Johnson consistently delivered speech after stump speech in praise of “the people,” those unsung (white) laborers who struggled to survive every day and who could not parade “family distinctions on account of superior blood.” “The aristocracy in this district know that I am for the people,” Johnson proudly announced in 1845 when defending his seat in the House of Representatives. To him, the aristocracy was any well-born or connected group, like lawyers, that earned their bread “by fatiguing their ingenuity” rather than by the sweat of their brows.
