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U.S Presidents — Andrew Johnson

OVERVIEW Name: Andrew Johnson President: # 17 Term Number(s): 20 Term Length: 3.9 Took Office: April 15, 1865 Left Office: March 4, 1869 Age when Elected: 56 Party: Democratic National Union, National Union Independent Also Known As: "The Tennessee Tailor" BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION Education: no formal education Occupation: Tailor Other Governmental Position: 16th Vice President of the United States, Military Governor of Tennessee, United States Senator from Tennessee, 17th Governor of Tennessee, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 1st District. Military Service: None Religion: Christian with no denominational affiliation Spouse(s): Eliza McCardle Johnson (May 17, 1827) Children: Martha Johnson, Charles Johnson, Mary Johnson, Robert Johnson, Andrew Johnson, Jr. Birthdate: December 29, 1808 Birthplace: Raleigh, North Carolina Deathdate: July 31, 1875 Deathplace: Elizabethton, Tennessee Age at Death: 66 Cause of Death: stroke Place of Internment: Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in Greeneville, Tennessee Signature FIRST ELECTION Election: Not elected President, succeeded President Abraham Lincoln CABINET AND COURT APPOINTMENTS Vice President: vacant Secretary of State: William H. Seward (1865–1869) Secretary of the Treasury: Hugh McCulloch (1865–1869) Secretary of War: Edwin M. Stanton (1865–1868), John M. Schofield (1868–1869) Secretary of the Navy: Gideon Welles (1865–1869) Secretary of the Interior: John P. Usher (1865), James Harlan (1865–1866), Orville H. Browning (1866–1869) Attorney General: James Speed (1865–1866), Henry Stanberry (1866–1868), William M. Evarts (1868–1869) Postmaster General: William Dennison (1865–1866), Alexander W. Randall (1866–1869) Supreme Court Assignments: None PRESIDENT'S BIOGRAPHY With the assassination of Lincoln, the presidency fell upon an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views. although an honest and honorable man, Andrew Johnson was one of the most unfortunate of presidents. Arrayed against him were the Radical Republicans in Congress, brilliantly led and ruthless in their tactics. Johnson was no match for them. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1808, Johnson grew up in poverty. He was apprenticed to a tailor as a boy, but ran away. He opened a tailor shop in Greeneville, Tennessee, married Eliza McCardle, and participated in debates at the local academy. Entering politics, he became an adept stump speaker, championing the common man and vilifying the plantation aristocracy. As a member of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 1840s and 1850s, he advocated a homestead bill to provide a free farm for the poor man. During the secession crisis, Johnson remained in the Senate even when Tennessee seceded, which made him a hero in the North and a traitor in the eyes of most Southerners. In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor of Tennessee, and Johnson used the state as a laboratory for reconstruction. In 1864 the Republicans, contending that their National Union Party was for all loyal men, nominated Johnson, a Southerner and a Democrat, for vice president. After Lincoln's death, President Johnson proceeded to reconstruct the former Confederate States while Congress was not in session in 1865. He pardoned all who would take an oath of allegiance, but required leaders and men of wealth to obtain special presidential pardons. By the time Congress met in December 1865, most southern states were reconstructed and slavery was being abolished, but "black codes" to regulate the freedmen were beginning to appear. 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 blacks. 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 blacks 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 Midwest, 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. FIRST LADY'S BIOGRAPHY Eliza McCardle Johnson "I knew he'd be acquitted; I knew it," declared Eliza McCardle Johnson, when told how the Senate had voted in her husband's impeachment trial. Her faith in him had never wavered during those difficult days in 1868, when her courage dictated that all White House social events should continue as usual. That faith began to develop many years before in east Tennessee, when Andrew Johnson first came to Greeneville, across the mountains from North Carolina, and established a tailor shop. Eliza was almost 16 then and Andrew 17; and local tradition tells of the day she first saw him. He was driving a blind pony hitched to a small cart, and she said to a friend, "There goes my beau!" She married him within a year, on May 17, 1827. Eliza was the daughter of Sarah Phillips and John McCardle, a shoemaker. Fortunately she had received a good basic education that she was delighted to share with her new husband. He already knew his letters and could read a bit, so she taught him writing and arithmetic. With their limited means, her skill at keeping a house and bringing up a family—five children, in all—had much to do with Johnson's success. Mr. Johnson rose rapidly, serving in the state and national legislatures and as governor. Like him, when the Civil War came, people of east Tennessee remained loyal to the Union; Lincoln sent him to Nashville as military governor in 1862. Rebel forces caught Eliza at home with part of the family. Only after months of uncertainty did the family rejoin Andrew Johnson in Nashville. By 1865 a soldier son and son-in-law had died, and Eliza was an invalid for life. Quite aside from the tragedy of Lincoln's death, Mrs. Johnson found little pleasure in her husband's position as president. At the White House, she settled into a second-floor room that became the center of activities for a large family: her two sons, her widowed daughter Mary Stover and her children, and her older daughter Martha with her husband, Senator David T. Patterson, and their children. As a schoolgirl Martha had often been the Polks' guest at the mansion; now she took up its social duties. She was a competent, unpretentious, and gracious hostess even during the impeachment crisis. At the end of Johnson's term, Eliza returned with relief to her home in Tennessee, restored from wartime vandalism. Mrs. Johnson lived to see the legislature of her state vindicate her husband's career by electing him to the Senate in 1875. She survived him by nearly six months, dying at the Pattersons' home in 1876. MAJOR EVENTS 1866: Congress creates the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which excludes ex-Confederates from holding office and allows for the citizenship of African- Americans affirming that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." 1867: Secretary of State William H. Seward, agrees to acquire Alaska for $7.2 million from Russia. The land purchased is mockingly referred to as "Seward's Icebox". 1867: President Johnson vetoes the First, Second, and Third Reconstruction Acts; Congress overrides each one. These acts designate the election process in the South and gives back congressional control over Reconstruction. 1867: Nebraska joins the Union. 1868: The House of Representatives votes to impeach Johnson but the Senate falls short one vote to impeach the president. TRIVIA 1. Johnson was the first president to be impeached. Only one vote kept him from being removed from office. 2. At the age of 14, Johnson and his brother were sold as servants to a tailor. In exchange for their labor, they would get food, clothing, and shelter. The boys ran away after two years. 3. Johnson was buried beneath a willow tree that he planted. His head rests on a copy of the Constitution.