Battle for the Ballots: The McMinn County War aka The Battle of Athens

With our National Election tomorrow, and all the reports of rigged votes, voter fraud and non-citizens casting illegal votes, here is the story of an interesting event in Southern Appalachian history from 1946.

I personally admire this small group of Vets who took back their county from a group of crooked politicians, using their 2nd Amendment rights.

 Battle for the Ballots: The McMinn County War
"On the night of August 1st, 1946, and into the early morning hours of the following day, a battle took place between the agents of corrupt politicians in McMinn County, Tennessee, and a band of World War II veterans, who took up arms in order to ensure that on the day of the local elections “every vote was counted as cast.”

McMinn County was the territory of a political machine run by Paul Cantrell. Throughout the late 1930's and early 1940's, Cantrell had served three terms as sheriff, rigging elections to ensure his continued reappointment. Over the course of a decade, Cantrell and his henchmen had collected over $300,000 in county expenses. By 1945, Cantrell was serving as a state senator, and had established his crony, Pat Mansfield, as sheriff. In McMinn County, Mansfield and his deputies had complete control of everything. As one resident reported, "you couldn’t even get hired as a schoolteacher without their okay."

Read more here:  Battle for the Ballots


Here are some more links pertaining to this historical story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)

http://www.constitution.org/mil/tn/batathen.htm

http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/tnrevolt.shtml

 God Bless America......

Hat Tip to Janet Crain