The Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1859-1865, 1864-09-22
LincOIn-JOhnsOn.

its own convenience. Their early educa-
ton was such as it accords to the child
| rem of this class. Hence, Lincoln obtain
ed most of his scanty schooling not only
| long after his removal into a Free State,
but after he had reached the full stature
of manhood, and was enabled to earn and
plan for himself while johnson never had
any schooling at all, and learned to read
from his wife after his removal from his
| native North Carolina into almost free
East Tennessee.
Neither of them could ever have been
chosen even to the Legislature in an es-
sentially slaveholding community, no mat
ter how thorough their subserviency to
'the institution" The. brand of Poverty
and Labor on their brows would have fixed
them forever in the humble station of
their progenitors. They surmounted the
influence of Slavery by taking position
outside of its moro palpable domain.
To maintain that such men lack ability
or force of character is to hold that repub-
lies are ruled by idiots. Abraham Lincoln
entered Illinois a portionless, illiterate boy,
earning the livelihood of his widowed
mothers family by the rudest and hardest
manual labor, and, within twenty years
thereafter, had become one of her foremost
lawyers and the acknowledged leader of
the more intellectual of her two great po-
litical parties-conspicuous in her Legis-
lature, her only Wing Member of Con-
gress, Whig candidate for Senatorial
Elector, U. S. Senator, Vice President,
and. ultimately for President. All these
positions were accorded to him without
contest or hesitation When the great
political struggles of 1910 and 1914 were
made, none other than he was suggested
to lead in the canvass. When, for the
first time, his political friends had ma
jority in the Illinois Legislature, no other
was thought of by the mass of them for
y. ). Senator, though it was finally found
necessary, In order to secure the requisite
anti-Nebraska Democratic votes, to with
draw him and substitute another. AT
Philadelphia, In 1856, his name, and only
his, was presented for Vice President by
the delegation from Illinois !; and when
candidate was to be pitted against Doug
las for the Senatorial canvas of 1858, no
other name was even suggested than that
of Abraham Lincoln. SO in 1860, there
State should furnish tie Republican NOM
inee for President but no one ever sug-
gested that among the eminent and hon
ored Republicans of Illinois there was an
other possible candidate than Lincoln.
Andrew johnson entered Tennessee an
illiterate tailor youth, poor as Lazarus in
all but hope and ambition, without rela-
tive or friend who could help him to
corporalsh;p in the smallest company of
"hoodwood" militia. A few years later
he was Member to Assembly next we
hear from him liz Congress then Govern
or of his closely balanced State after
spirited canvass for Tennessee was then
eponderently Whig State, and her
Wings always ran for Governor one of
their atlest and cleverest debaters. John
son had always been very ardent ar d ac-
tive Democrat, and had made himself wide
ly obnoxious to his political adversaries.
His birth and breeding were matters of
common notoriety, and the cultivated ar
istocracy of Nashville and the surrounding
region were nor at all inclined to be ruled
by the ex-journeyman tailor of Jonesbor-
ough. They could not help themselves,
however: and johnson, after serving
his term as Governor, was chosen to the
United States Senate, where he made
good his position against the ablest and
proudest in the land. Probably no other
Senator had enjoyed so scant opportunities
for intellectual culture but the debates,
in which he freely mingled, give no sign
of this. In the absence of that education
ofthe schools, which he would gladly have
enjoyed and improved, he had his full
share of the rugged discipline of poverty
and privation, and was thoroughly trained
In the keen encounters of an active, ardu-
Gus public career. Doubtless, he feels
and regrets the deficiencies of his early
culture ; but who will say that he has not
nobly supplied them?
Mr.. johnson, as leading Southern
Democrat, and supporter of Breckin-
ridge for the Presidency, saw the Slave
holders Rebellion take form and body
under his immediate observation He
knows it 'egg and bird"-its impulses,
ideas and aspirations. Nearly every other
prominent Democrat of his State and sec
tion was driven into its tolls; he never
it for moment nor regard
ed it with the least allowance. He knew
IL to be as hostile to the class from which
he sprung in the South as to the "mud-
sills' at the North, and he ''stood by his
order" like any British Peer. He ex-
posed the hollowness Of its pretexts, the
of its aims, in the presence of
it's contrivers, before they had imbrued
their hands in blood He warned the