together by the several political leaders remaining on the field when General Jackson retired to the Hermitage. Lincoln, in Illinois, already becoming fairly well defined as a Whig, supported Hugh L. White for President in 1836, while enthusiastically advocating bank charters, new railroads, improved rivers, and other projects created by the mania for swift progress. Johnson, in Tennessee, without for one moment ceasing to be a Democrat or having a thought of becoming a Whig, opposed the election of Martin Van Buren, advocated that of Hugh L. White, and denounced the public improvement craze in all its phases. He was so unsparing in his war upon the schemes and dreams of the "flush times" that his own constituency took offence. He came before them for a second election in 1837, but the lesson of the great panic had not yet been learned in East Tennessee, and he was defeated for his rashness in predicting it. The men whose fancied prosperity was disappearing like mist hated the other man who said "I told you so," and he was left at home. Another point against him had been his support of John Bell against James K. Polk, but the former drifted into the Whig Party and the latter had, in later days, no warmer political or personal friend than Andrew Johnson. The Southern Democratic dissatisfaction with Martin Van Buren did not prevent his nomination for a second term in 1840, but it sullenly prevented his election. Andrew Johnson's party relations as well as his acknowledged rank were marked in that year by his nomination as a Presidential elector on the Van Buren ticket,

and he greatly increased his reputation in a prolonged and energetic tour of stump speaking; but the votes of the State could not be obtained by the Democratic Party with a candidate whom it distrusted.

One result of Mr. Johnson's labor for his party in the Presidential campaign was his nomination and election in the next year, 1841, to represent the counties of Greene and Hawkins in the State Senate. In this body he acted with his party, and was one of what were called "the immortal thirteen," who rebelliously prevented the election of a Whig United States Senator by refusing to go into a joint convention of the two legislative houses required for that purpose. This was extreme partisanship, but at the same time he assumed and maintained a position peculiar to himself by introducing and advocating a measure changing the basis of popular representation. This, by the existing law, was modelled upon the plan set forth in the Constitution of the United States, and slaves were represented through their masters. Johnson was no abolitionist. He avowed himself a stanch supporter of the institution of slavery, but demanded that only the white population should be represented. Of course he failed, but the war between him and the privileged classes went on with undiminished bitterness. His course in the State Senate prepared the way for his nomination and election to Congress in 1843 over John A. Asken, a Democrat who favored a United States Bank, and was therefore supported by the Whigs of his district.

Proud as was Mrs. Eliza Johnson of her husband and of the career which owed so much to her, his political successes had compelled her to make many sacrifices. Narrowness of pecuniary circumstances and the care of her young family had compelled her to remain at home in Greenville during his repeated absences in attendance upon his legislative duties. She was now to send him away farther and for a longer time; she was almost to give him up to the public service. He left her and went to Washington, to obtain ideas concerning men and things under conditions differing widely from those of Tennessee. His life thus far had been passed within a narrow area, and, although he had expanded wonderfully since he first listened to readings from “The United States Speaker," he had grown within plainly discernible boundary lines. If, however, he was almost fanatically a Jackson Democrat of the old school, he had imbibed all the intensity of the general's unflinching devotion to the Union.

The first speech made by Mr. Johnson, shortly after taking his seat, was in behalf of a bill for the reimbursement to General Jackson of the judicial fine imposed upon him, for contempt of court, at New Orleans in 1815. In the successive sessions of that Congress Mr. Johnson was a consistent supporter of the Texas annexation policy adopted by his party, and he did good service in the Presidential campaign of 1844 which resulted in the election of James K. Polk and opened the way for the war with Mexico, the Wilmot Proviso, and all the great events which were to follow. His support of the

Polk administration was unvarying, with the single important exception of the Oregon boundary dispute with Great Britain, for Mr. Johnson was one of the few Southern members who to the last refused to surrender the claimed line of 54° 40'.

During much of Mr. Polk's term Mr. Johnson's daughter Martha, afterward Mrs. Patterson, was at a boarding school in Georgetown, D. C. She was a bright and attractive young lady, and became a frequent guest at the White House, little dreaming of the marvellous course of events which would one day make her the mistress of its hospitalities.

At the assembling of Congress in December, 1846, the chair long occupied by John Quincy Adams passed, by the usual lot and selection, to Andrew Johnson, its former occupant being prostrated by illness from which he was not expected to recover. On February 16th, 1847, Mr. Adams returned, as if from a closed history, and the House, as one man, arose to do him honor. Mr. Johnson at once addressed the house, and very gracefully and cordially tendered to the venerable statesman his accustomed seat, to which he was at once reverently conducted, and in which, a few days later, the last messenger found him.

CHAPTER II.

The Polk Administration-Annexation-Free Homes for Settlers-Lincoln and Johnson in the Same Congress-The Compromises of 1850-Twice Governor of Tennessee-The Kansas-Nebraska BillSenator of the United States-The Homestead Bill Uncompromising Unionism-An Incident in the

Senate.

ANDREW JOHNSON was again sent to Congress by his constituents in 1845. He was an ardent supporter of the Polk administration, but he was not regarded as one of the leaders of his party upon the floor of the House of Representatives.

Abler men than he bore the burden of the interminable debates, in which the Whig orators denounced the annexation of Texas and its accompanying measures as a gigantic scheme of land piracy. Not many of them were as yet quite ready to denounce it equally as a plan for the extension of slavery, but Mr. Adams, of Massachusetts, and a few others said all that seemed to be needful to make that matter plain.

Mr. Johnson was a hard-working Congressman, regularly attentive to his duties, and ready at any time to make himself heard in defence of the policy and measures of the Administration, or in opposition to any proposed appropriation for internal improve