[2] After working several months as a farm hand, Long decided to enhance his rudimentary education at a nearby academy.

After graduating, Long became a teacher in the rural schools of Green township, Hamilton County, where he taught for eight years between 1840 and 1848.

[11] After serving two years as a "free-soiler" Democrat[4] in the Ohio State House of Representatives (1848–1850), Long moved to Cincinnati, where he began an active and lucrative law practice in January, 1851.

[1][2] Long is best known for his opposition to the Civil War and being in favor of independence for the Confederacy on the basis of "states' rights".

[13][14][15] In a speech he made in Congress on April 8, 1864, Long expressed his anti-war views, and he championed the "states' rights" arguments proffered by Vice President Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in their The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798.

An unconstitutional war can only be carried on in an unconstitutional manner, and to prosecute it further under the idea of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens], as a war waged against the Confederate States as an independent nation, for the purpose of conquest and subjugation, as he proposes, and the Administration is in truth and in fact doing, I am equally opposed.

[6][20] Long ran against fellow Democratic candidate General George W. Morgan and "Unionist" (Republican) Jacob D.

[1][6] Nevertheless, Long remained active in politics and served as a delegate, or in other capacities, to the Democratic National Conventions in 1864, 1868, 1872, and 1876.

[27] Both men could champion the principle of universal suffrage sought by Northerners while acquiescing to the very real possibility that the South would continue to disenfranchise blacks with state laws.