Andrew Johnson

President of the United States (1865–1869)

• Born: December 29, 1808
• Birthplace: Raleigh, North Carolina
• Died: July 31, 1875
• Place of death: Near Carter Station, Tennessee

A Tennessee politician who rose to the presidency of the United States at the conclusion of the Civil War, Johnson encountered powerful congressional opposition to his lenient Reconstruction policies in the defeated South and was the target of the first impeachment of a US president.

Early Life

Andrew Johnson was the son of Jacob and Mary (McDonough) Johnson, illiterate tavern servants, and he grew up in poverty. In 1822, he was apprenticed to a tailor, under whom he learned a trade and the rudiments of reading. In 1826, he moved to Tennessee, opened a tailor’s shop, and, shortly after his nineteenth birthday, married seventeen-year-old Eliza McCardle. Under Eliza’s tutelage, Johnson learned writing and arithmetic and practiced his reading. Although never well educated, Johnson always strove for intellectual self-improvement.

Johnson was successful as a tailor but spent most of his spare time involved in debating societies and political discussions. In 1829, Johnson was elected alderman in Greeneville, Tennessee. Two years later, he was elected mayor of the town. He reached the state legislature in 1835, and the US Congress in 1842.

Life’s Work

By 1842, Johnson had permanently abandoned tailoring for the full-time pursuit of politics. He was extremely ambitious and anxious to rise to the top of the political heap.

From 1842 to 1852, Johnson served in Congress with a singularly undistinguished record. His congressional career, which would set a pattern for the remainder of his life, was marked by his inability to compromise, his unwillingness to work with anyone who opposed him, and his use of extremely vicious language against those who disagreed with him. Quick-tempered, ill-mannered, and notorious for his verbal assaults on his enemies, Johnson was popular with poor and nonslaveholding white people. Although not an imposing figure, the five-foot, eight-inch Johnson was physically strong and a vigorous campaigner, who scored points with the “plebeians,” as he called them, by attacking the rich. He viewed each electoral success as something more than a personal triumph; for Johnson, a victory at the polls was a victory for the common person over those with education and wealth.

Throughout his political career, Johnson made the most of his humble origins and his status as a tradesman, portraying himself as “the little man,” the representative of “the people,” against the rich. His class hatred was profound. One contemporary asserted, with some truth, that “if Andy Johnson were a snake, he would hide in the grass and bite the heels of rich men’s children.” His opponents correctly called him a demagogue, but he was a successful one.

After the Whigsgerrymandered him out of his congressional district, Johnson successfully ran for governor in 1853 and again in 1855. Although his personality and style precluded an effective administration, Johnson was able to push through legislation creating the first public-school system in Tennessee. As governor, the man who grew up illiterate did not forget his roots, even though he had become well-to-do, having acquired a fine house, four slaves, and assets in land and bonds.

In 1852 and 1856, Johnson sought the Democratic nomination for vice president. In 1857, Johnson entered the US Senate, where he accomplished little. He saw the Senate as a way of thrusting him onto the national scene. In 1860, he was the favorite son of Tennessee at the Democratic National Convention, but he again failed to find a spot on the ticket and dutifully supported John C. Breckinridge.

During the secession winter of 1860–61, Johnson worked for sectional compromise, even though he opposed compromises on principle. As a slaveholding Democrat, Johnson staunchly favored states’ rights, disliked the Republicans, and was a vicious racist who especially hated free blacks. However, Johnson also believed, almost religiously, in the Constitution. He considered secession illegal, unconstitutional, and treasonous. Thus, in February, 1861, he successfully rallied Unionists in Tennessee to oppose secession. Johnson continued to oppose secession in the spring, often speaking while armed, in response to death threats. After the firing on Fort Sumter, sentiment shifted, and in June, Tennessee left the Union.

Unlike the representatives of other seceding states, Andrew Johnson did not leave the Union. Johnson remained in the Senate, where he successfully sponsored a resolution asserting that the purpose of the war was to preserve the Union and not to end slavery. Consistent with his views on class, Johnson saw secession as a plot by rich slaveowners to destroy the nation. He told one Union general that he cared nothing for the slaves but that he was “fighting those traitorous artistocrats, their masters.”

As the only man from a Confederate state to remain in Congress, Johnson was something of a hero in the North. In 1862, Abraham Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of Tennessee. This period was Johnson’s finest hour. As military governor, he was resolute, firm, and brave, risking his life and property for the Union. He understood the nature of a civil war, and like Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, was willing to accept its costs. Thus, when rebel forces surrounded Nashville, Johnson declared that he would burn the city before surrendering it. In 1863, Johnson called a state constitutional convention for the purpose of reconstructing Tennessee’s government. While military governor, Johnson reported directly to Lincoln. This experience made Johnson believe in the efficacy of direct presidential control of Reconstruction.

In 1864, Johnson was with Lincoln on a Union Party ticket. As a southern Unionist and a former Democrat, Johnson was seen as a man who could help bind the nation’s wounds at the conclusion of the war. After the election, Johnson remained in Tennessee until February, 1865, when he was able to install a legally elected governor under a new Unionist state constitution.

When Johnson took the oath of office in March, he appeared to be drunk and gave a rambling and incoherent speech, glorifying his roots and declaring, “I’m a plebeian!” Although Johnson was not a drunkard and was, at the time of his inauguration, suffering from the aftereffects of typhoid fever, his performance was nevertheless shocking and disgraceful. Lincoln was mortified, Republican senators were humiliated, and few could argue when a Democratic newspaper called Johnson a “drunken clown.” A group of senators, led by Charles Sumner, demanded his resignation. Although Lincoln was less harsh, he nevertheless did not meet with his vice president until the afternoon of April 14. Whether that meeting signaled an end to Johnson’s isolation from the administration is unknown. By that night, the question was moot. At ten o’clock that evening, Johnson was awakened with the news that President Lincoln had been shot. The next day Johnson became president.

Johnson’s presidency was a failure. His relationship with Congress was disastrous. Ultimately, Johnson was impeached by the House, tried by the Senate, and avoided conviction by only one vote. Because a conviction required a two-thirds guilty vote of the Senate, Johnson’s acquittal could hardly be considered a vindication; a large majority in Congress believed that he should be removed from office. The impeachment trial was the culmination of conflicts with Congress that were rooted in two intractable problems: the nature of political Reconstruction and the role of African Americans in the post-Civil War South.

Although notorious for his harsh rule as a military governor, Johnson actually favored a mild Reconstruction policy. He was quick to offer pardons for most former Confederates. His amnesty proclamation of May 29, 1865, reinstated political rights for former rebels, except those with taxable property of more than twenty thousand dollars. Johnson believed that the war had been caused by the “aristocrats in the South” and that only they should be punished. However, his proclamation held out hope for the southern elite, because he also promised to grant individual pardons whenever the “peace and dignity” of the nation allowed it. In the next few months, Johnson presided over a steady stream of rich southerners asking for pardons. Johnson made the most of this opportunity to force the “aristocrats” to look up to a “plebeian,” reveling in his power but also granting thousands of pardons. Instead of confiscating the property of former slaveowners and giving it to the former slaves, as radicals such as Thaddeus Stevens wished to do, Johnson was busy enfranchising the master class.

While giving much to the former enemies of the nation, Johnson offered little to southern Unionists, especially the former slaves. Johnson was a thoroughgoing racist, even by the standards of the 1860s. He supported emancipation, in part because it would undermine the power of the planter elite. However, he opposed black suffrage or any government aid to the freedmen. This attitude was made clear in his proclamation re-creating self-government in North Carolina. The proclamation, much to the disappointment of many Republicans, gave the state exclusive power to determine suffrage under the laws of North Carolina before secession; this meant that African Americans could not vote. Johnson’s policies indicated that he saw the Civil War as having accomplished nothing more than ending slavery and permanently preserving the Union. Otherwise, Johnson wanted to re-create the Union as it had been before the war, with a small federal government that could not interfere with states’ rights, and no meaningful protections for former slaves.

Throughout 1865 and 1866, Johnson labored to have the southern states readmitted into the Union as quickly as possible and with no requirements that they grant equality to former slaves. When the southern states passed “black codes,” severely restricting the movement and rights of free blacks, Johnson expressed only mild disapproval. Similarly, when southerners elected former Confederate officials and generals to Congress, Johnson indicated only slight displeasure and took no action.

Congress, however, did act. In December, meeting for the first time since Lincoln’s death, Congress refused to seat representatives from the former Confederate states. Congressional hearings on conditions in the South revealed the continuing oppression of the freedmen by whites and the need for radical changes in the society. In February 1866, Congress extended the life of the Freedmen’s Bureau, a War Department agency, headed by war hero General Oliver Otis Howard, which had been established the previous spring to help black and white people in the wake of the war. The bill passed with the unanimous support of the Republicans in Congress. To the surprise of the Republican majority, Johnson vetoed the bill, arguing that Congress lacked the power or the right to spend money to feed, educate, or find land for freed slaves. In his veto message, Johnson argued that his role as president required him to protect the interests of the South, which was not represented in Congress. Despite feelings of betrayal, Republicans in Congress were not fully united, and the Senate narrowly sustained the veto.

The successful veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill led Johnson to believe that he controlled the Republican Party and that he could stop those who sought to enfranchise African Americans, create racial equality in the nation, or reconstruct the South in any meaningful manner. This illusion of power led Johnson to a major blunder. Three days after the Freedmen’s Bureau veto, Johnson publicly blamed the war and the assassination of Lincoln on antislavery radicals. He specifically named Senator Charles Sumner, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, and the abolitionist orator Wendell Phillips, asserting that these men, and other radicals, were traitors to the nation and the equivalent of southern secessionists. This speech undermined support for Johnson in Congress and throughout the nation, support that he would never regain.

Johnson, however, did not fully comprehend the damage done by the Freedmen’s Bureau veto and his speech attacking radical Republicans and abolitionists. In another major miscalculation, he vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 , even though it was a moderate measure that made the freedmen citizens and guaranteed them “equal protection of the laws.” Johnson believed that this law would interfere with states’ rights and the ability of the states to regulate social policy. His veto also revealed Johnson’s deep-seated racism. For the first time in American history, Congress overrode a presidential veto.

In May and July, whites killed or injured hundreds of African Americans in Memphis and New Orleans. In both cities, indecisive action by federal troops failed to stop the white mobs. Many of the victims of the mob in Memphis were black Union veterans who had been recently mustered out of service. These riots helped convince the North that southerners had not yet accepted African Americans as freedmen, much less equals, and that Johnson was more sympathetic to former rebels than he was to former slaves and Union veterans.

Johnson’s support for southern recalcitrance was also clear in his reaction to the Fourteenth Amendment , which Congress sent to the states for ratification in June. Although the president has no right to veto an amendment, Johnson publicly opposed the amendment, which would guarantee African Americans citizenship and other rights and also fundamentally change the nature of the Union. Unlike the overwhelming majority of the Congress, Johnson seemed to be unaware that the Civil War had changed constitutional, racial, and political relations in the nation. By the end of the year, seven former Confederate states, taking their cues from Johnson, rejected the new amendment. Meanwhile, in July, Congress enacted a new Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, over Johnson’s veto.

In the fall of 1866, Johnson campaigned against Republican candidates for Congress. The result was an overwhelming rejection of Johnson. More than two-thirds of both houses were not only Republicans but also hostile to Johnson and leaning toward the progressive racial policies of Stevens, Sumner, and Senator Ben Wade of Ohio.

In January, 1867, Congress overrode Johnson’s veto of a bill giving the vote to African Americans living in Washington, DC. Veto overrides soon became almost commonplace. In the spring, Johnson vetoed the first Reconstruction Act, which gave the vote to black men in the South, excluded former Confederate leaders from office and voting, required new state constitutions in the South, and gave the military the power to enforce these laws. This was Congress’s response to the Memphis and New Orleans riots, the black codes, and southern opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment. By an overwhelming vote, Congress overrode this veto. Johnson then vetoed Nebraska’s statehood because, among other reasons, the state’s constitution allowed black men to vote. Congress again overrode the veto. Congress also changed its meeting time from December to March, so that it could be in almost continuous session to watch over Johnson’s activities.

In March, Congress specifically provided that all military orders from the president had to go through General Grant, and that Grant could not be assigned to a post outside Washington against his will. This law indicated that Congress placed more faith in the war hero Grant than in the president. This provision was part of a larger appropriations bill, which Johnson signed, despite his distaste for the provisions concerning Grant. Johnson then vetoed the Tenure of Office Act, but Congress overrode the veto. This law, which prevented Johnson from removing any cabinet officers without the permission of Congress, reflected congressional fear that Johnson would remove Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who was sympathetic to congressional goals.

In March, 1867, Congress overrode Johnson’s veto of the Second Reconstruction Act. Meanwhile, the House investigated whether Johnson ought to be impeached. On June 3, the House investigating committee adjourned, with four members in favor of impeachment and five against. In July, Congress overrode Johnson’s veto of the Third Reconstruction Act.

In May, Johnson interpreted the Reconstruction Acts in a narrow fashion, to allow most former Confederates to vote and ordered all generals to act accordingly. Both Secretary of War Stanton and General Grant opposed this interpretation. When General Philip Sheridan, headquartered in New Orleans, asked Grant if he should obey Johnson’s order, Grant replied that it was not a legal order, because it had not come from him, as specified in the legislation of March, 1867. When forced to choose, Grant chose to follow the laws of Congress and not the whims of President Johnson. The army followed Grant. It was not unlikely that in a confrontation, the people would follow the hero of Appomattox rather than an unelected president of doubtful abilities.

In July, 1867, Johnson attempted to remove Sheridan from his position as military commander of Texas and Louisiana and to remove Stanton from the cabinet. Sheridan had followed congressional intent in the Southwest by removing former Confederates from office, in opposition to Johnson’s policies. Stanton was, by this time, openly in sympathy with Congress and thus openly hostile to Johnson. Johnson asked Grant to take Stanton’s place. At first, Grant refused but then accepted an interim appointment, pending the return of Congress from its summer recess. Under the Tenure of Office Act, Stanton could not be removed until Congress returned to session and gave its approval.

Following the removal of Sheridan, Johnson also removed other generals who were sympathetic to Congress. In September, 1867, Johnson exacerbated the situation by issuing a pardon for all but a few hundred former Confederate politicians and generals. The pardons, and the removal of Sheridan and other generals, led to new calls for impeachment. In November, the House Judiciary Committee voted five to four in favor of impeachment, but the entire Congress rejected this recommendation.

On January 13, 1868, the Senate, acting under the Tenure of Office Act, refused to concur in the removal of Stanton as secretary of war. General Grant immediately turned the keys to the office over to Stanton and then reported to Johnson that he was no longer secretary of war. In the days that followed, Johnson accused Grant of betraying him and of being a liar. Public opinion sided with the general, not with Johnson.

On February 21, Johnson, ignoring the recommendations of most of his confidential advisers, attempted to replace Stanton with Lorenzo Thomas, a lackluster general. Stanton, however, refused to give up his office or even, physically, to leave the War Department. The next day, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to send a resolution for the impeachment of Johnson to the Committee on Reconstruction, chaired by the radical congressman Thaddeus Stevens.

On February 24, the House, by an overwhelming vote, approved a resolution of impeachment. The next day, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, a radical, and John Bingham, a moderate, entered the Senate, where they informed that body that Johnson had been impeached and that specific articles of impeachment would be forthcoming. On March 2, the House adopted nine separate articles of impeachment. On March 12, the Congress passed, over Johnson’s veto, the Fourth Reconstruction Act.

On March 13, the trial of Andrew Johnson began before the Senate, presided over by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. Postponements delayed the proceedings until March 30. Then, for more than a month, the Senate heard evidence and arguments on the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act and the legal requirements for impeachment. Finally, on May 19, the Senate voted thirty-five to nineteen in favor of conviction on one of the articles of impeachment. The same vote prevailed, on May 26, for the other articles. This was one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to remove Johnson from office. A coalition of Democrats and conservative Republicans saved Johnson by the thinnest possible margin. Later that day, Stanton resigned his office.

Johnson served out the remainder of his term with a continuation of his lackluster style and predictable veto overrides. Despite his opposition, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified while Johnson held office. The only thing on which Johnson and Congress seemed to agree was the appropriation of funds to purchase Alaska, which came in 1868, more than a year after the treaty with Russia had been approved.

Johnson sought the presidency in 1868, but neither party would have him. He retired to Tennessee, and in 1875, he was again elected to the Senate. Four months after taking office, he died of a stroke.

Significance

Historians and scholars have long debated whether Johnson should have been removed from office. The question often turns on a point of law. If impeachment is strictly for an illegal act, then perhaps Johnson was innocent, because it is generally agreed that the law he violated—the Tenure of Office Act—was itself unconstitutional. On the other hand, no court had yet declared the law unconstitutional, and until the Supreme Court makes a final determination, Congress has the right to determine constitutionality on its own. If impeachment is essentially a political process, then the grounds for Johnson’s removal are stronger. He was an accidental president, out of step with the nation and lacking the support of either political party. He had consistently thwarted the will of Congress and the American people. His racist response to black freedom mocked the consequences of the Civil War and certainly prevented African Americans from attaining equality and justice in its aftermath.

Whatever their opinion on how the impeachment trial should have ended, almost all observers agree that Johnson’s presidency was a total failure. Few presidents were so ill-equipped to handle the job. Arrogant, mistrustful of anyone with an education, insecure, unwilling to compromise, pigheaded in his ideas, and a racist, Johnson left a legacy in the White House that took years to reverse; he left a legacy for black Americans that has still not been completely overcome.

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