Andrew Johnson (1808–75) was an American Democratic-party political leader who served as the 17th president of the U.S. 1865–69 following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln during the concluding months of the Civil War.
Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, Johnson was a semiliterate tailor with no formal education. He rose to political power by aligning himself in his home state of Tennessee with a firm base of poor mountaineers and small farmers seeking a political champion. Johnson was elected to the state senate in 1841 and the U.S. House of Representatives in 1843. He was governor of Tennessee 1853–55 and a U.S. senator in 1857. A moderate Democrat, Johnson was one of the few Southern senators who stood by the Union during the Civil War. He was made military governor of Tennessee (1862) and was elected to the vice-presidency in 1865.
Upon Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson became president. He sought to carry on Lincoln’s conciliatory policy, but the assassination had provoked a public aversion to appeasement endeavors. Moreover, Johnson’s lenient reconstruction policy (which failed to protect former slaves’ interests in the ex-Confederate states) was decried as treacherous.
Johnson championed the Southern representatives’ readmission, but the Radical Republican majority demanded that the Southern states be kept under military government for a time. Johnson precipitated a crisis by sacking his Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. He also rebelled Congress by freeing more than 7,000 Confederates, returning their property (apart from slaves,) and sanctioning former rebel states to hold constitutional conventions attended only by white delegates.
Johnson asserted the right to change his ‘constitutional advisers’ but was incriminated with violation of the ‘Tenure of Office Act’ for doing so without the Senate’s consent. Johnson was impeached and brought to trial. He was acquitted by a single vote short of the two-thirds majority required.
Johnson completed his term but had limited support and authority, and neither party nominated him for re-election. He was elected to the Senate in 1875 but died soon after.
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Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests.
—Andrew Johnson
Our government sprang from and was made for the people—not the people for the government. To them it owes an allegiance; from them it must derive its courage, strength, and wisdom.
—Andrew Johnson
Topics: Government
Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects.
—Andrew Johnson
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