te circumstance
that Mr. Lincoln's successor was from the South, though a much larger
number in the North found in this fact a source of disquietude. Mr.
Johnson had the manifest disadvantage of not possessing any close or
intimate knowledge of the people of the Loyal States. It was feared
moreover, that his relations with the ruling spirits of the South in
the exciting period preceding the war specially unfitted him for
harmonious co-operation with them in the pending exigencies.

The character and career of Mr. Johnson were anomalous and in many
respects contradictory. By birth he belonged to that large class in
the South known as "poor whites,"--a class scarcely less despised by
the slave-holding aristocracy than were the human chattels themselves.
Born in North Carolina, and bred to the trade of a tailor, he reached
his fifteenth year before he was taught even to read. In his
eighteenth year he migrated to Tennessee, and established himself in
that rich upland region on the eastern border of the State, where by
altitude the same agricultural conditions are developed that
characterize the land which lies several degrees further North.
Specially adapted to the cereals, the grasses, and the fruits
of Southern Pennsylvania and Ohio, East Tennessee could not
employ slave-labor with the profit which it brought in the rich
cotton-fields of the neighboring lowlands, and the result was that
the population contained a large majority of whites.

Owing much to a wise marriage, pursuing his trade with skill and
industry, Johnson gained steadily in knowledge and in influence.
Ambitious, quick to learn, honest, necessarily frugal, he speedily
became a recognized leader of the class to which he belonged.
Before he had attained his majority he was chosen to an important
municipal office, and at twenty-two he was elected mayor of his town.
Thenceforward his promotion was rapid. At twenty-seven he was sent
to the Legislature of his State; and in 1840, when he was in his
thirty-second year, he was nominated for the office of Presidential
elector and canvassed that State in the interest of Mr. Van Buren.
Three years later he was chosen representative in Congress where he
served ten years. He was then nominated for governor, and in the
elections of 1853 and 1855 defeated successively two of the most
popular Whigs in Tennessee, Gustavus A. Henry and Meredith P. Gentry.
In 1857 he was promoted to the Senate of the United States, wh