   #copyright

Andrew Johnson

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: USA Presidents

   Andrew Johnson
   Andrew Johnson
     __________________________________________________________________

   17th President of the United States
   In office
   April 15, 1865 –  March 4, 1869
   Vice President(s)   none
   Preceded by Abraham Lincoln
   Succeeded by Ulysses S. Grant
     __________________________________________________________________

   16th Vice President of the United States
   In office
   March 4, 1865 –  April 15, 1865
   President Abraham Lincoln
   Preceded by Hannibal Hamlin
   Succeeded by Schuyler Colfax
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born December 29, 1808
   Raleigh, North Carolina
   Died July 31, 1875
   Greeneville, Tennessee
   Political party Democratic until 1864 and after 1869; elected Vice
   President in 1864 on a National Union ticket; no party affiliation
   1865-1869
   Spouse Eliza McCardle Johnson
   Religion Christian (no denomination)
   Signature

   Andrew Johnson ( December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the seventeenth
   President of the United States (1865–1869), succeeding to the
   presidency upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

   Johnson was a US Senator from Tennessee at the time of the secession of
   the southern states. He was the only Southern Senator not to quit his
   post upon secession. He was representative of the slaveowning War
   Democrats from the border states who supported the Union. In 1862
   Johnson was appointed military governor of Tennessee, and fought the
   rebellion there. Lincoln selected Johnson for the Vice President slot
   in 1864 on the "Union Party." As president he took charge of
   Presidential Reconstruction—that is, the first phase of
   Reconstruction—which lasted until the Radical Republicans gained
   control of Congress in the 1866 elections. His conciliatory policies
   towards the South, his hurry to reincorporate the former Confederates
   back into the union, and his vetoes of civil rights bills embroiled him
   in a bitter dispute with the Radical Republicans. The Radicals in the
   House of Representatives impeached him in 1868; he was the first
   President to be impeached, but he was acquitted by a single vote in the
   Senate.

Presidency 1865-1869

Taking Office

   As a leading War Democrat and pro-Union southerner, Johnson was an
   ideal candidate for the Republicans in 1864 as they tried to enlarge
   their base to include War Democrats and temporarily changed the party
   name to the "National Union" party. He was elected Vice President of
   the United States and was inaugurated March 4, 1865. At the ceremony
   Johnson, who had been drinking to deal with a cold, gave a rambling
   speech and appeared intoxicated to many. In early 1865, Johnson talked
   harshly of hanging traitors like Jefferson Davis, which endeared him to
   the Radicals. He became President of the United States on April 15,
   1865, upon the death of 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.

   Johnson had an ambiguous party status. The National Union party
   vanished after the 1864 election, but he did not identify with either
   party while President—though he did try for the Democratic nomination
   in 1868. Asked in 1868 why he did not become a Democrat, he said "It is
   true I am asked why don't I join the Democratic party. Why don't they
   join me?"

Foreign Policy

   Johnson forced the French out of Mexico by sending a combat army to the
   border and issuing an ultimatum. The French withdrew in 1867, and their
   puppet government quickly collapsed. Secretary of State William H.
   Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia on April 9, 1867
   for $7.2 Million. Critics sneered at "Seward's Folly" and "Seward's
   Icebox." Seward also negotiated to purchase the Danish West Indies, but
   the Senate refused to approve the purchase in 1867. The Senate likewise
   rejected Seward's arrangement with Great Britain to arbitrate the
   Alabama claims. The U.S. experienced tense relations with Britain and
   its colonial government in Canada in the aftermath of the war.
   Lingering resentment over a perception of British sympathy towards the
   Confederacy resulted in Johnson initially turning a blind eye towards a
   series of armed incursions by Irish-American civil war veterans into
   British territory in Canada, named the Fenian Raids. Eventually Johnson
   ordered the Fenians disarmed and barred from crossing the border, but
   his initially hesitant reaction to the crisis created outrage
   throughout Canada and helped motivate the Confederation movement.

Reconstruction

   At first Johnson talked harshly, telling an Indiana delegation in late
   April, 1865, "Treason must be made odious... traitors must be punished
   and impoverished... their social power must be destroyed." But then he
   struck another note: "I say, as to the leaders, punishment. I also say
   leniency, reconciliation and amnesty to the thousands whom they have
   misled and deceived." . His class-based resentment of the rich appeared
   in a May, 1865 statement to W.H. Holden, the man he appointed governor
   of North Carolina, "I intend to confiscate the lands of these rich men
   whom I have excluded from pardon by my proclamation, and divide the
   proceeds thereof among the families of the wool hat boys, the
   Confederate soldiers, whom these men forced into battle to protect
   their property in slaves."Johnson in practice was not at all harsh
   toward the Confederate leaders. He allowed the Southern states to hold
   elections in 1865 in which prominent ex-Confederates were elected to
   the U.S. Congress. Congress did not seat them. Congress and Johnson
   argued in an increasingly public way about Reconstruction and the
   manner in which the Southern secessionist states would be readmitted to
   the Union. Johnson favored a very quick restoration of all rights and
   privileges of other states -- and in many ways followed the similar
   plan of leniency that Lincoln advocated before his death.

Break with the Republicans: 1866

   The Johnson-appointed governments all passed Black Codes that gave the
   Freedmen second class status. In response to the Black codes and
   worrisome signs of Southern recalcitrance, the Radical Republicans
   blocked the readmission of the ex-rebellious states to the Congress in
   fall 1865. Congress also renewed the Freedman's Bureau, but Johnson
   vetoed it. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, leader of the moderate
   Republicans, took affront at the black codes. He proposed the first
   Civil Rights Law.

   Although strongly urged by moderates in Congress to sign the Civil
   Rights bill, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March
   27. His veto message objected to the measure because it conferred
   citizenship on the Freedmen at a time when eleven out of thirty-six
   States were unrepresented and attempted to fix by Federal law "a
   perfect equality of the white and black races in every State of the
   Union." Johnson said it was an invasion by Federal authority of the
   rights of the States; it had no warrant in the Constitution and was
   contrary to all precedents. It was a "stride toward centralization and
   the concentration of all legislative power in the national government."

   The Democratic party, proclaiming itself the party of white men, north
   and south, supported Johnson. However the Republicans in Congress
   overrode his veto (the Senate by the vote of 33:15, the House by
   122:41) and the Civil Rights bill became law.

   The last moderate proposal was the Fourteenth Amendment, also authored
   by moderate Trumbull. It was designed to put the key provisions of the
   Civil Rights Act into the Constitution, but it went much further. It
   extended citizenship to everyone born in the United States (except
   visitors and Indians on reservations), penalized states that did not
   give the vote to Freedmen, and most importantly, created new federal
   civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. It guaranteed
   the Federal war debt (and promised the Confederate debt would never be
   paid). Johnson used his influence to block the amendment in the states,
   as three-fourths of the states were required for ratification. (The
   Amendment was later ratified.) The moderate effort to compromise with
   Johnson had failed and an all-out political war broke out between the
   Republicans (both Radical and moderate) on one side, and on the other
   Johnson and his allies in the Democratic party in the North, and the
   conservative groupings in the South. The decisive battle was the
   election of 1866. Johnson campaigned vigorously but was widely
   ridiculed. The Republicans won by a landslide (the Southern states were
   not allowed to vote), and took full control of Reconstruction. Johnson
   was almost powerless.

   Historian James Ford Rhodes has explained Johnson's inability to engage
   in serious negotiations:

     As Senator Charles Sumner shrewdly said, "the President himself is
     his own worst counsellor, as he is his own worst defender." Johnson
     acted in accordance with his nature. He had intellectual force but
     it worked in a groove. Obstinate rather than firm it undoubtedly
     seemed to him that following counsel and making concessions were a
     display of weakness. At all events from his December message to the
     veto of the Civil Rights Bill he yielded not a jot to Congress. The
     moderate senators and representatives (who constituted a majority of
     the Union party) asked him for only a slight compromise; their
     action was really an entreaty that he would unite with them to
     preserve Congress and the country from the policy of the radicals.
     The two projects which Johnson had most at heart were the speedy
     admission of the Southern senators and representatives to Congress
     and the relegation of the question of negro suffrage to the States
     themselves. Himself shrinking from the imposition on these
     communities of the franchise for the coloured people, his unyielding
     disposition in regard to matters involving no vital principle did
     much to bring it about. His quarrel with Congress prevented the
     readmission into the Union on generous terms of the members of the
     late Confederacy; and for the quarrel and its unhappy results
     Johnson's lack of imagination and his inordinate sensitiveness to
     political gadflies were largely responsible: it was not a contest in
     which fundamentals were involved. He sacrificed two important
     objects to petty considerations. His pride of opinion, his desire to
     beat, blinded him to the real welfare of the South and of the whole
     country.

Impeachment:The First attempt

   There were two attempts to remove President Johnson from office. The
   first occurred in the fall of 1867. On November 21st of that year, the
   House Judiciary committee produced a bill of impeachment that was
   basically a hodgepodge of complaints against him. After a furious
   debate, there was a formal vote in the House of Representatives on
   December 5th, which failed 108-57.

Impeachment: the Second attempt

   Harper's Weekly illustration of Johnson's impeachment trial in the
   United States Senate.
   Enlarge
   Harper's Weekly illustration of Johnson's impeachment trial in the
   United States Senate.

   In February 1868, Johnson notified Congress that he had removed Edwin
   Stanton as Secretary of War and was replacing him in the interim with
   Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas. Johnson had wanted to replace Stanton
   with former General Ulysses S. Grant, who refused to accept the
   position. This violated the Tenure of Office Act, a law enacted by
   Congress on March 2, 1867 over Johnson's veto, specifically designed to
   protect Stanton. Johnson had vetoed the act, claiming it was
   unconstitutional. The act said, "...every person holding any civil
   office, to which he has been appointed by and with the advice and
   consent of the Senate ... shall be entitled to hold such office until a
   successor shall have been in like manner appointed and duly qualified,"
   thus removing the President's previous unlimited power to remove any of
   his Cabinet members at will. Years later in the case Myers v. United
   States in 1926, the Supreme Court ruled that such laws were indeed
   unconstitutional.
   The 1868 Impeachment Resolution
   Enlarge
   The 1868 Impeachment Resolution

   The Senate and House entered into debate. Thomas attempted to move into
   the war office, for which Stanton had Thomas arrested. Three days after
   Stanton's removal, the House impeached Johnson for intentionally
   violating the Tenure of Office Act.

   On March 5, 1868, a court of impeachment was constituted in the Senate
   to hear charges against the President. William M. Evarts served as his
   counsel. Eleven articles were set out in the resolution, and the trial
   before the Senate lasted almost three months. Johnson's defense was
   based on a clause in the Tenure of Office Act stating that the
   then-current secretaries would hold their posts throughout the term of
   the President who appointed them. Since Lincoln had appointed Stanton,
   it was claimed, the applicability of the act had already run its
   course.

   There were three votes in the Senate: one on May 16 for the 11th
   article of impeachment, which included many of the charges contained in
   the other articles, and two on May 26 for the second and third
   articles, after which the trial adjourned. On all three occasions,
   thirty-five Senators voted "Guilty" and nineteen "Not Guilty". As the
   Constitution requires a two-thirds majority for conviction in
   impeachment trials, Johnson was acquitted.

   A single changed vote would have sufficed to return a "Guilty" verdict.
   The decisive vote had been that of a young Radical Republican named
   Edmund G. Ross. Despite monumental pressure from fellow Radicals prior
   to the first vote, and dire warnings that a vote for acquittal would
   end his political career, Ross stood up at the appropriate moment and
   quietly announced "not guilty," effectively ending the impeachment
   trial.

   The impeachment of Andrew Johnson is widely regarded as one of the most
   shameful episodes in the history of the Federal Government. Had Johnson
   been successfully removed from office, this would have established a
   precedent that a President could be removed not for "high crimes and
   misdemeanors" but for purely political differences.

Administration and 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    1865–1868
                             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

States admitted to the Union

     * Nebraska - March 1, 1867

Post-Presidency

   President Andrew Johnson
   Enlarge
   President Andrew Johnson

   Johnson was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States
   Senate from Tennessee in 1868 and to the House of Representatives in
   1872. However, in 1874 the Tennessee legislature did elect him to the
   US Senate. Johnson served from March 4, 1875, until his death near
   Elizabethton, Tennessee, on July 31 that same year. In his first speech
   since returning to the Senate, which was also his last, Johnson
   denounced the corruptions of the Grant Presidency and his passions
   aroused a standing ovation from many of his fellow senators who had
   once voted to remove him from the presidency. He is the only President
   to serve in the Senate after his presidency.

   Interment was in the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery, Greeneville,
   Tennessee, where he was buried with a copy of the Constitution. Andrew
   Johnson National Cemetery is now part of the Andrew Johnson National
   Historic Site.

Trivia

     * In his lifetime Andrew Johnson, the son of a tailor, occupied every
       major non-judicial elected office in the American political system
       - city councilman, mayor, state representative, state senator,
       governor, representative, senator, vice-president, and president.
       He is the only person to have held all of those positions.
     * Speaking to a crowd of African Americans in Nashville during the
       1864 campaign, he referred to himself as "the Moses" of the black
       people.
     * Johnson was the subject of a sympathetic, but inaccurate, 1942 film
       titled Tennessee Johnson, starring Van Heflin as Johnson and Lionel
       Barrymore as his nemesis, Thaddeus Stevens. Among other historical
       errors, the film's climax depicts Johnson passionately delivering
       an oration in his own defense on the U.S. Senate floor near the end
       of his impeachment trial. In fact, Johnson never appeared in person
       at his trial and was represented by legal counsel only.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
