Early on, Johnson had hoped for the nod as the Democratic nominee for vice-president in 1860. Jones shared this aspiration for his friend, but the schism of their party precluded it. It is interesting to speculate what might have been the chances of a Stephen Douglas-Andrew Johnson ticket in 1860.
Jones cautioned patience and calm when Lincoln was elected, making the plea that Congress and the Courts could block any radical legislation and that Lincoln's positions were not those of a radical.
Johnson risked life and fortune for the Union and Jones-encouraged to stand in the 1861 election for representative in the Confederate Congress-transferred his allegiance from the Union to the Confederacy. Was it just a mere matter of soulless expedience? Was my Mr. Jones an ordinary, amoral political hack taking the easy way? How could a person stand by a belief for a lifetime? In Jones' case, his long-held creed-the Jacksonian theme of "Federal Union Forever"-was a broken thing when he chose the rebel South.
I was trying to sort out his political choices and positions from the sources I had collected, especially from the Johnson papers, and my focus was intent on the material in front of me. I was avoiding the questions of Miss Patc's relationship to Jones, the mystery of two young runaway mulatto slaves, and the questions about Jones' possible homosexuality. It is sometimes best not to ask tough questions about one-on-one relationships. It is less threatening and complicated to wonder about grand political matters and choices than to examine personal sentiments and actions.
***
The afternoon at Bill's was quiet after about 2:30. Only four customers were present. The fry cook and waitress were counting out the tip jar, the weather channel on the TV continued its steady drone of "more rain, maybe," and I was scribbling notes and trying to divine George Washington Jones' place in the turmoil of national politics in the 1850's. The early part of that decade was a time of political quiet and prosperity. The Compromise of 1850 had seemingly calmed the agitation over slavery. Business and agriculture were thriving. It was the great quiet before the mean, ruthless turmoil. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by Congress May 30, 1854. With its enactment came bloody Kansas. The ideal of 'Popular Sovereignty'-corrupted by strident partisanship and violent meddling by determined zealots from both the North and South-begat a small fierce civil war across the plains of Kansas. There was a crippling economic crisis in the wake of 'Bleeding Kansas' in 1857. Kansas was the brush fire that would grow into a national inferno. No one escaped its terrifying effects.