of his future which, when his youth, small opportunity of observation, and want of schooling are remembered, are very wonderful. He gave this family, who were not well-to-do, to understand he would not accept a limited and makeshift education. Naturally they asked what sort did he mean, and he answered, "The best school, college, and legal education to be had in the United States."[43] Then they asked, How long did he think all this would take, and he promptly answered seven years. To the average reader it seems that the time necessary to carry this unschooled lad through the course he proposed had been egregiously underestimated by him; but to the family, as they thought of the appertaining annual expenses, it must have looked very long. They had to give in. That irrefragable influence over his people which showed itself as soon as he came upon the public stage begins here. Some one long afterwards said of him, that if he could but talk with every man he would always have the whole United States on his side. It is more than probable that in the five years after he had left Waddell's school he had, in plantation management and other interests of the family, convinced them that he always acted or advised wisely. Another comment is in place here. Study of the record of his early life convinces you that very soon after, if not before, the commencement of his legal studies, he decided to make law only a stepping-stone by which to enter public life and also acquire the means to plant. I cannot help inferring that this was--somewhat vaguely it may be--his intention already formed when he dictated terms to the family as just told. It is not at all impossible that to him who afterwards astonished the world by the sureness of his prophecy there had even then been revealed the career awaiting; and so he resolved to get ready for college in two years, and pass the rest of the seven where, besides competent instructors, he would have cultivated society, libraries, and the best of opportunities to qualify himself for public life. Be our conjecture true or not, in two years after he had opened his Latin grammar he entered the junior class at Yale, and two years later he graduated with credit. After reading law in an office he took a year's course at the Litchfield law school in Connecticut, and then he went into an office again for a while. Some time in June, 1807, he hung out his shingle at Abbeville Court-house, as it was called up to the time of reconstruction. A few days afterwards in that month occurred the attack on the Chesapeake, and when the news came it caused a public meeting in the town. Some good report of him must have been bruited about in the community in advance of his coming. It is almost certain that his education had greatly developed those powers of conversation mentioned above, and that many listeners had greatly approved his views of the outrage, and the patriotic indignation he uttered over it. It is not