Andrew Johnson

17th President of the United States
Term: 1865-1869
Born: December 29, 1808
Died: July 31, 1875

Andrew Johnson became the seventeenth President of the United States following the tragic assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865. He inherited a nation thoroughly devastated by four years of civil war and faced the monumental task of Reconstruction — the complex process of restoring the former Confederate states to the Union and defining the legal rights of millions of newly freed African Americans.

Johnson's presidency was entirely defined by a bitter, unyielding conflict with Congress over the direction of Reconstruction. These historic disputes culminated in the first impeachment of an American president, making his administration one of the most controversial in United States history.

Early Life

Andrew Johnson was born into poverty in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1808.

Unlike most presidents before him, Johnson never attended a single day of formal school. He was apprenticed as a tailor during childhood and taught himself to read. His future wife, Eliza McCardle Johnson, is widely credited with helping him improve his writing and arithmetic after their marriage, though some historians note he had basic literacy before they met. After moving to Greeneville, Tennessee, Johnson established a highly successful tailoring business while becoming active in local politics. His rise from absolute poverty to the presidency remains one of the most remarkable stories of social mobility in American political history.

Early Political Career

Johnson steadily advanced through public office across several decades, serving as:

• Mayor of Greeneville, Tennessee
• Member of the Tennessee Legislature
• Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
• Governor of Tennessee
• United States Senator

Throughout much of his career, Johnson presented himself as a fierce champion of small farmers and working-class white Southerners. Although he personally owned enslaved people before the Civil War, he frequently opposed the political influence and power of the wealthy Southern planter class.

The Civil War

When Tennessee formally seceded from the Union in 1861, Johnson made the courageous decision to refuse to leave his seat in the United States Senate. In doing so, he became the only senator from a seceding Southern state to remain loyal to the Union. This bold stance made him one of the most prominent Southern Unionists in the country.

President Abraham Lincoln later appointed Johnson as the Military Governor of Tennessee after Union forces successfully regained control of much of the state. In 1864, Lincoln selected Johnson, a lifelong Democrat, as his vice presidential running mate on the National Union ticket to demonstrate bipartisan support for preserving the Union.

Accession to the Presidency

On April 15, 1865, Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency following Lincoln's assassination. The Civil War had effectively ended only days earlier, leaving the country facing massive immediate challenges, including:

• Reintegrating the former Confederate states back into federal governance.
• Rebuilding shattered Southern infrastructure and local governments.
• Defining the legal and social status of formerly enslaved people.
• Reestablishing a stable, unified national economy.

Johnson operated under the strict constitutional belief that the Southern states had never legally left the Union, and therefore should be restored to full participation as quickly as possible.

Presidential Reconstruction

Johnson's unilateral Reconstruction policy emphasized rapid, unconditional restoration of the Southern states. He granted blanket pardons to thousands of former Confederates who agreed to pledge loyalty to the United States.

Under his watch, new state governments were quickly organized throughout the South, often led by many of the exact same political figures who had held power before and during the war. Johnson imposed relatively few long-term conditions on former Confederate leaders before allowing them to fully resume their political participation.

Conflict with Congress

Many members of Congress, particularly the Radical Republicans, believed Johnson's lenient Reconstruction policies completely failed to protect the rights of formerly enslaved people. Congress increasingly sought to wrest control of the process away from the executive branch and place Reconstruction under federal legislative authority. Major disputes arose over:

• Broad civil rights legislation
• Federal military oversight and occupation of Southern states
• Voting rights for formerly enslaved men
• The constitutional balance of power between Congress and the presidency

Johnson fiercely opposed these measures, vetoing numerous Reconstruction bills. However, Congress repeatedly overrode many of his vetoes, an extremely uncommon political occurrence at that point in American history.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866

Johnson vetoed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1866, arguing that it unconstitutionally expanded federal authority beyond its legal limits. Congress aggressively disagreed and became the first in American history to successfully override a presidential veto on a major civil rights law. The act officially established that all persons born in the United States, except certain Native Americans under tribal jurisdiction at the time, were recognized as citizens and entitled to equal protection under the law.

The Fourteenth Amendment

Johnson strongly opposed the proposed Fourteenth Amendment. Eventually ratified in 1868 despite executive opposition, the monumental amendment permanently established:

• Birthright citizenship for anyone born in the United States
• Equal protection under the law for all citizens
• Due process protections against overreach by state governments

Today, the Fourteenth Amendment remains one of the most heavily cited and influential provisions of the Constitution, but Johnson's public opposition to it further widened the divide between the presidency and Congress.

Black Codes

During Johnson's lenient period of Presidential Reconstruction, many newly reorganized Southern states quickly adopted repressive laws known as Black Codes. These laws significantly restricted the basic rights and everyday freedoms of formerly enslaved African Americans, severely limiting their employment opportunities, freedom of movement, property ownership rights, and legal access to the courts.

Although Johnson did not create these laws himself, his hands-off Reconstruction policies allowed the very governments that enacted them to quickly return to power. The emergence of the Black Codes became one of the primary reasons Congress abandoned moderation and adopted a far more aggressive, federally mandated approach to Reconstruction.

Impeachment

The greatest constitutional crisis of Johnson's presidency occurred in 1868. To restrict his power, Congress had passed the Tenure of Office Act, which limited the president's ability to remove certain executive cabinet officials without receiving explicit Senate approval.

Believing the law to be unconstitutional, Johnson intentionally removed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, an ally of the Radical Republicans, from his cabinet. In response, the House of Representatives voted to impeach him, making Johnson the first president in American history to be formally impeached.

The subsequent Senate trial was one of the most dramatic in American history. The final vote was 35 to convict and 19 to acquit — exactly one vote short of the two-thirds majority required to remove him from office. Johnson survived and completed his term. Modern historians continue to debate both the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act (the Supreme Court effectively struck down similar legislation decades later) and whether impeachment was the appropriate political response to Johnson's executive actions.

Foreign Policy

Despite the massive domestic turmoil consuming Washington, Johnson's administration achieved one lasting foreign policy success.

The Alaska Purchase

In 1867, Secretary of State William H. Seward successfully negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. The massive land acquisition was initially mocked by critics as "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox." Later discoveries of gold, oil, and massive natural resource reserves demonstrated the purchase's long-term strategic and economic value. Today, Alaska is widely regarded as one of the most successful territorial acquisitions in American history.

Personal Life

Andrew Johnson remained deeply connected to his humble origins throughout his life, frequently emphasizing that he had never forgotten his working-class background. His wife, Eliza, struggled severely with poor health throughout much of his presidency, leaving her unable to participate heavily in the demanding social life of the White House.

Death

After his turbulent term concluded, Johnson returned home to Tennessee. In 1875, he achieved a measure of political vindication when he became the first — and to date only — former president to be elected to the United States Senate after serving as president. Only a few months into his new Senate term, he suffered a severe stroke and died on July 31, 1875.

Myth vs. History

Johnson Actively Wanted to Restore the Confederacy
There is no historical evidence that Johnson sought to restore the Confederacy or reverse the hard-fought military victory of the Union. He remained loyal to the Union at great personal risk throughout the entire Civil War. His bitter disagreements with Congress centered entirely on how Reconstruction should legally proceed after the war ended, not on reversing the war's outcome.

Johnson Was Removed from the White House Through Impeachment
This is a frequent historical misconception. While Johnson was formally impeached by the House of Representatives, he was acquitted by the Senate by a single vote — 35 to 19, with 36 votes needed to convict. He remained in office and completed his full term.

The Alaska Purchase Was Universally Recognized as a Brilliant Move at the Time
In reality, many critics at the time dismissed the purchase as an expensive mistake on frozen, barren land. Its immense long-term value only became clear decades later after massive natural resources were discovered and Alaska's geopolitical importance became undeniable.

Historical Significance

If Abraham Lincoln successfully preserved the Union during the bloody years of the Civil War, Andrew Johnson faced the immediate, messy challenge of determining what that restored Union would actually become.

His tumultuous presidency exposed deep, foundational disagreements over civil rights, federal authority, and the nature of equality that would shape American history for generations to come. His explosive conflicts with Congress fundamentally altered the balance of federal power during Reconstruction and led directly to the nation's first presidential impeachment crisis. Although his administration successfully secured the purchase of Alaska and established critical constitutional precedents regarding executive removal power, it is most remembered for the contentious struggle over Reconstruction — a struggle whose structural consequences continued to influence the United States long after his presidency ended.