details of the campaign in
which both were interested. It must have been an interesting meeting. It
was as if Prince Charlie and Cromwell had met to arrange a campaign.
It was a meeting between Puritan and Cavalier. Toombs was full-blooded,
hotheaded, impetuous, imperious. Joe Brown was pale, angular, awkward,
cold, and determined. It was as if in a new land the old issues had been
buried. Toombs was a man of the people, but in his own way, and it was
a princely and a dashing way. Brown was a man of the people, but in
the people's way; and it was a cold, calculating, determined, and
common-sense way. Howell Cobb had written to Toombs to go to the aid of
Brown, expressing a fear that the nominee, being a new and an untried
man, would not be able to hold his own against Ben Hill, who was the
candidate of the American or Know-nothing party for governor. So the
dashing and gallant senator sought out the new and unknown Democratic
candidate for governor, and had a conference with him. Toombs found the
young man strangely cold and placid, and yet full of the determination
that martyrs are made of. He found that Joe Brown had already mapped
out and arranged the plans for his campaign, and the more experienced
politicians saw nothing to change in them. They were marked by
shrewdness and sagacity, and covered every detail of party organization.
This was satisfactory; but how could the young man sustain himself on
the stump against such a speaker as Ben Hill, who, although a young
man, was a speaker of great force and power? Toombs thought it would be
better to meet Hill himself, and he started out with that purpose;
but when he heard Joe Brown make two or three speeches, and saw the
tremendous effect he produced on the minds of the audiences that
assembled to hear him, the older campaigner went home, satisfied that
young Brown needed no instruction and no coaching in the difficult art
of influencing the people and winning their votes.

The personal history and career of Joseph E. Brown should be studied by
every ambitious boy in the land, especially by those who imagine they
cannot succeed because they lack opportunities that money and friends
would obtain for them. From 1857 to the close of the war, and after,
the political history of Joe Brown is the history of the State; but that
history, attractive as it is, is not so interesting as his struggle
to make a name for himself in the world. Joseph E. Brown was born in
Pickens Co