Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Let peace and prosperity be restored to the land. May God bless
this people: may God save the Constitution.
- Andrew Johnson in the U.S. Senate
March 22, 1875
[Please note: The complexity of the Reconstruction period precludes even the barest sketch of the issues surrounding Andrew Johnson's Presidency. Readers with an interest in this period are advised to consult some of the sources listed in the bibliography at the end of this profile.]
Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina in
1808, and like the previous North Carolina born presidents, Andrew
Jackson and James K. Polk, he was elected to office from Tennessee.
Although a native of the South, Johnson was a firm supporter of
the Union. During the desperate days of the Civil War, he served
as the military governor of Tennessee and finally as vice-president
under the second term of Abraham Lincoln. After Lincoln's assassination,
the heavy task of restoring a nation after the ravages of a civil
war fell to the tailor from North Carolina.
Andrew Johnson began his life in a small wooden house which is
still preserved in Raleigh at the Mordecai Historic Park. His parents, Jacob and Mary Johnson,
maintained the home by working for Casso's Inn, a popular inn
and stable. The Johnson home stood on the property of the inn. Both of Andrew's parents worked there--Mary as a weaver, Jacob as the hostler, while Jacob also acted as janitor for the State Capitol.
Andrew was the younger of two sons born into the Johnson family.
Jacob Johnson rescued two or three friends (recollections were unclear) from drowning in 1812, but the effort cost him his health, and he died within a year, leaving Mary to raise Andrew and his brother
William. In an effort to provide a trade for her sons, Mary Johnson
apprenticed her sons to a tailor in Raleigh when Andrew was fourteen.
Andrew Johnson never attended school. He began his informal education
while serving as an apprentice. Frequent customers would read
to Johnson from books of oratory while he worked, and occasionally
gave him books. Johnson taught himself to read. Two years after
beginning his apprenticeship, Johnson and his friends threw rocks
at a tradesman's house out of mischief. When the occupant of the
house threatened to call the police, Johnson left town and abandoned
his apprentice work at the tailor shop of John J. Selby. Johnson
fled to Carthage, North Carolina sixty miles from Raleigh. He
found a market for his tailoring skills in Carthage but moved
to Laurens, South Carolina to distance himself further from the
trouble in Raleigh. After a year in Laurens, Johnson returned
to Raleigh and sought to complete his apprenticeship under John
Selby. Selby, however, no longer owned the tailor shop and had
no need of an apprentice. With no available employment in Raleigh,
Johnson led his mother, brother, and stepfather to Tennessee
in 1826.
Andrew settled the family in Greeneville, Tennessee and established
a tailor's shop by nailing a sign over the door stating simply,
"A. Johnson, Tailor." Soon Johnson met Eliza McCardle,
and the two were eventually wed on May 17, 1827. Mrs. Johnson
was better educated than her husband and used her education to
improve his reading and writing skills. She also taught the future
president arithmetic. She continued the established practice of
reading to Johnson while he worked. Business improved for Johnson,
and his shop soon became a gathering place for political discussion.
Johnson honed his debating skills further by joining a debate
club at a small college four miles from his home, walking to the
debates once a week. With encouragement from his wife and speaking
experience gathered both in his shop and at his debate club, Johnson
entered politics.
Andrew Johnson's political career advanced rapidly. He was elected
as an alderman of Greeneville, Tennessee in 1828, and two years
later he became mayor of the town. In 1835 Johnson won election
to the Tennessee House of Representatives. He was defeated for
re-election in 1837 but won a subsequent campaign in 1839. After
completing this second term, Johnson ran for a seat in the Tennessee
Senate and won. Johnson continually supported the rights of free
laborers. While in the state senate he sought to repeal a law
providing greater representation to slaveholders, but his motion
was defeated. Johnson was also unsuccessful in his effort to create
a new state from the Appalachian regions of North Carolina, Virginia,
Georgia, and Tennessee to be named Frankland.
At the conclusion of his senatorial term in 1843, Johnson was elected to the U.S.
House of Representatives and won four following elections
to retain his seat until 1853. While in the U.S. House, Johnson
supported President Polk
and his handling of the Texas and Oregon settlements and the Mexican
War. Although hailing from a Southern state, Johnson was often a staunch
supporter of the Constitution over State's Rights, a position
which conflicted with many Southern legislators. Turning his sights
back to state politics, Johnson won the 1853 Tennessee gubernatorial
election and re-election in 1855. Johnson's star continued to
rise, and his term as governor of Tennessee provided such benefits
to the state as a public school system and a state library. On
the eve of the Civil War in 1857, Johnson was elected to the U.S.
Senate.
The final act leading to the Civil War occurred during Johnson's
service in the Senate. Johnson was a Southerner and supported
the Fugitive Slave Law and defended slavery. He also supported
Abraham Lincoln's chief opponent in the 1860 presidential election,
Stephen Douglas. However, he also spoke sternly against both secessionists
and abolitionists as dangerous to the existence of the Union
and the Constitution. By the 1860 presidential election, several
Southern states had already formed a confederacy. Abraham Lincoln
won the November election winning forty percent of the votes cast, and in
the following April South Carolina batteries bombarded Fort Sumter
in Charleston Harbor beginning the Civil War. Andrew Johnson warned
that the dissolution of the Union would produce many minor countries
ruled by various forms of government. In spite of Johnson's strong
support of the Constitution and the Union, Tennessee seceded from
the United States. Johnson rejected the Confederacy and was the
only Southern senator to remain in the U.S. Senate after
secession. Johnson's support of the Union won acclaim in the North
and infamy in the South. Eastern Tennessee possessed strong pro-Union
factions, but pro-Confederacy forces from the central and western
parts of the state secured the state for the South. When war erupted
Tennessee was an early battlefield. Union victories in the state
placed large parts of the state in federal control, and occupied
areas were administered by appointed military governors. In 1862
President Lincoln appointed Andrew Johnson as military governor
of Tennessee. Johnson ruled with a firm hand silencing sources
of anti-Union sentiment. Johnson held the military governorship
of Tennessee until 1864. Preparing for the presidential election,
foreseeing an imminent end to the war, and preparing for a re-unification
of the nation, President Lincoln urged the Republican Party's
leadership to drop his previous vice-president, Hannibal Hamlin,
an ardent abolitionist from Maine, in favor of Johnson, a Southerner
and a Democrat. President Lincoln defeated General George McClellan
in the 1864 election, and Johnson became vice-president of the
United States of America.
Johnson took the oath of office in March 1865. The following
month President Lincoln went to Ford's Theater in Washington for
an evening of entertainment and was assassinated by John Wilkes
Booth. Booth was part of a larger conspiracy to assassinate key
members of the government. Andrew Johnson was a target of the
conspiring assassins, but the assassin charged with killing the
vice-president lost heart and did not attempt the assassination.
Johnson became president on April 15, 1865.
The debate about Johnson's role in Reconstruction is highly charged, and much ink has been spilled attempting to disentangle the truth from the rhetorical flourishes that have grown up around the debate. A cursory examination of Johnson's actions in the post war period is likely to be both contentious and simplistic. What can be made clear is that early on in his administration, Johnson found himself at loggerheads with both the Congress and members of his cabinet. Whatever his own sympathies and motivations may have been, there were many in the government who opposed many of his actions, and several legislative measures were passed in spite of a Presidential veto.
Within his own administration, too, Johnson encountered resistance. Johnson attempted to dismiss Edwin Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of War (and one of Johnson's fiercest critics), in 1868,
but Stanton claimed that Johnson acted in violation of
the Tenure of Office Act enacted the previous year. This act stated
the president may not dismiss certain publicly elected officers
without the consent of the Senate. Johnson vetoed the Tenure of
Office Act in 1867, but Congress voted the act into law over the
president's veto. Stanton barricaded himself in his office, and
Congress voted to impeach Johnson. Eleven
charges were brought against President Johnson primarily dealing
with violations of the Tenure of Office Act. Only three of these
charges were voted upon, and these failed by one vote each of
reaching the two-thirds majority required for impeachment. Upon
Johnson's acquittal, Edwin Stanton left his barricaded office
and resigned.
Johnson's presidency, though a turbulent one, began
the reunification for a country suffering from four years of civil
war. Under Johnson's administration the 13th Amendment abolishing
slavery and the 14th Amendment providing for equal protection by law
of all citizens were added to the Constitution. Johnson's
presidency saw the addition of Nebraska to the United States and
the purchase of the Alaska territory. Andrew Johnson completed
the remainder of Abraham Lincoln's term of office but failed to
receive his party's nomination in 1869.
Johnson returned to Greeneville, Tennessee where he remained active
in politics. He returned to public office in 1875 winning election
to the U.S. Senate, but later that same year Andrew Johnson suffered
a stroke and soon died. The seventeenth president of the United States
was laid to rest on his land in Greeneville, Tennessee. Johnson
requested that his body be wrapped in an American flag and laid
on a copy of the Constitution. This request summarizes the man
well. Born of humble origins in North Carolina's capital city,
Johnson always supported the rights of the working class. He maintained
a strong love of the Constitution and the federal Union it embodied.
He willingly supported the Union cause, rejecting the actions of
his home state.
Andrew Johnson's life and career show him to
have been a man of great courage and integrity. He remained constant
to his beliefs regardless of the personal cost to himself. Johnson's
courage, dedication, and service to the nation in a difficult
time of national transition reflect positively on Andrew Johnson
and reflect well on his origins in the Old North State.
The preceding information was compiled from various sources (including the information pamphlet published by the Office of Archives and History for the Andrew Johnson birthplace at Mordecai Historic Park) by the Information Services Branch of the State Library.
Further information may be found in the following sources:
Johnson, Andrew. The Papers of Andrew Johnson published by the University of Tennessee Press
Schroeder-Lein, Glenna. Andrew Johnson: a biographical companion
Trefousse, Hans. Andrew Johnson: a biography
Selton, James. Andrew Johnson and the uses of constitutional power
Simpson, Brooks. The Reconstruction Presidents
Castel, Albert. The Presidency of Andrew Johnson
McKitrick, Eric. Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction
Gerson, Noel. The Trial of Andrew Johnson
Severn, Bill. In Lincoln's Footsteps: the life of Andrew Johnson
Beale, Howard. The critical year: a study of Andrew Johnson and reconstruction
The American Presidency Profiles of all the American Presidents, presented by Grolier
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