Nasty word Traitor... Brownlow supporters would say he was loyal to the United States and his political foes the traitors. All depends on the perspective. The fact is Brownlows reign of terror as you would like to present it was relatively short. Brownlow stepped down from office in February 1869 to accept a U.S. Senate seat and was replaced for the duration of his term by Senate Speaker Dewitt C. Senter, a conservative East Tennessee Unionist. Determined to win election in his own right and facing opposition from within his own party, Senter reached out for support from the state's Democrats by effectively setting aside the franchise law and allowing thousands of Confederate sympathizers to vote. Senter won the election, but conservative Democrats reclaimed control of the general assembly and "redeemed" the state from Republican rule. Although divisions within the Democratic Party would occasionally allow Republicans to challenge for state offices, after the election of 1869 Republican influence was largely limited to East Tennessee. Although without significant political power, Tennessee blacks statewide would continue to vote Republican in large numbers until the early 1890s, when they were effectively disfranchised by a combination of registration laws and poll taxes.So it would appear to me that some of those Democrats didn't like blacks either. Prejudice has been practiced by some members of every group that ever lived.