president andrew johnson 
seventeenth president of the united states
interesting facts
Andrew Johnson faced impeachment by Radicals when he violated the Tenure of Office Act (created by radicals) - he was acquitted by one vote.
quote
I have reached the summit of my ambition" - Andrew Johnson when he heard the news of his election into the Senate - an opinion he held the rest of his life.
biography
Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, N.C., on Dec. 29, 1808. He was the younger son of Jacob Johnson and Mary (Polly) McDonough Johnson. His father died three years after Andrew was born. The family was very poor even after Andrew's mother married again.
Unable to attend school, young Andrew was hired out to a tailor at an early age. He learned the trade but was so unhappy at his job that he refused to serve out his apprenticeship.
In 1826 the Johnsons moved to Tennessee, and Andrew finally settled in Greeneville. The following year he married Eliza McCardle, daughter of a Scottish shoemaker. They had five children--Martha, Charles, Mary, Robert, and Andrew. Eliza was a great help to her husband in improving his reading, writing, and general education.
Meanwhile Johnson had become a successful tailor and an important figure in Greeneville. He was elected a city alderman three times and then mayor. In 1835 he was elected to the state legislature where he served two terms in the House of Representatives and one term in the Senate. Politically, he was a Jacksonian Democrat .
In 1843 Johnson began his first of five consecutive terms in the United States Congress. His most notable achievement there was the introduction of the first homestead bill. This would have cut up Western public lands into many small holdings for the free farmers. Johnson's bill was defeated by Southern representatives.
Johnson was elected governor of Tennessee in 1853 and reelected in 1855. In this position he secured the passage of the first tax in Tennessee to be levied in support of popular education. He also directed the creation of a state board of agriculture.
Throughout his career Johnson championed the cause of the workingman against the interests of the slaveholders. His lack of formal schooling and his homespun qualities were highly popular with his constituency.
In 1857 Johnson became a United States senator from Tennessee. He again tried to enact a homestead law but the measure was vetoed by President Buchanan. (Such a bill was not passed until 1862, after the secession of the slave states.)
When secession came in 1860-61, Johnson attracted the attention of the North by his arguments for the Union. People in the North took note of him because he was the only Southern senator who did not resign and side with his state when it seceded.
In March 1862 President Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of Tennessee. Although Tennessee had seceded in 1861, eastern Tennessee remained loyal to the Union. Johnson set out to restore civil government in Tennessee after the defeat in 1863 of the last remaining Confederate forces holding out there .
In June 1864 the Republicans met in Baltimore, Maryland, and renominated President Lincoln. The convention was known as the National Union Convention to attract the support of the War Democrats. To reward the Southerners who had remained loyal to the Union, Johnson, a War Democrat, was nominated as Lincoln's running mate in place of Vice President Hannibal Hamlin. In November the Lincoln-Johnson slate was elected. On inauguration day, March 4, 1865, Johnson felt weak and sick. He was ill with typhoid fever and had taken some brandy before the ceremony. He made a long, rambling speech, boasting of his rise from humble origins. His friends were embarrassed, and his enemies used the unfortunate incident to label him a ruffian and an alcoholic. However, Lincoln defended Johnson by stating, "I have known Andy Johnson for many years; Andy ain't a drunkard."
Only six weeks after Johnson was sworn in as vice president, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. One of Booth's accomplices, George A. Atzerodt, was supposed to assassinate Johnson on the same night, April 14, 1865, but he failed to carry out his part of the plan.
Johnson was sworn in as president by the chief justice of the United States Salmon P. Chase, on April 15, 1865, a few hours after Lincoln died. The new president immediately announced that he would retain Lincoln's Cabinet. Johnson faced many difficult issues upon becoming president. Although most of them concerned reuniting the country torn apart by war, several international situations also required attention.
Soon after he became president, William H. Seward (Johnson's Secretary of State) in 1867 bought Alaska from Russia for a mere 7.2 million dollars. It was dubbed, by many opposers as "Seward's Folly". Seward, however was convinced that this "folly" would be advantageous to the United States. This soon proved to be true when oil was found in Alaska.
Being president after the Civil War, Johnson was faced with Reconstruction especially on the ruined southern states. Embittered by Lincoln's assassination, Johnson was at first inclined to be vindictive in his treatment of the defeated Confederate leaders, who also represented the privileged class that he hated. In the first month of his administration the president and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton hunted down and imprisoned officials of the Confederacy. "Treason must be made infamous and traitors must be impoverished," President Johnson said. His attitude won him the approval of the militant wing of the Republican Party, called the Radical Republicans.
However, to the chagrin of the Radicals, Johnson soon dropped these punitive activities for more constructive tasks. Basing his program for Reconstruction of the Union on the policy of conciliation developed by Lincoln, Johnson started a process to restore the former Confederate states to full membership in the Union. First, the white residents were to take an oath to uphold the Union. When 10 percent of a state's 1860 voting population had taken the oath, they could elect a state government. When that government wrote a constitution recognizing the end of slavery, it could apply to Congress for the power to once again elect senators and representatives to the U.S. Congress.
The job was simplified by the fact that Johnson, like Lincoln, denied that the states had ever broken away from the Union and by the fact that Congress was adjourned from April to December 1865.
On May 9, 1865, Johnson recognized a Reconstruction government in Virginia. On May 29 he issued two proclamations. One was a proclamation of amnesty, which restored full citizenship to many former Confederates if they would swear allegiance to the Union. The other proclamation dealt with the restoration of civil government in North Carolina. The "loyal" people of the state were to elect delegates to a convention, which was to make constitutional and other changes needed to restore the state to the Union. Johnson issued similar proclamations for other seceded states.
In compliance with Johnson's wishes, the Southern state conventions repealed the ordinances of secession, abolished slavery, and, with the exception of Mississippi, ratified the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits slavery in the United States. The conventions also repudiated state debts contracted during the war.
In line with a suggestion of Lincoln's, Johnson's Reconstruction program included a recommendation that a few highly qualified blacks be given the vote, but none of the Southern states followed his recommendation. Instead, new state laws, known as the Black Codes, limited the civil rights of blacks and placed many economic restrictions on them.
Radical Republicans in Congress moved vigorously to change Johnson's program. They gained the support of northerners who were dismayed to see Southerners keeping many prewar leaders and imposing many prewar restrictions upon Negroes.
The Radicals' first step was to refuse to seat any Senator or Representative from the old Confederacy. Next they passed measures dealing with the former slaves. Johnson vetoed the legislation. The Radicals mustered enough votes in Congress to pass legislation over his veto--the first time that Congress had overridden a President on an important bill. They passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which established Negroes as American citizens and forbade discrimination against them.
A few months later Congress submitted to the states the Fourteenth Amendment, which specified that no state should "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
All the former Confederate States except Tennessee refused to ratify the amendment; further, there were two bloody race riots in the South. Speaking in the Middle West, Johnson faced hostile audiences. The Radical Republicans won an overwhelming victory in Congressional elections that fall.
In March 1867, the Radicals effected their own plan of Reconstruction, again placing southern states under military rule. They passed laws placing restrictions upon the President. When Johnson allegedly violated one of these, the Tenure of Office Act, by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the House voted eleven articles of impeachment against him. He was tried by the Senate in the spring of 1868 and acquitted by one vote.
In 1875, Tennessee returned Johnson to the Senate. He died a few months later.
| events during johnson's administrations 1865-1869 |
cabinet and supreme court of johnson |
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