the goal of the Conservative campaign was to end the "meanest tyranny which was ever hatched in the foul air of distempered times." Brownlow's newspaper, the Knoxville Whig, derided Etheridge as a "blasé party scullion, the Thersites of the stump, the trafficker of the most foul, vulgar and filthy slang ever spewed by an obscene mind upon the hustings" whose "violent passions always carried him to offensive extremes." The Whig further suggested that Conservatives reluctantly chose Etheridge out of desperation after more plausible Conservatives rejected the nomination. Chronic illness had left Brownlow unable to campaign, and he thus relied on his political allies to stump for him. In May, Etheridge debated Congressman William B. Stokes at a campaign stop in Memphis. Stokes equated Etheridge's denunciation of the Emancipation Proclamation as "giving aid and comfort" to the Rebel cause, noted that Etheridge had been court-martialed for treasonous speech, and complained that Etheridge had mocked his lack of formal education. In his retort, Etheridge accused Stokes of writing a letter in May 1861 criticizing Lincoln's call for troops to put down the rebellion and suggested Stokes was too ignorant to understand the court-martial's proceedings. "Mr. Stokes says he is not educated. He need not have told it." He finished by stating that Brownlow "calls people seditionists because they won't make him king." Etheridge's campaign stops in East Tennessee frequently turned violent. While Etheridge had been endorsed by prominent East Tennessee Unionists such as T.A.R. Nelson, John Baxter, and John Netherland, the region was also home to Brownlow's fiercest and most loyal supporters. In June, fights broke out between Brownlow and Etheridge supporters at Greeneville and Morristown, and gunfire nearly erupted in Maryville when Etheridge campaigned there in July. Following a speech by Etheridge in Rogersville in late July, a mob of Radicals surrounded the hotel where Etheridge was staying and opened fire, igniting a five-minute gun battle that left one person dead and several seriously wounded. On election day in August 1867, Brownlow defeated Etheridge, 74,034 votes to 22,550. In spite of the wide margin, Etheridge's campaign boosted the statewide opposition to Brownlow, which eventually led to the fall of the Radical administration and the restoring of voting rights to ex-Confederates in 1870. Later life Etheridge was elected to the Tennessee Senate in 1869, representing the 22nd district (Weakley, Obion and Henry counties). He spent much of his term calling for the