Andrew Johnson

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 was the only Southern Senator not to leave when their states seceded. Although a slaveowner, he supported the Union, was appointed military governor of Tennessee, and fought the rebellion there. In 1864 he was nominated as a war Democrat as Vice President on a new unity party ticket with Lincoln. When the war ended he took charge of "Presidential Reconstruction," that is the first part of Reconstruction, 1865-1866. His conciliatory policies towards the South, his hurry to reincorporate the former Confederates back into the mainstream, and his vetoes of civil rights bills embroiled him in a bitter dispute with the Radical Republicans. In 1866 he lost control to his enemies 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.

Early life

Johnson was born on December 29 1808, in Raleigh, North Carolina, to Jacob Johnson and Mary McDonough. When Johnson was three, his father died from "disease" after saving the lives of several friends. At the age of 10 he was apprenticed to a tailor, but at age 16 he and his brother ran away to Greeneville, Tennessee, where he found work as a tailor. Karin L Zipf. Labor Of Innocents: Forced Apprenticeship in North Carolina, 1715-1919 (2005) pp 8-9 He never attended any type of school; he credited his wife, Eliza McCardle Johnson with teaching him to read and write.

Early political career

Johnson served as an alderman in Greeneville from 1828 to 1830 and mayor of Greeneville from 1830 to 1833. He was a member of the State House of Representatives from 1835 to 1837 and from 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 27 1853). He was chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Public Expenditures (Thirty-first and Thirty-second Congresses).

Political Ascendency

Johnson did not seek renomination, having become a candidate for the governorship of Tennessee. 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. He vigorously suppressed the Confederates and spoke out for black suffrage, arguing, "The better class of them will go to work and sustain themselves, and that class ought to be allowed to vote, on the ground that a loyal negro is more worthy than a disloyal white man." p 126

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. He was elected Vice President of the United States on the National Union ticket headed by Lincoln in 1864 and was inaugurated March 4 1865. At the ceremony Johnson, who had been drinking to deal with a cold, gave a rambling, incoherent speech and had to be led away. In early 1865, Johnson talked harshly of hanging traitors like Jefferson Davis, which endeared him to the Radicals. Trefousse 198 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?" Trefousse p 339

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. In 1867, 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.

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." Milton 183. 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.

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." Rhodes, History 6:68

The Democratic party, proclaiming itself the party of white men, north and south, supported Johnson. Trefousse 1989 However the Republicans in Congress overrode his veto (the Senate by the close 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:Rhodes, History 6:74

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

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. 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 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 1868 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 United States 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.

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 - 1867

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 eventually succeeded and was elected as a Democrat to the Senate and served from March 4 1875, until his death near Elizabethton, Tennessee, on July 31 1875. He is the only President to serve in the Senate after his presidency (John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives after his presidency). Internment was in the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery, Greeneville, Tennessee.

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.
He was the only Vice President to be the target of an assassination attempt.
Speaking to a crowd of African Americans in Nashville during the 1864 campaign, he referred to himself as "the Moses" of the black people.

References

Howard K. Beale, The Critical Year. A Study of Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (1930). ISBN 0804410852
Michael Les Benedict, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1999). ISBN 0393319822
Albert E. Castel, The Presidency of Andrew Johnson (1979). ISBN 0700601902
D. M. DeWitt, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1903).
Eric L. McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (1961). ISBN 0195057074
George Fort Milton; The Age of Hate: Andrew Johnson and the Radicals (1930)
Patton; James Welch. Unionism and Reconstruction in Tennessee, 1860-1869 (1934)
Rhodes; James Ford History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6. 1920. Pulitzer prize.
Lloyd P. Stryker, Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage (1929). ISBN 0403012317
Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography (1989). ISBN 0393317420
Winston; Robert W. Andrew Johnson: Plebeian and Patriot (1928)

Primary sources

Ralph W. Haskins, LeRoy P. Graf, and Paul H. Bergeron et al, eds. The Papers of Andrew Johnson 16 volumes; University of Tennessee Press, (1967-2000). ISBN 1-57233-091-0.) Included all letters and speeches by Johnson, and many letters written to him. Complete to 1875.
Newspaper clippings, 1865–1869: http://www.impeach-andrewjohnson.com/
Series of Harper's Weekly articles covering the impeachment controversy and trial: ^*
Johnson's obituary, from the New York Times: http://starship.python.net/crew/manus/Presidents/aj2/aj2obit.html

External links

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