t not
only for his schooling, but for his board. His patience and his untiring
industry enabled him to make such rapid progress that within two years
he had fitted himself to enter an advanced class in college. But the
lack of means prevented him from entering college. Instead he returned
to Georgia and opened a school at Canton, Cherokee County. He opened
this school with six pupils, and the number rapidly increased to sixty,
so that he was able in a short time to settle the debts he had made
in Carolina. He taught school all day, and at night and on Saturdays
devoted himself to the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1845,
and was at once successful. He made no pretense of oratory; but his
simple and unpretending style, his homely and direct way of putting
a case, and his faculty of applying the test of common sense to all
questions, were as successful with juries as they afterwards proved to
be with the people; and before the people he was irresistible.

[Illustration: Joe Brown and his Steers 270]

But he was not yet through with his studies. A friend advanced him
the money necessary to enter the Law School of Yale; and there, from
October, 1845, to June, 1846, when he graduated, he took the lead in all
his classes, and had time to attend lectures in other departments of
the college. He returned home, began active practice, and was soon
prosperous. He became a State senator, and was afterwards made a judge
of the superior courts.

When the Democratic Convention met in Milledgeville in 1857, for the
purpose of nominating a candidate for governor, it had so many popular
candidates to choose from, and these candidates had so many and such
strong friends, that the members found it impossible to agree on a
man. A great many ballots were taken, and there was a good deal of
"log-rolling" and "buttonholing," as the politicians call it, on behalf
of the various candidates by their special friends. But all this did no
good. There was a deadlock. No one of the candidates was able to obtain
a two-thirds majority, which, according to Democratic law, was the
number necessary to a nomination. Twenty-one ballots had been taken with
no result, and the convention had been in session three days. Finally
it was decided to appoint a special committee made up of three delegates
from each congressional district. It was the duty of this committee to
name a candidate on whom the convention could agree. When this committee
retired