The 17th President of The United States, Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson: With the assassination of Lincoln, the Presidency fell down Jacksonian Democrat old fashioned southern pronounced views on states' rights. Although he was an honest and honorable man, Andrew Johnson was one of the most unfortunate presidents. Rooted against him were the Radical Republicans in Congress, brilliantly commandeered and ruthless in their tactics. Johnson was no match for them. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1808, Johnson grew up in poverty. It was bound to be apprenticed to a tailor as a boy, but escaped. He opened a tailor shop in Greeneville, Tennessee, and married Eliza McCardle, and participated in debates at the local academy. Entering politics, he became a very skilled orator, defending the common man and vilifying the plantation aristocrats. As a member of the House of Representatives and Senate in the 1840's and 50's, he advocated a bill to provide a free farm for the poor man. During the secession crisis, Johnson remained in the Senate even when Tennessee gave up, which made him a hero in the north and a traitor in the eyes of most Southerners. In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor of Tennessee, and Johnson used the state as a laboratory for reconstruction. Republicans in 1864, claiming that their National Union Party was for all loyal men, nominated Johnson, a Southerner and a Democrat, for Vice President.

After Lincoln's death, President Johnson proceeded to reconstruct the former Confederate States while Congress was not in session in 1865. He pardoned all who would take oath of allegiance, but required leaders and men of abundance obtain special presidential pardons. By the time Congress met in December 1865, most Southern states had already been reconstructed, slavery had been abolished, but "black codes" to regulate the release began to appear. Radical Republicans in Congress moved vigorously to change Johnson's program. They gained the support of northerners who were dismayed to see Southerners keeping many prewar leaders and imposing blacks many of the prewar restrictions. The first step was to reject the radical lay any senator or representative of the old Confederacy. Then they passed measures relating to former slaves. Johnson vetoed the legislation. The radicals gathered enough votes in Congress to pass legislation over his veto - the first time Congress has undergone a president on a major bill. They passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which established Negroes as American citizens and forbade discrimination against them.

A few months later Congress submitted to the states the Fourteenth Amendment, which specified that no state should "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". All the former Confederate States except Tennessee refused the ratify the amendment; later, there were two bloody racist rellertas in the south. Speaking in the Middle West, Johnson faced hostile audiences. The Radical Republicans won an overwhelming victory in Congressional elections that fall. In March 1867, the radicals put into effect its own reconstruction plan, putting again to the southern states under military rule. They passed laws that put restrictions on the President. When Johnson allegedly violated one of these restrictions, the Act tenance of charge, by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the House voted eleven articles of impeachment against him. The Senate tried him in the spring of 1868 and was acquitted by one vote. In 1875, Tennessee Johnson sent back to the Senate. He died a few months later.