"Eric Flint - TOG 02 - 1824, The Arkansas War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

As the two shook hands, Houston took a moment to size up the senatorтАЩs appearance. It wasтАж

Even more sloppy and eccentric than usual. The clothing itself simply consisted of the plain and
unassuming garments that Johnson had always worn, which were part of his appeal to KentuckyтАЩs poor
farmers and the workingmen of the nationтАЩs northeastern states. Nothing peculiar, in and of itselfтАФexcept
for the fact that the man who wore that humble apparel came from one of KentuckyтАЩs premier families
and was himself one of the stateтАЩs largest landowners. One of its largest slave-owners, too.

No, it was the rest of it. His hair was disheveled, his cravat was askewтАФonly half tied, at thatтАФand his
boots had long since abandoned the status of тАЬhumbleтАЭ and were pretty well past the stage of тАЬworn
down.тАЭ Give them another few months, and theyтАЩd be able to proudly claim holes in the soles and heels
that were nothing but memories.

The face, though, was the same. Johnson was a plain-looking man and always had been. Unassuming, in
both his appearance and his manner. If you didnтАЩt know better, youтАЩd find it hard to reconcile the man
himself with his flamboyant reputation.

Flamboyant it was, too, even by the standards of the frontier. The Great Hero whoтАЩd personally shot
Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames after suffering terrible wounds himself in the battleтАФso the story
went, anyway, and Johnson had never done anything to detract from itтАФwas also the Great
Almagamator. The disreputable fellow from Great CrossingтАФa United States senator, to boot!тАФwho
lived in an open state of quasi-marriage with a mulatto and who persisted in treating his quadroon
daughters as if they belonged in proper society. Even took them in his own carriage to church on a
Sunday!

Andrew Jackson had shown Sam some of the letters heтАЩd gotten from outraged gentility in Kentucky
and Tennessee, demanding that the general disavow his political ties to Johnson.

тАЬThey can takethat to Sam Hill,тАЭ Jackson had growled, tossing the letters back into a drawer of his
desk. He even lapsed into blasphemy for a moment. тАЬIтАЩll be damned if I will. JohnsonтАЩs as stalwart as
they make тАЩem, even if he is a blasted race-mixer.тАЭ

Fortunately for Johnson, most of his own constituents felt much the same way about the matter.
Whatever they felt personally about his notorious relationship with Julia Chinn, they overlooked it in favor
of the rest.

Not the gentility, of course. During the six consecutive terms Johnson had served as one of KentuckyтАЩs
members in the U.S. House of Representatives, most of the stateтАЩs wealthy slave-owners had been
indifferent to his personal habits. He didnтАЩt representthem, after all, for the most part. The
scandalmongering with regard to Julia and the girls hadnтАЩt really started until John J. Crittenden resigned
from the Senate in 1819 and Johnson was appointed to fill out CrittendenтАЩs term of office. A
congressman was one thing; a senator, another.

But most of KentuckyтАЩs citizens were neither wealthy nor slave-owners. So far as they were concerned,
JohnsonтАЩs family arrangements were his own business. What mattered was all the rest: the fact that he
was a genuine war hero; the fact that he was politically allied with Andrew JacksonтАЩs wing of the
Democratic-Republican Party; most of all, the fact that Johnson had led the fight to get debt
imprisonment abolished in Kentucky and was striving to do the same thing on a national level.

And, besides, everyother personal habit of JohnsonтАЩs led poor settlers on the frontier to favor him. Both