 He graduated from Franklin College at the University of Georgia in Athens where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society.He then graduated from Yale College in 1837, where he was a member of Skull and Bones, and from the Dane Law School at Harvard University in 1839.He was admitted to the bar in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1839 and began the practice of law in Talbotton, Georgia, in 1840.