Thomas Dickens Arnold - 1840 Election and 2nd Congressional Term

1840 Election and 2nd Congressional Term

In 1840, Arnold was named the 1st district's elector for presidential candidate William Henry Harrison. In this role, Arnold canvassed relentlessly, confronting any Democratic speaker who ventured into the district, and following them from campaign stop to campaign stop until they left.

At a stop in Greeneville, Arnold, wearing a bizarre nankeen suit with blue, yellow and white stripes, debated an elegantly-dressed Felix Grundy. Arnold continuously interrupted Grundy's speech, prompting Grundy to quip, "you are the noisiest man I ever met." Arnold followed Grundy's entourage to Rogersville, where Grundy spoke at the courthouse the following day. Still wearing the nankeen suit, which had been soaked and ruined by rain the night before, Arnold burst into the courthouse and shouted, "Here I am again!" After being denied entry, he led Whig supporters in a noisy sing-along until the Democratic crowd dispersed and Grundy hurried to the next stop.

Fueled by the regional fame he had acquired as an elector, Arnold again sought the 1st district seat in 1841. In April of that year, he engaged in a war of words with local Whig attorney, T.A.R. Nelson, who was irritated that Arnold had ignored the rules laid out at the local party convention when declaring his candidacy. After the two attacked each other in respective editorials, Arnold circulated a 48-page pamphlet in which he accused Nelson of trying to split the party, and went so far as to make fun of Nelson's limp. In a May 1841 editorial, Nelson wrote of Arnold, "I feel constrained to publish him as a liar, a scoundrel and a Coward."

In spite of his feud with Nelson, Arnold easily won the election in 1841. Like many of his fellow Whigs in Congress, he grew increasingly frustrated with President John Tyler, who had run with Harrison on the Whig ticket, but was proving hostile to many of the party's core initiatives. Following Tyler's veto of a Henry Clay bill calling for the establishment of new national bank, Arnold dismissed Tyler as an "unfortunate miserable wretch." In 1842, Arnold came to the defense of John Quincy Adams when Congressman Henry A. Wise accused Adams of conspiring with the British to break up the United States.

After the state legislature again redrew his district, Arnold, realizing had little chance of being reelected, declined to run in 1843.