Andrew Johnson
- For the English footballer, see Andrew Johnson.
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Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the sixteenth Vice President (1865) and the seventeenth President of the United States (1865–1869), succeeding to the presidency upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Johnson presided over the Reconstruction of the United States following the American Civil War, and his conciliatory policies towards the defeated rebels and his vetoes of civil rights bills embroiled him in a bitter dispute with the radical faction of Congress, leading the House of Representatives to impeach him in 1868; he was the first President to be impeached. He was subsequently acquitted by a single vote in the Senate.
Early Life
Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina to Jacob Johnson and Mary McDonough on December 29, 1808. At the age of 13 he was apprenticed to a tailor. He moved to Tennessee in 1826, where he continued his employment as a tailor. He never attended any type of school; his wife has historically been credited with teaching him to read and write.
Early political career
Johnson served as an alderman in Greeneville, Tennessee from 1828 to 1830 and mayor of Greeneville from 1834 to 1838. He was a member of the State House of Representatives from 1835 to 1837 and 1839 to 1841. He was elected to the State Senate in 1841, and elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1843 to March 3, 1853). He was chairman of the Committee on Public Expenditures (Thirty-first and Thirty-second Congresses).
Political ascension
Johnson did not seek renomination, having become a gubernatorial candidate. He was Governor of Tennessee from 1853 to 1857, and was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from October 8, 1857 to March 4, 1862, when he resigned. He was chairman of the Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expense (Thirty-sixth Congress). At the time of secession of the Confederacy, Johnson was the only Senator from the seceded states to continue participation in Congress. Johnson was then appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as Military Governor of Tennessee in 1862.
Vice-Presidency & Presidency
He was elected Vice President of the United States on the National Union ticket headed by Republican Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and was inaugurated March 4, 1865. He became President of the United States on April 15, 1865, upon the death of Abraham Lincoln. He was the first Vice President to succeed to the U.S. Presidency upon the assassination of a President and the third to succeed upon the death of a President.
Cabinet
| OFFICE | NAME | TERM |
| President | Andrew Johnson | 1865–1869 |
| Vice President | None | |
| Secretary of State | William H. Seward | 1865–1869 |
| Secretary of the Treasury | Hugh McCulloch | 1865–1869 |
| Secretary of War | Edwin M. Stanton | 1865–1867 |
| John M. Schofield | 1868–1869 | |
| Attorney General | James Speed | 1865–1866 |
| Henry Stanberry | 1866–1868 | |
| William M. Evarts | 1868–1869 | |
| Postmaster General | William Dennison | 1865–1866 |
| Alexander Randall | 1866–1869 | |
| 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 | |
Impeachment
Wide differences arising between the President and the Congress, a resolution for his impeachment passed the House of Representatives February 24, 1868. On March 5, 1868 a court of impeachment was organized in the United States Senate to hear charges against the President. Eleven articles were set out in the resolution and the trial before the Senate lasted three months, at the conclusion of which he was acquitted by a vote of thirty-five for conviction to nineteen for acquittal, the necessary two-thirds vote for impeachment not having been obtained by one vote (there were two votes: one on May 16, 1868 for the 11th article, and another on May 26 for the other 10). He retired to his home in Tennessee upon the expiration of the presidential term on March 4, 1869. Johnson was the first President to be impeached, and the only one until the impeachment of Bill Clinton on December 19, 1998.
Post-Presidency
Johnson was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1868 and to the House of Representatives in 1872. He was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1875, until his death near Elizabethton, Tennessee, July 31, 1875. Interment was in the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery, Greeneville, Tennessee.
See also
References
- Newspaper clippings, 1865–1869: http://www.impeach-andrewjohnson.com/
- Johnson's obituary, from the New York Times: http://starship.python.net/crew/manus/Presidents/aj2/aj2obit.html
External links
* Lincoln and Johnson ran on the National Union ticket in 1864
