While he had acquired a rudimentary knowledge of the three “R’s” in Raleigh, he was far behind his girl wife in education. As she came of prudent Scotch ancestry and was a schoolteacher, she set to work to encourage and instruct her young husband. He studied while he plied his needle, and she taught to help the finances of the little home until her babies absorbed all of her time. Thus, together, they budded the foundation of his later career. The more he read and studied, the more public service and politics attracted him. To become a speaker, he joined a debating society and tramped eight miles regularly each week to listen and participate. To lose no opportunity for absorbing information, he hired a schoolboy for fifty cents a day to read to him while he worked at his bench. Financial success awarded his steady industry as a tailor and political honours his determined self-development. From town commissioner to the White House, he fought his way through defeat and victory in a continual succession of elective offices. His ambition carried him through the State Legislature, through both houses of the United States Congress, through the governorship to the vice presidency, while accident sent him into the White House. During the war, he was the most conspicuous figure in official life--a United States Senator from a seceded state, standing with President Lincoln against his own constituency. He threw himself into the fight against the ordinance of Secession passed by the Tennessee Legislature and toured his state, making powerful speeches for the Union. This trip proved the most exciting and dangerous of all his experiences. His life was in constant danger, and he was insulted and threatened in various places, and was repeatedly hanged or burned in effigy as a traitor to the South. Antipathy to his policies and hatred of his acts ran so high that, before appearing to make one address, he was warned that he would be shot upon his appearance on the platform. Upon arriving at the hall, he marched to the platform, faced the audience calmly, and, looking over the assembly, leisurely pulled a revolver from his pocket, remarking crisply, “Before I begin my speech, there is another matter that needs to be attended to. Threats have been made that if I appeared here to-night I would be shot. Now, if any man has any shooting to do, let him begin.” He looked about a bit, and, seeing no move, continued: “I have been misinformed and will now proceed to address you on the issues which have called us together.” His subsequent remarks must have been convincing, as was the case wherever he spoke, for his efforts won the citizens as supporters of the Union cause, and East Tennessee not only voted against the act of Secession but refused to be governed by it.