Andrew Johnson Facts | 17th US PRESIDENT
US President: 1865-1869
Political Party: National Union (1864 – 1868), Democratic (1829 – 1864, 1868 – 1875)
Birth: December 29, 1808 in Raleigh, North Carolina
Death: July 31, 1875 in Elizabethton, Tennessee
Offices held:
17th President of the United States (1865 – 1869)
16th Vice President of the United States (1865)
United States Senator from Tennessee (1875, 1857 – 1862)
15th Governor of Tennessee (1853 – 1857)
U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee’s 1st district (1843 – 1853)
First Family
First Ladies: Eliza McCardle
Children: Martha, Charles, Mary, Robert, Andrew, Jr.
Pictures of Eliza Johnson from the Library of Congress
Biographies
Biography from Biography.com
Biography from the U.S. Senate
Biography from the NCpedia
Congressional Biography
The Politics of Johnson by Eric Foner
Photos
Pictures from the Library of Congress
Genealogy
Johnson genealogy
Johnson ancestors and descendants
Andrew Johnson National Cemetery
Facts about Andrew Johnson
Initially, the conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln also planned on killing Andrew Johnson. However, George Atzerodt, his supposed assassin, backed out. Johnson became president on April 15, 1865.
- When Andrew Johnson was only three his father Jacob died.
- His wife encouraged him in his self-education and counseled him on business investments.
- He never attended school at all.
- Johnson had a tailor shop when he was just 19 and by the age of 22 he became the mayor of Greeneville, Tennessee.
- Johnson was the US Representative from Tennessee until he became governor of Tennessee in 1853.
- While in Congress, he supported the Fugitive Slave Act and the right to own slaves.
- In 1862, Abraham Lincoln appointed Johnson to be the military governor of Tennessee.
During his presidency he was involved in Reconstruction (1865-1877), the system of bringing the Southern states back into the Unites States after the American Civil War.
In 1867, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act. This denied the president the right to remove his own appointed officials from office. Despite the Act, Johnson removed Edwin Stanton, his Secretary of War, from office in 1868. His nicknames were the Tennessee Tailor, Sir Veto and the Father of the Homestead Act.
Andrew Johnson Childhood
Andrew Johnson was born in a log cabin in Raleigh, North Carolina, on December 29, 1808. His father, Jacob Johnson, died when Andrew was 3, leaving the family in poverty. His mother, Mary “”Polly”” McDonough Johnson, worked as a seamstress to make ends meet. She and her second husband apprenticed Andrew and his brother, William, to a local tailor. As a young boy, Andrew felt the sting of prejudice from the higher classes and developed a white-supremacist attitude to compensate, a perception he held all his life.
Chafing under the constraints of apprenticeship, Johnson and his brother ran away from their obligation. The pair dodged authorities who sought to return them to their employer and worked as itinerate tailors. The boys later returned home, and the family moved to Greeneville, Tennessee.
ANDREW JOHNSON IMPEACHMENT?
Prior to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he had formulated a plan of reconstruction that would be lenient toward the defeated South as it rejoined the Union. He planned to grant a general amnesty to those who pledged an oath of loyalty to the United States and agreed to obey all federal laws pertaining to slavery.
Andrew Johnson was intent on carrying out this plan when he assumed the presidency. The intended policy, did not sit well with the Republicans, who sought to set up military governments and implement strict terms for re-admission into the Union
The political backing to begin impeachment proceedings against the president came when Johnson breached the Tenure of Office Act by removing Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, from the cabinet. The Tenure of Office Act, passed over Johnson’s veto in 1867, stated that a president could not dismiss appointed officials without the consent of Congress.
Both Lincoln and Johnson had experienced problems with Stanton, an ally of the Radicals in Congress. Stanton’s removal, was not only a political decision made to relieve the discord between the president and his cabinet, but a test of the Tenure of Office Act as well. Johnson believed the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional and wanted it to be legally tried in the courts. It was the president, himself, however, that stood trial.
President Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives on February 24, 1868. In the end, the Senate voted to acquit President Andrew Johnson by a margin of 35 guilty to 19 not guilty, just one vote short of the two-thirds needed to convict. In the 1926 case, the Supreme Court declared that the Tenure of Office Act had been invalid.
Where is Andrew Johnson buried?
He was buried with his body wrapped in an American flag and a copy of the U.S. Constitution placed under his head, according to his wishes. The burial ground was dedicated as the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in 1906, and with his home and tailor’s shop, is part of the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site.
How did Andrew Johnson die?
He died on July 31, 1875 at the age of 66. Andrew Johnson had a stroke on the evening of July 30.”
Andrew JOHNSON Biography
JOHNSON, Andrew, (father-in-law of David Trotter Patterson), a Representative and a Senator from Tennessee and a Vice President and 17th President of the United States; born in Raleigh, N.C., on December 29, 1808; self-educated; at the age of 13 was apprenticed to a tailor; moved to Tennessee in 1826; employed as a tailor; alderman of Greeneville, Tenn., 1828-1830; mayor of Greeneville 1834-1838; member, State house of representatives 1835-1837, 1839-1841; elected to the State senate in 1841; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1843-March 3, 1853); chairman, Committee on Public Expenditures (Thirty-first and Thirty-second Congresses); did not seek renomination, having become a gubernatorial candidate; Governor of Tennessee 1853-1857; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from October 8, 1857, to March 4, 1862, when he resigned; chairman, Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expenses (Thirty-sixth Congress), Committee on the District of Columbia (Thirty-sixth Congress);
Appointed by President Abraham Lincoln Military Governor of Tennessee in 1862; elected Vice President of the United States on the Republican ticket with Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and was inaugurated on March 4, 1865; became President of the United States on April 15, 1865, upon the death of Abraham Lincoln; wide differences arising between the President and the Congress, a resolution for his impeachment passed the House of Representatives on February 24, 1868; eleven articles were set out in the resolution and the trial before the Senate lasted three months, at the conclusion of which he was acquitted (May 26, 1868) by a vote of thirty-five for conviction to nineteen for acquittal, the necessary two-thirds vote for impeachment not having been obtained; retired to his home in Tennessee upon the expiration of the presidential term, March 3, 1869; unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1869 and to the House of Representatives in 1872; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1875, until his death near Elizabethton, Carter County, Tenn., July 31, 1875; interment in the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery, Greeneville, Greene County, Tenn.
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