 In August 1845, Johnson headed the Committee of Sixty that seized abolitionist Cassius M. Clay's printing press and shipped it to Cincinnati, Ohio.Although he supported John C. Breckinridge for president in 1860, he did not feel that Abraham Lincoln's election justified secession, since Republicans controlled neither Congress nor the Supreme Court.As the Confederate States of America were formed, however, Johnson began to lose hope for Kentucky as a part of the Union.