in 1852. After the collapse of the Whig Party, he ran for Congress on the American, Opposition and Unionist party tickets for congressional terms beginning in 1857, 1859, and 1861, respectively. Secession crisis and views on slavery Maynard's complex views on slavery reflected shifting sentiments that were common among East Tennessee Unionists. During the 1830s, Maynard, the son of an abolitionist, found slavery contemptible, calling it "a curse to the country." By 1850, however, Maynard was defending the practice of slavery in letters to his father, arguing there was a "bright as well as a dark side to slavery." In 1860, Maynard had previously owned four slaves, and while he opposed secession as a congressman, he nevertheless defended slavery. Near the end of the Civil War, Maynard shifted once again to an abolitionist viewpoint on slavery, and supported Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Along with fellow Unionists Andrew Johnson, T. A. R. Nelson, and William G. Brownlow, Maynard worked feverishly to keep Tennessee in the Union amidst the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861. In the weeks leading up to the state's June 8 referendum on secession, Maynard travelled across East Tennessee, giving dozens of pro-Union speeches. Maynard was also a member of the Knox County delegation to the pro-Union East Tennessee Convention, which sought to create a separate Union-aligned state in East Tennessee. Civil War After the East Tennessee Union Convention adjourned in June 1861, Maynard headed for Washington, D.C. to take his seat in Congress. When Confederate forces occupied East Tennessee later that year, Maynard consistently pleaded with Lincoln to send troops to free the region, warning that East Tennesseans' "tears and blood will be a blot on your administration that time can never efface." In December 1861, Maynard blasted General George H. Thomas for balking at an invasion of the region in the wake of so-called bridge-burning conspiracy, calling his efforts "disgraceful." Later that month, General George B. McClellan wrote to General Don Carlos Buell: Johnson, Maynard, etc., are again becoming frantic, and have President Lincoln's sympathy excited. Political considerations would make it advisable to