With these qualities, he builded his own career, a sturdy structure of achievement of which his posterity may be proud and to which a nation now pays a measure of tardy tribute. Throughout his entire life, Johnson conducted a personal defense of the Constitution of the United States, which he treasured as his Bible, a much-worn copy never being absent from his pocket. However, though staunch and unswerving in his loyalty to his country, his perspective was narrowed by his own stubbornness, and his vision limited by his passion for detail. In unwavering patriotism and firm devotion to the Union, he may be compared with Abraham Lincoln, and in the measure of his martyrdom, he falls not far behind that great emancipator. President Lincoln lived long enough to see his gigantic struggle crowned with success, to hear the wild enthusiasm over Northern victory, and to feel the first great relief in the dawn of peace. His death, the deed of a crazed actor, enshrined him forever in American hearts. Not even a small measure of any satisfaction or acclaim came to Andrew Johnson. He had turned his back on his native southland, upon his constituents, and had led his own state back into the Union in the face of every possible personal risk and sacrifice. With notable courage, he had taken his stand at the side of Abraham Lincoln in every crisis through the war, with a price upon his head and a curse for him in the hearts of all of the Confederacy. When he found himself in the midst of the delegation that came to wait upon him with the news of the death of his chief and to witness his taking the oath that placed the sceptre of a great office in his hands, he plainly and emphatically avowed his purpose to carry out President Lincoln’s often-expressed policies toward the defeated Southern States. With the purest, best intentions in the world, he attempted to do this, but because he lacked the calm patience and ability to hold himself impervious to personal slander and abuse, he was denied the satisfaction that came to Abraham Lincoln before tragedy brought oblivion. Andrew Johnson found himself put through indignities and subjected to affronts such as no other President has ever been called upon to meet. His official family withheld their support and deserted him, he was stripped officially of his prerogatives, was accused of treason and of complicity in the murder of his chief, and, finally, was haled before a Court of Impeachment, thereby providing a spectacle for the public during which he was required to defend every word and act of his public career. Attacked and ridiculed by the press, he was, at last, forced to stand before the world a leader chosen for his policies when a national exigency needed him, yet repudiated a few months later because of those same policies.