ing his
plow in the half-finished furrow, taking his only horse and converting
him into a war-steed: his scythe and sickle would be thrown aside, and
with a heart full of valor and patriotism he would rush with alacrity
to the standard of his country."

Such appeals for popular support subjected Johnson to the imputation of
demagogism, and earned for him the growing hatred of that dangerous
class of men in the South who placed the safety of the institution of
slavery above the interest and the welfare of the white laborer. But
if he was a demagogue, he was always a brave one. In his early
political life, when the mere nod of President Jackson was an edict in
Tennessee, Johnson did not hesitate to espouse the cause of Hugh L.
White when he was a candidate for the Presidency in 1836, nor did he
fear to ally himself with John Bell in the famous controversy with
Jackson's _protege_, James K. Polk, in the fierce political struggle of
1834-5. Though he returned to the ranks of the regular Democracy in
the contest between Harrison and Van Buren, he was bold enough in 1842
to propose in the Legislature of Tennessee that the apportionment of
political power should be made upon the basis of the white population
of the State. He saw and keenly felt that a few white men in the
cotton section of the State, owning many slaves, were usurping the
power and trampling upon the rights of his own constituency, among
whom slaves were few in number and white men numerous. Those who
are familiar with the savage intolerance which prevailed among the
slave-holders can justly measure the degree of moral and physical
courage required in any man who would assail their power at a vital
point in the framework of a government specially and skilfully devised
for their protection.

In all the threats of disunion, in all the plotting and planning for
secession which absorbed Southern thought and action between the years
1854 and 1861, Mr. Johnson took no part. He had been absent from
Congress during the exciting period when the Missouri Compromise was
overthrown; and though, after his return in 1857, he co-operated
generally in the measures deemed essential for Southern interests, he
steadily declared that a consistent adherence to the Constitution was
the one and the only remedy for all the alleged grievances of the
slave-holders. It was natural therefore, that when the decisive hour
came, and the rash men of the South determined to break up t