As its name implies, the paper's primary purpose was the promotion and defense of Whig Party political figures and ideals.

[2] The Whig was one of the most influential newspapers in nineteenth-century Tennessee, due mainly to Brownlow's editorials, which often included vindictive personal attacks and fierce diatribes.

A Methodist circuit rider by trade, Brownlow partnered with publisher Mason R. Lyon under a one-year contract and launched the Whig on May 4, 1839 to counter rising Democratic sentiment in the region.

During his career, Brownlow survived several assassination attempts, numerous libel lawsuits, and arrest and imprisonment by Confederate authorities during the American Civil War.

[2] In spite of its anti-secessionist sentiments, the Whig was staunchly pro-slavery in the early days of the Civil War but, upon Brownlow's return from exile in 1863, the paper adopted an abolitionist stance.

Along with political and religious commentary, Brownlow also reported on his travels to various cities, dispensed advice on issues such as marriage and child-rearing, and published his own speeches in their entirety.

[6] The masthead used for the first few issues included the phrase "Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" from the Declaration of Independence,[4] and was soon followed by the motto, "Cry aloud, and spare not," taken from Isaiah 58:1 (KJV).

"[8] The Whig supported, among other things, a strong central government, federal funding for internal improvements, a weakened presidency, a national bank, and tariffs to protect American products from foreign competition.

[2]: 125  In 1860, after the secession debate had come to dominate politics in the region, the Whig supported Constitutional Union presidential candidate John Bell, helping him capture the state's electoral votes.

Brownlow consistently refuted Wesley's critics, and two of his favorite targets were Presbyterian minister F. A. Ross and Baptist preacher J. R. Graves.

In 1846, Brownlow ran a multi-part series on "Romanism" in America, claiming that the Catholic Church had kept Europe in "mental slavery" for 1,200 years, and was inherently intolerant and opposed to democracy.

[10] Brownlow referred to Catholics as "lousy, sinful, obedient subjects of a foreign Despot," and warned of their encroachment into American government.

[11] In January 1860, Brownlow asked Whig readers to "pray against the wicked leaders of Abolitionism and the equally ungodly advocates of Secessionism,"[12]: 30  a statement which sums up his pre-Civil War stance on both issues.

Brownlow believed an independent South would continue to be run by the elite - Southern Democratic plantation owners, who would exploit small farmers.

After the meeting, he gave a speech in support of a series of resolutions that deemed slavery "incompatible with the perpetuity of free and republican institutions.

In the mid-1830s, Brownlow anonymously wrote several articles attacking nullification for the Washington Republican and Farmer's Journal, a Jonesborough-based paper published by retired state supreme court justice Thomas Emmerson (1773–1837).

[2]: 36 One Elizabethtonian who developed an immediate dislike of Brownlow was Landon Carter Haynes, a fellow Whig who had switched his support to the Democratic Party in 1839.

Brownlow had previously clashed with the Democratic Knoxville Standard, which he called a "filthy lying sheet,"[8] and blasted its editor, A. R. Crozier, as a "miserable mockery of a man.

Knoxville's secessionists cited Brownlow as the source of East Tennessee's pro-Union support, complaining that the Whig was "deluding and poisoning the public mind.

"[5]: 62–63  In hopes of countering this sentiment, the Knoxville Register installed as its editor J. Austin Sperry, a radical secessionist whom Brownlow described as a "scoundrel, debauchee, and coward.

"[12]: 214 In May 1861, the Whig announced it had exposed a forgery conspiracy involving several secessionists attempting to smear Andrew Johnson (with whom Brownlow had formed an uneasy alliance, since they were both pro-Union).

Brownlow pushed this issue for several months, and accused the "corrupt liar, low-down drunkard, irresponsible vagabond, and infamous coward of the Register" of complicity in the matter.

This provoked taunts from Brownlow, who claimed that a paper with such "limited circulation" as the Register could not be called a "competitor" of the Whig, and cited Sperry's "bad morals" as the reason for dignitaries avoiding him.