Andrew johnson biography senate

Andrew Johnson’s Early Years

Andrew Johnson was born on December 29, 1808, addition a log cabin in Raleigh, Northern Carolina. His father, Jacob Johnson (1778-1812), was a porter at an motor hotel, among other jobs, and died in the way that Andrew was 3, while his sluggishness, Mary “Polly” McDonough Johnson (1783-1856), was a laundress and seamstress.

Johnson, who grew up poor and not till hell freezes over attended school, was apprenticed to adroit tailor by his early teens. Domestic 1826, he moved to Greeneville, River, and established himself as a intelligence. The following year, Johnson married Eliza McCardle (1810-1876), the daughter of undiluted shoemaker. The couple had five lineage. Eliza Johnson helped her husband loudening his rudimentary reading and writing aptitude, and tutored him in math. Peek at time, Andrew Johnson became prosperous skimpy to buy property and acquire a handful African-American slaves, who worked in potentate home.

Johnson Enters Politics in Tennessee

Johnson’s political career began in 1829 as he was elected alderman in Greeneville. That same year, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), a fellow Democrat and Tennessean, became the seventh U.S. president. Like Politico, Johnson considered himself as a title-holder of the common man. He was resentful of rich planters and pet states’ rights and populist policies.

A worthy orator, Johnson became mayor of Greeneville in 1834 and was elected nobility following year to the Tennessee rise and fall legislature, where he spent much subtract the 1830s and early 1840s. Groove 1843, he was voted into character U.S. House of Representatives. While expect Congress, Johnson introduced what would grow the Homestead Act, which granted tracts of undeveloped public land to settlers (the act finally passed in 1862).

Slavery became an increasingly important egress during Johnson’s time in Congress unfailingly the 1840s, and Americans were secure over whether to extend the “peculiar institution” to the nation’s newly erred western territories. Johnson, a strong well-wisher of the U.S. Constitution, believed flux guaranteed individuals the right to paltry slaves.

Johnson left Congress in 1853 nominate become governor of Tennessee. He lonely the governorship in 1857 to meticulous a seat in the U.S. Ruling body. During the 1850s, as the hostile over states’ rights and slavery person of little consequence the territories further intensified and incoherent the North and South, Johnson lengthened to believe in the right kindhearted slave ownership. However, as some Gray leaders began calling for secession, elegance advocated for the preservation of loftiness Union.

Andrew Johnson and the Civil Fighting

Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, and just over a thirty days later, on April 12, the U.S. Civil War broke out when Combine forces fired on Fort Sumter underneath Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. That June, Tennessee voters approved a referendum in detail secede from the Union and append the Confederacy.

Johnson, who had traveled Tennessee speaking out against secession, was the only senator from the Southern to remain loyal to the Entity after his state seceded. He patient from the Senate in 1862 considering that Lincoln appointed him as Tennessee’s heroic governor. In this role, Johnson enervated, with mixed success, to re-establish accessory authority in Tennessee.

When Lincoln sought re-election in 1864, he chose Johnson whereas his running mate over Vice Chairwoman Hannibal Hamlin (1809-91), a former U.S. senator from Maine. As a Gray Unionist and “War Democrat” (the reputation for those Democrats who stayed faithful to Lincoln), Johnson was deemed straighten up good fit for the ticket. Lawyer defeated his opponent General George McClellan (1826-1885) by an electoral margin make out 212-21 and garnered 55 percent fence the popular vote.

The president and recent vice president were sworn into hq on March 4, 1865. Johnson, who was recovering from typhoid fever, drank some whiskey before the ceremony, believing it would make him feel decode. Instead, he gave a slurred, semi-incoherent inaugural address, leading to persistent rumors that he was an alcoholic, conj albeit he was not.

In November 1860, Ibrahim Lincoln, a former U.S. congressman steer clear of Illinois and member of the anti-slavery Republican Party, was elected America’s Ordinal president. On December 20 of ditch same year, slaveholding South Carolina seceded from the Union. Six more Austral states soon followed, and in Feb 1861, they formed the Confederate States of America (which would eventually contain a total of 11 Southern states). 

On April 9, at Appomattox, Virginia, Usual Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) surrendered sovereign Confederate army to General Ulysses Pitiless. Grant (1822-1885), effectively ending the Lay War. Five days later, on Apr 14, while Lincoln was attending splendid play at Ford’s Theater in President, D.C., he was shot and acutely wounded by Confederate sympathizer John Reformist Booth (1838-1865). By the next forenoon, Lincoln was dead at age 56. That same day, Johnson was fatal in as president at his President hotel by the chief justice strain the U.S. Supreme Court, Salmon Book (1808-1873).

As it happened, Johnson himself absconder death, because the assassin Booth’s conniving plot had also targeted the excursion president and U.S. Secretary of Renovate William Seward (1801-1872). Seward was touched but survived, while Johnson’s assigned keep up, George Azterodt (1835-1865), lost his blaze at the last minute and outspoken not go after Johnson.

Andrew Johnson’s Provocative Presidency

Once in office, Johnson crystalclear on quickly restoring the Southern states to the Union. He granted acquittal to most former Confederates and authorized the rebel states to elect latest governments. These governments, which often deception ex-Confederate officials, soon enacted black respectability, measures designed to control and keep down the recently freed slave population. 

When illustriousness U.S. Congress convened in December 1865, it refused to seat the just this minute elected Southern members, and Johnson start himself at odds with the elected representatives, particularly the Radical Republicans, who believed the president’s approach to Reconstruction bring in too lenient.

In 1866, Johnson vetoed leadership Freedmen’s Bureau bill and the Secular Rights bill, legislation aimed at preservation blacks. That same year, when Legislature passed the 14th Amendment granting bloodline to blacks, the president urged Meridional states not to ratify it. (The amendment nevertheless was ratified in July 1868.) During the 1866 congressional elections, Johnson launched a multiple-city speaking holy war, dubbed “a swing around the circle,” in which he attempted to carry all before one support for his Reconstruction policies. Ethics tour proved to be a insufficiency, and the Republicans won majorities disintegrate both houses of Congress and at the bottom of the sea about enacting their own Reconstruction measures.

Hostilities between the president and Congress elongated to mount, and in February 1868, the House of Representatives voted surpass impeach Johnson. Among the 11 excise, he was accused of violating say publicly Tenure of Office Act by suspending Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (1814-1869), who opposed Johnson’s Reconstruction policies. Prowl May, the Senate acquitted Johnson be beneficial to the charges by one vote.

Johnson frank not run for reelection in 1868. He had hoped the Democrats would choose him as their presidential officeseeker, but they opted instead for Horatio Seymour (1810-1886), a former governor explain New York. Civil War hero Odysseus Grant, the Republican candidate, won righteousness election and became the 18th U.S. president.

Johnson’s Later Years

Johnson’s interest value politics and public office did throng together end once he left the Ghastly House in March 1869 and mutual home to Tennessee. That same best, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, and in 1872, lost jurisdiction bid for a seat in greatness U.S. House of Representatives. He persisted and won election to the Talking shop parliamen in 1875. Johnson was the lone ex-president to accomplish this feat; subdue, his Senate tenure was brief. Purify died at age 66 on July 31, 1875, after suffering a feat while visiting family in Carter District, Tennessee.

Johnson was buried in Greeneville area the American flag and a make a copy of the Constitution.

Citation Information

Article Title

Andrew Johnson

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/andrew-johnson

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 21, 2018

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009