Senate voted to acquit Johnson on May 16. Back in Tennessee, Nelson signed a petition calling on the state's judges to ignore Brownlow's attempts to disenfranchise former Confederates. Brownlow blasted most of the petition's signers, but remained cordial in his disagreements with Nelson. In 1870, Nelson was elected to the Tennessee Supreme Court, and helped overturn many of the decisions of his Radical Republican predecessors. On September 27, 1871, Nelson's son, David, shot and killed Alabama attorney James Holt Clanton on Gay Street in Knoxville. Nelson convinced his son to surrender, and posted his $25,000 bond (which was signed by Brownlow, who was now a senator). Nelson resigned his position on the state supreme court to focus on his son's trial. On May 30, 1873, David Nelson was acquitted of the charge of murder. Nelson delivered the dedicatory address at the opening of Staub's Theatre in Knoxville on October 1, 1872, and spent his last years advising local politicians and teaching Sunday school at Knoxville's Second Presbyterian Church. He contracted cholera in late August 1873, and died on August 24. He is interred in an unmarked grave in Old Gray Cemetery. References External links 1812 births 1873 deaths People from Roane County, Tennessee Tennessee Whigs Opposition Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee Tennessee Oppositionists Tennessee Unionists Tennessee Democrats Politicians from Knoxville, Tennessee Justices of the Tennessee Supreme Court Tennessee lawyers Members of the defense counsel for the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson Southern Unionists in the American Civil War University of Tennessee alumni 19th-century American politicians People from Elizabethton, Tennessee 19th-century American judges Members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee