Andrew Johnson
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 U.S. Senator from Greeneville, Tennessee at the time of the secession of the southern states. He was the only southern Senator not to quit his post upon secession, and became the most prominent War Democrat from the South. In 1862 Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of Tennessee, where he proved energetic and effective in fighting the rebellion. Johnson was nominated for the Vice President slot in 1864 on the National Union Party ticket. He was elected along with Abraham Lincoln in November 1864, and he became president upon Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865. As president he took charge of Presidential Reconstruction — 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, but he was acquitted by a single vote in the Senate. He was the first U.S. President to be impeached.
Early life
Johnson was born on December 29 1808, in Raleigh, North Carolina, to Jacob Johnson and Mary McDonough. Andrew Johnson grew up in poverty. When Johnson was three, his father died. 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.[2] Johnson married Eliza McCardle Johnson at the age of 19. He never attended any type of school; he credited his wife 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. As a Democrat he was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives.
Political ascendancy
Johnson was elected governor of Tennessee, serving 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. He was chairman of the Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expense (Thirty-sixth Congress). Before Tennessee voted on secession, Johnson -- who lived in Unionist east Tennessee -- toured the state speaking in opposition to the act, which he said was unconstitutional. Johnson was an aggressive stump speaker and often responded to hecklers, even if those hecklers were in the senate. At the time of secession of the Confederacy, Johnson was the only Senator from the seceded states to continue participation in Congress.
In 1862 Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of Tennessee, where he proved energetic and effective in fighting the rebellion. According to tradition and local lore, on Aug. 8, 1863, Johnson freed his personal slaves.[3] He vigorously suppressed the Confederates and later 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." [4]
Vice presidency
As a leading War Democrat and pro-Union southerner, Johnson was an ideal candidate for the Republicans in 1864 as they enlarged their base to include War Democrats and 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 (he explained later) to offset the pain of typhoid fever, 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. [5]
Lincoln assassination
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford's Theater. Booth's plan was to decapitate the administration by ordering conspirators to assassinate Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward that same night. Seward narrowly survived his wounds, while Johnson escaped attack, when his would-be assassin, George Atzerodt, failed to go through with the plan.
Presidency 1865–1869
Upon the death of Lincoln the following morning, April 15 1865, Johnson was sworn in as President of the United States by Lincoln's newly appointed Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. He was the first Vice President to succeed to the U.S. Presidency upon the assassination of a President and the sixth vice president to become a president.[6][7]
Johnson had an ambiguous party status. He attempted to build up a party of loyalists under the National Union label, but he did not identify with either of the two main parties 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...if I have administered the office of president so well?"[8]
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 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" and "Icebergia." Seward also negotiated to purchase the Danish West Indies, but the Senate refused to approve the purchase in 1867 (it eventually took place in 1917). The Senate likewise rejected Seward's arrangement with the United Kingdom to arbitrate the Alabama Claims.
The U.S. experienced tense relations with the United Kingdom 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 helped motivate the movement toward Canadian Confederation.
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."[9] 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."[10]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; however, 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, similar to the plan of leniency that Lincoln advocated before his death.
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Impeachment
First attempt
There were two attempts to remove President Andrew Johnson from office. The first occurred in the fall of 1867. On November 21, 1867, the House Judiciary committee produced a bill of impeachment that was basically a vast collection of complaints against him. After a furious debate, a formal vote was held in the House of Representatives on December 5, 1867, which failed 108-57.[11]
Second attempt
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 in March, 1867 over Johnson's veto, specifically designed to protect Stanton.[12] 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.[13]
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.
A Harper's Weekly cartoon gives a humorous breakdown of "the situation". Secretary of War Edwin Stanton aims a cannon labeled "Congress" on the side at President Johnson and Lorenzo Thomas to show how Stanton was using congress to defeat the president and his unsuccessful replacement. He also holds a rammer marked "Tenure of Office Bill" and cannon balls on the floor are marked "Justice". Ulysses S. Grant and an unidentified man stand to Stanton's left.
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. Seven Republican senators were disturbed by how the proceedings had been manipulated in order to give a one-sided presentation of the evidence. Senators William Pitt Fessenden, Joseph S. Fowler, James W. Grimes, John B. Henderson, Lyman Trumbull, Peter G. Van Winkle,[14] and Edmund G. Ross of Kansas, who provided the decisive vote,[15] defied their party and public opinion and voted against conviction.
Before 1960 most historians held the impeachment of Andrew Johnson as a violation of American values regarding division of powers and fair play. Had Johnson been successfully removed from office, he would have been replaced with Radical Republican Benjamin Wade, making the presidency and Congress somewhat uniform in ideology, although in many ways Wade was more "radical" than the Republicans in Congress. This would have established a precedent that a President could be removed not for "high crimes and misdemeanors", but for purely political differences.
Christmas Day amnesty for Confederates
One of Johnson's last significant acts was granting unconditional amnesty to all Confederates on Christmas Day, December 25, 1868. This was after the election of U.S. Grant to succeed him, but before Grant took office in March 1869. Earlier amnesties requiring signed oaths and excluding certain classes of people were issued both by Lincoln and by Johnson.
Administration and Cabinet
| The Johnson cabinet | ||
|---|---|---|
| Office | Name | Term |
| President | Andrew Johnson | 1865–1869 |
| Vice President | None | 1865–1869 |
| 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 W. 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
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 U.S. Senate. Johnson served from March 4, 1875, until his death from a stroke 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 Administration. His passion 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.
Historians' changing view of Andrew Johnson
Historians have gone through cycles on Johnson. The Dunning School of the early 20th century saw him as a heroic bulwark against the corruption of the Radical Republicans who tried to remove the entire leadership class of the white South. Johnson seemed to be the legitimate heir of the sainted Abraham Lincoln.
By the 1930s a series of favorable biographies enhanced his prestige.[16] Johnson's Republican critics of the 1860s appeared as disreputable to liberal historians as did the Republican critics of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Furthermore, a Beardian School (named after Charles Beard and typified by Howard K. Beale) argued that the Republican Party in the 1860s was a tool of corrupt business interests, and that Johnson stood for the people. Historian Eric Foner says that by 1948, historians regarded Reconstruction, "as a time of corruption and misgovernment caused by granting black men the right to vote." They rated Johnson "near great."
By 1960, however, historians such as Erik McKitrick demonstrated that Johnson was a poor politician who could not build coalitions and was doomed to failure. The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s brought a new perspective to the practice of history as well as to civil legislation. Historians noted African American efforts to establish public education and welfare institutions, gave muted praise for Republican efforts to extend suffrage and provide other social institutions, and excoriated Johnson for siding explicitly with the white South.
Johnson's most important foreign policy action was the purchase of Alaska from Russia (the future Soviet Union). This would prove vital to national security later during the Cold War. The idea and implementation is credited to Seward as Secretary of State, but Johnson approved the plan. Gold was not discovered in Alaska until 1880, thirteen years after the purchase and five years after Johnson's death, and oil was not discovered until 1968.
See also
- United States presidential election, 1864
- History of the United States (1865-1918)
- Tennessee Johnson
Bibliography
- Howard K. Beale, The Critical Year. A Study of Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (1930). ISBN 0-8044-1085-2
- Michael Les Benedict, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1999). ISBN 0-393-31982-2 online edition
- Albert E. Castel, The Presidency of Andrew Johnson (1979). ISBN 0-7006-0190-2
- D. M. DeWitt, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1903).
- W. A. Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction (New York, 1898) online edition
- W. A. Dunning, Reconstruction, Political and Economic (New York, 1907) online edition
- Foster, G. Allen, Impeached: The President who almost lost his job (New York, 1964).
- Eric L. McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (1961). ISBN 0-19-505707-4
- Martin E. Mantell; Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction (1973) online edition
- Hatfield, Mark O, with the Senate Historical Office, Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789-1993.(Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997), p.219
- Howard Means, The Avenger Takes His Place: Andrew Johnson and the 45 Days That Changed the Nation (New York, 2006)
- Milton; George Fort. The Age of Hate: Andrew Johnson and the Radicals (1930) online edition
- Patton; James Welch. Unionism and Reconstruction in Tennessee, 1860–1869 (1934) online edition
- 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. online edition
- Schouler, James. History of the United States of America: Under the Constitution vol. 7. 1865–1877. The Reconstruction Period (1917) online edition
- Lloyd P. Stryker, Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage (1929). ISBN 0-403-01231-7 online edition
- Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography (1989). ISBN 0-393-31742-0 online edition
- Winston; Robert W. Andrew Johnson: Plebeian and Patriot (1928) online edition
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.) Includes all letters and speeches by Johnson, and many letters written to him. Complete to 1875.
- Newspaper clippings, 1865–1869
- Series of Harper's Weekly articles covering the impeachment controversy and trial
- Johnson's obituary, from the New York Times
Notes
- ^ Adherents.com: The Religious Affiliation of Andrew Johnson
- ^ Karin L Zipf. Labor Of Innocents: Forced Apprenticeship in North Carolina, 1715–1919 (2005) pp 8–9
- ^ Tennessee Recalls Emancipation, Segregation
- ^ Patton p 126
- ^ Trefousse p. 198
- ^ Complete list of U.S. presidents
- ^ Biography of Andrew Johnson — www.whitehouse.gov
- ^ Trefousse, Hans Louis. Andrew Johnson: A Biography (1997), p. 338-339.
- ^ Milton 183
- ^ "Memoirs of W.W. Holden: Electronic Edition".
- ^ Trefousse, 1989 pages 302–3
- ^ Tenure of office act — Britannica Online Encyclopedia
- ^ Tenure of office act — Britannica Concise
- ^ "Andrew Johnson Trial: The Consciences of Seven Republicans Save Johnson".
- ^ "The Trial of Andrew Johnson, 1868".
- ^ Highly favorable were Winston (1928), Stryker (1929), Milton (1930), and Claude Bowers, The Tragic Era (1929).
External links
- Extensive essay on Andrew Johnson and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
- Works by Andrew Johnson at Project Gutenberg
- Obituary, NY Times, August 1, 1875, Andrew Johnson Dead
- Articles of Impeachment
- White House Biography
- United States Congress. "Andrew Johnson (id: J000116)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
- Vice Presidential biography. From the Senate Historical Office.
- Mr. Lincoln's White House: Andrew Johnson
- Andrew Johnson Cleveland Speech (September 3, 1866)
- Congressional Globe transcript of Johnsons inaugural address
- Speeches of Andrew Johnson : President of the United States 1866 collection at archive.org
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