Уақыттың куәсі: Уиг газеті және Вильям Браунлоудың саяси күресі

The masthead used for the first few issues included the phrase "Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" from the Declaration of Independence, Brownlow despised President Andrew Jackson, calling him the "greatest curse that ever yet befell this nation." 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. Brownlow's anti Catholic sentiment was present in the earliest editions of the Whig, and gradually intensified over the years. 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. Brownlow referred to Catholics as "lousy, sinful, obedient subjects of a foreign Despot," and warned of their encroachment into American government.

In January 1860, Brownlow asked Whig readers to "pray against the wicked leaders of Abolitionism and the equally ungodly advocates of Secessionism," 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. "The honest yeomanry of these border States," he wrote, "whose families live by their hard licks, four fifths of whom own no negroes and never expect to own any, are to be drafted" to fight for the "purse proud aristocrats of the Cotton States." After his marriage in 1839, Brownlow settled in Elizabethton, and began looking for steady income to support his family. T. A. R. Nelson, then a local attorney, suggested Brownlow publish a newspaper to support the Whigs in the upcoming elections. Brownlow formed a partnership with Mason R. Lyon, who had assumed publication of the Republican after Emmerson's death. while Haynes dubbed Brownlow a "wretched abortion of sin" and a "tarnisher of female innocence." In 1842, Haynes attempted to join the Methodist ministry, but was denied due in part to a series of charges levied against him in the Whig. Haynes finally quit the newspaper business in 1845 to focus on his political career. Brownlow refuted Johnson's dismissal, calling him a "base coward and low bred scullion" who was simply hiding from the facts.

By the time he relocated the Whig to Knoxville in May 1849, Brownlow was already well known in the city. Brownlow had previously clashed with the Democratic Knoxville Standard, which he called a "filthy lying sheet," Before he had settled into his new printing office on Gay Street, Brownlow had become embroiled in a war of words with Knoxville Register editor John Miller McKee that lasted until McKee's departure in 1855. Andrew Johnson's political ascent in the mid 1850s was a constant source of frustration for Brownlow. The Whig rehashed claims that Johnson's relatives were criminals, and accused Johnson of being an atheist (Johnson never joined a church, but always insisted he was a Christian). After Johnson was reelected governor in 1855, Brownlow published a prayer in the Whig that begged God to forgive Tennessee for electing an "ungodly Governor."

After Tennessee withdrew from the Union in June 1861, the Confederate Army occupied East Tennessee and arrested several noted Union supporters. Throughout the summer of that year, Brownlow dedicated much of the Whig to defending these Unionists.

After Brownlow was elected Governor of Tennessee in 1865, publication of the Whig was turned over to his son, John Bell Brownlow, although the elder Brownlow continued to write for the paper. As governor, Brownlow used the Whig to issue state proclamations, ignoring a Tennessee law requiring the Secretary of State's signature. As of 2013, the Journal is a weekly paper with both print and online editions.