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Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln , as he was vice president at that time.
- Overview
- Early life and career
Andrew Johnson became the 17th president of the United States in 1865. He took office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Why did Andrew Johnson veto the Reconstruction Acts?
Andrew Johnson vetoed the Reconstruction Acts that provided suffrage for male freedmen and military administration of the Southern states. He maintained that the Reconstruction Acts were unconstitutional because they were passed without Southern representation in Congress. Congress overode his vetoes.
Why was Andrew Johnson impeached?
Andrew Johnson dismissed from office Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to provide a court test of the Tenure of Office Act’s constitutionality. For this and other reasons, the House of Representatives voted articles of impeachment against the president—the first such occurrence in U.S. history.
Who was Andrew Johnson's wife?
Johnson was the younger of two sons of Jacob and Mary McDonough Johnson. Jacob Johnson, who served as a porter in a local inn, as a sexton in the Presbyterian church, and as town constable, died when Andrew was three years old, leaving his family in poverty. His widow took in work as a spinner and weaver to support her family and later remarried. She bound Andrew as an apprentice tailor when he was 14. In 1826, when he had just turned 17, having broken his indenture, he and his family moved to Greeneville, Tennessee. Johnson opened his own tailor shop, which bore the simple sign “A. Johnson, tailor.” (When Johnson was president, he remarked that he still knew how to sew a coat.) He hired a man to read to him while he worked with needle and thread. From a book containing some of the world’s great orations he began to learn history. Another subject he studied was the Constitution of the United States, which he was soon able to recite from memory in large part. Harry Truman said that Johnson knew the Constitution better than any other president, and many of his later political battles were framed in terms of the constitutionality of proposed legislation. His copy of the Constitution was buried with him.
Johnson never went to school and taught himself how to read and spell. In 1827, now 18 years old, he married 16-year-old Eliza McCardle (Eliza Johnson), whose father was a shoemaker. She taught her husband to read and write more fluently and to do arithmetic. She, too, often read to him as he worked. In middle age she contracted what was called “slow consumption” (tuberculosis) and became an invalid. She rarely appeared in public during her husband’s presidency, the role of hostess usually being filled by their eldest child, Martha, wife of David T. Patterson, U.S. senator from Tennessee.
Johnson’s lack of formal schooling and his homespun quality were distinct assets in building a political base of poor people seeking a fuller voice in government. His tailor shop became a kind of centre for political discussion with Johnson as the leader; he had become a skillful orator in an era when public speaking and debate was a powerful political tool. Before he was 21, he organized a workingman’s party that elected him first an alderman and then mayor of Greeneville. During his eight years in the state legislature (1835–43), he found a natural home in the states’ rights Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson and emerged as the spokesman for mountaineers and small farmers against the interests of the landed classes. In that role, he was sent to Washington for 10 years as a U.S. representative (1843–53), after which he served as governor of Tennessee (1853–57). Elected a U.S. senator in 1856, he generally adhered to the dominant Democratic views favouring lower tariffs and opposing antislavery agitation. Johnson had achieved a measure of prosperity and owned a few slaves himself. In 1860, however, he broke dramatically with the party when, after Lincoln’s election, he vehemently opposed Southern secession. When Tennessee seceded in June 1861, he alone among the Southern senators remained at his post and refused to join the Confederacy. Sharing the race and class prejudice of many poor white people in his state, he explained his decision: “Damn the negroes, I am fighting those traitorous aristocrats, their masters.” Although denounced throughout the South, he remained loyal to the Union. In recognition of this unwavering support, Lincoln appointed him (May 1862) military governor of Tennessee, by then under federal control.
Britannica Quiz
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Andrew Johnson’s Early Years. Andrew Johnson was born on December 29, 1808, in a log cabin in Raleigh, North Carolina. His father, Jacob Johnson (1778-1812), was a porter at an inn, among other jobs, and died when Andrew was 3, while his mother, Mary “Polly” McDonough Johnson (1783-1856), was a laundress and seamstress.
- Johnson Enters Politics in Tennessee. Johnson’s political career began in 1829 when he was elected alderman in Greeneville. That same year, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), a fellow Democrat and Tennessean, became the seventh U.S. president.
- Andrew Johnson and the Civil War. Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, and just over a month later, on April 12, the U.S. Civil War broke out when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.
- Johnson’s Brief Tenure as Vice President. When Lincoln sought re-election in 1864, he chose Johnson as his running mate over Vice President Hannibal Hamlin (1809-91), a former U.S. senator from Maine.
With the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson became the 17th President of the United States (1865-1869), an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced...
Apr 2, 2014 · Who Was Andrew Johnson? Andrew Johnson became the 17th president of the United States upon the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865.
4 days ago · Andrew Johnson - Reconstruction, Impeachment, Legacy: To broaden the base of the Republican Party to include loyal “war” Democrats, Johnson was selected to run for vice president on Lincoln’s reelection ticket of 1864. His first appearance on the national stage was a fiasco.
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Andrew Johnson gives truth to the saying that in America, anyone can grow up to become President. Born in a log cabin in North Carolina to nearly illiterate parents, Andrew Johnson did not master the basics of reading, grammar, or math until he met his wife at the age of seventeen.
