Andrew Johnson

In the twenties, when Johnson moved to Greeneville, there was living in the neighboring city of Knoxville a man of such a stern sense of duty, so unaffected and ruggedly honest, he was known as "The Cato of America." And he too, like Jackson and Johnson, was a native of North Carolina. Hugh Lawson White was a very strong character. In fact, he was Andrew Jackson's right-hand man for a while, and Andrew Johnson's ideal. Aristocratic, tall, spare and dignified, with long, flowing curly locks and a benign countenance, Judge White was yet simplicity itself, and the most approachable of men. Later he was a candidate for President against Martin Van Buren.

Sometimes a law student would call at Judge White's home to be examined for license to practice law, and the judge would be away, perhaps in the cornfield plowing. Up and down the rows he would go, swinging to the wobbly plow handles and guiding "Old Dobbin" at the same time. Presently, at the end of a row he would look up, wipe the sweat from his eyes, and discover the applicant for license. "Just follow along behind me, my son," he would quietly remark, slapping his horse with the reins. On they would go, judge and student, discussing Coke and Blackstone and the Rule in Shelley's Case, and plowing the corn as they went. After an hour or so, the judge would knock off work, go back to his office, and announce the result of the examination. Of course such a thoroughgoing individual was a man after Andrew Johnson's own heart; and when the judge and Jackson "broke," Johnson wavered in his support, leaning, however, to the Cato of the plow handles, in fact, supporting him for President in 1836. But this period of disloyalty was short, and soon after entering politics Andrew Johnson became a Democrat of the Jackson kind, not a Democrat in the party sense but a universal Democrat, looking to democracy to cure all the evils of life.

The Johnson manuscripts in the Congressional Library, good, bad and indifferent, number more than twenty thousand. One day, when I was turning over the pages of this uncensored collection, I was struck with the frequent comparison writers made between Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson. Time and again I discovered letters to Johnson with such expressions as these: "You are a second Andrew Jackson." ... "You are a man, every inch of you, standing in the shoes of 'Old Hickory.'" Occasionally I would come across a letter reminding Johnson that he was "trying to ape Andrew Jackson but cannot make the grade." Now outside of Tennessee this comparison was not instituted until Johnson had become a national figure. In Tennessee, however, the resemblance to Jackson was frequently commented on, almost as soon as Johnson entered public life. Externally, of course, no two men were more unlike, Jackson being a rollicking fellow, fond of horse-racing and cock-fighting, and more fond of sports than books; Johnson, caring nothing for sports, too serious minded, and always plugging away at some problem of government.

The trait, however, that was common to both men was courage, bull-dog tenacity, the will to do or die, and the corresponding virtue of being able to take punishment without flinching. Each man also was peculiar in another respect: though he stood for the State and for States' rights to the fullest extent, he managed to place the Union above the State, and had no patience with dis-Union, whether under the guise of Nullification or Secession. Just about the time Jackson was sworn in for the first time as President, Johnson was sworn in as an Alderman of Greeneville. Some months later a great "Jefferson Day" dinner was celebrated in Washington City and Andy Johnson read the toast Andrew Jackson delivered on that famous April 13, 1830. The air was full of Nullification, and the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which seemed to sanction a voluntary and peaceful separation of the States, were discussed on every street corner.