Harney was orphaned at an early age, leaving him in dire economic circumstances that forced him to educate himself instead of attending school.
At the age of seventeen, he successfully solved a problem on one of their surveying expeditions which attracted so much attention that he was soon made principal of an academy in Paris, Kentucky.
After saving up money from his teaching position, Harney was able to purchase a scholarship to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he graduated in 1827 with a degree in belles lettres and theology.
Beyond his legislative agenda during the war, Harney used his newspaper to protest arbitrary arrest and deportation of Kentucky residents by Federal authorities.
But, in 1868, he did oppose the nomination of any former Confederates for high office on the grounds it might provoke arbitrary arrests by Federal officials still operating in Kentucky.