1865 Tennessee gubernatorial election

The 1865 Tennessee gubernatorial election was held on March 4, 1865, to elect the next governor of Tennessee. The Unconditional Union candidate Parson Brownlow was elected virtually without opposition.^[1]

Incumbent Democratic governor Andrew Johnson was appointed by Abraham Lincoln on March 12, 1862, as a military governor. Johnson's Unionist government emerged following a series of Union military victories that reclaimed most of Tennessee.^[2] Johnson was subsequently elected vice president on the National Union ticket, succeeding Lincoln's first vice president, Hannibal Hamlin.^[3] He appointed Edward H. East to serve as acting governor between his inauguration as vice president on March 4, 1865 and the scheduled inauguration of the elected governor.^[4]

Delegates of the Unconditional Union Party nominated Brownlow for governor during their convention in Nashville on January 14, 1865. Johnson's Ironclad Oath had effectively disenfranchised pro-Confederate citizens, and other potential Unionists candidates declined to challenge Brownlow.^[5]

Brownlow faced only token opposition in the general election, receiving all but 35 votes out of more than 23,000 cast.^[6] The number of votes cast met the threshold established under the ten percent plan, which allowed states of the former Confederacy to form new civilian governments when the number of loyal citizens, defined as those who would swear an oath of loyalty to the national government, equalled or exceeded 10 percent of those who had voted in that state in the 1860 United States presidential election.^[7] Tennessee was thus readmitted to representation in the United States Congress in 1866 without having to undergo Congressional Reconstruction.^[8]