ANDREW JOHNSON

THE 17TH PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(1865-1869)

JOHNSON, Andrew (1808–75), 16th vice-president (1865) and 17th president of the U.S. (1865– 69). Johnson was born on Dec. 29, 1808, in Raleigh, N.C., the son of poor servants at an inn. After the death of his father, Johnson’s mother remarried, and in 1822 she apprenticed him to a tailor. Two years later he ran away from his employer, who advertised for his recapture. Returning to Raleigh, Johnson decided to move to Tennessee, finally settling in Greeneville in 1827. He established a tailor shop and married Eliza McCardle (1810–76), the daughter of a local shoemaker, who helped him in his efforts to overcome the lack of a formal education. Prospering in his trade, he eventually made enough money to buy a few slaves.   Prewar Political Career. Johnson was popular with the small craftsmen of the town, and in 1829 he was elected councilman and later mayor of Greeneville; in 1835 he was sent to the state general assembly. Defeated in 1837, he was reelected in 1839. In the following year he actively campaigned for the Democratic party. He was elected to the state senate in 1841 and two years later to the U.S. House of Representatives, in which he served until 1853. In Congress, Johnson was known for his advocacy of cheap western land for homesteaders and support for the Mexican War. Twice elected (1853 and 1855) governor of Tennessee, in 1857 he was elevated to the U.S. Senate and again took up the fight for a homestead bill. The measure passed in 1860 but was vetoed by President James Buchanan. Closely identified with the small farmers of eastern Tennessee, Johnson held conventional Southern views on slavery and in 1860 supported John C. Breckinridge, the presidential candidate of the Southern Democrats. Despite this, he opposed Tennessee’s secession from the Union. Even after the beginning of the American Civil War, he alone among Southern senators remained loyal to the U.S.   Wartime Southern Unionist. As the only Southern senator who refused to resign, Johnson was a symbol of wartime Unionism. Barely escaping from a lynch mob when returning to his home in 1861, he eventually had to flee, but he never abandoned the effort to liberate eastern Tennessee. Although he introduced resolutions disavowing any intentions of interfering with the domestic institutions of the states, he became a member of the radical Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, which advocated such intervention. After the capture of Nashville, Tenn., President Abraham Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee (March 1862), and he took up his post at the state capital. Often in personal danger, he sought to reanimate the Unionist cause in his home state and insisted on the determined defense of its capital. In 1864, in order to balance Lincoln’s Union ticket with a Southern Democrat, the Republicans nominated him for vice-president. After his victory as Lincoln’s running mate, he summoned a convention that set up a new state government and abolished slavery in Tennessee.   Vice-President and President. Although Johnson made a poor impression when he appeared at the inauguration ceremony under the influence of alcohol, he enjoyed widespread support when he succeeded to the presidency following Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865. This goodwill began to evaporate as his Reconstruction plans unfolded. Offering pardons to all but a few wealthy and leading former Confederates, he invited them to reassume control of the Southern states. He required little of them, permitted them to exclude blacks from the franchise, and ordered that land awarded to former slaves be returned to the original owners. Shocked by the enactment of racially discriminatory police regulations (the Black Codes) and the election of prominent ex-Confederates, the Republican majority refused to seat any Southern representatives when Congress met in December 1865. Instead of seeking an accommodation with the Republicans, Johnson widened the breach by vetoing the moderate Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights bills (February and April 1866). Overriding the Civil Rights Bill veto, Congress framed its own Reconstruction plan, which later became the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Johnson tried to block the congressional plan and made an unsuccessful attempt to win support by forming a new party in the autumn of 1866. Congress then countered with the Tenure of Office Act and other measures curtailing the president’s power. It also instituted a more radical policy of Reconstruction based on black suffrage.   Impeachment. Totally opposed to congressional Reconstruction, the president found himself hampered by the radical secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, who refused to resign; in August 1867 the president dismissed him, appointing Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in his place. Soon afterward he also began to replace radical generals in charge of Southern districts. These actions gave new urgency to the movement to impeach him, which had been under way since January. The first attempt to remove him failed (December 1867). The Senate, acting under the provisions of the Tenure of Office Act, reinstated Stanton in January 1868. When Johnson again dismissed the secretary in February, the House passed resolutions impeaching him for high crimes and misdemeanors. In the ensuing trial, the president was arraigned on 11 articles, ostensibly charging him in the main with violating the Tenure of Office Act but actually responding to his opposition to congressional Reconstruction. Johnson employed distinguished counsel, made promises to leading moderates, and was acquitted by one vote. The failure of the impeachment was a severe blow to the radicals.   Final Years. After his acquittal, Johnson continued to castigate congressional Reconstruction policies, but did not refuse to carry them out. Grant was nominated by the Republicans in 1868, and at the Democratic convention Johnson was defeated by Horatio Seymour of New York. At the end of his term he retired to his home in Tennessee. Following several failures to stage a political comeback, he was returned to the Senate in 1874. He took his seat the following year but died at Carter Station, Tenn., on July 31, 1875. A thoroughly honest but stubborn man of limited abilities, Johnson rendered important services to the Union during the war. Because of his hostility to congressional Reconstruction and his lack of sympathy for the problems of the freed slaves, however, he contributed materially to the failure of the postwar effort to reach an equitable solution of the country’s racial problems.