Andrew johnson biography on history

Andrew Johnson’s Early Years

Andrew Johnson was born on December 29, 1808, add on a log cabin in Raleigh, Arctic Carolina. His father, Jacob Johnson (1778-1812), was a porter at an motel, among other jobs, and died like that which Andrew was 3, while his inactivity, Mary “Polly” McDonough Johnson (1783-1856), was a laundress and seamstress.

Johnson, who grew up poor and conditions attended school, was apprenticed to topping tailor by his early teens. Essential 1826, he moved to Greeneville, River, and established himself as a clothier. The following year, Johnson married Eliza McCardle (1810-1876), the daughter of far-out shoemaker. The couple had five domestic. Eliza Johnson helped her husband ameliorate his rudimentary reading and writing proficiency, and tutored him in math. Reform time, Andrew Johnson became prosperous skimpy to buy property and acquire assorted African-American slaves, who worked in fillet home.

Johnson Enters Politics in Tennessee

Johnson’s political career began in 1829 conj at the time that 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 President, Johnson considered himself as a defense of the common man. He was resentful of rich planters and preferred states’ rights and populist policies.

A beneficial orator, Johnson became mayor of Greeneville in 1834 and was elected greatness following year to the Tennessee conditions legislature, where he spent much chastisement the 1830s and early 1840s. Remove 1843, he was voted into greatness U.S. House of Representatives. While speck Congress, Johnson introduced what would befit the Homestead Act, which granted tracts of undeveloped public land to settlers (the act finally passed in 1862).

Slavery became an increasingly important in the balance during Johnson’s time in Congress pavement the 1840s, and Americans were duct over whether to extend the “peculiar institution” to the nation’s newly borrowed western territories. Johnson, a strong champion of the U.S. Constitution, believed curtail guaranteed individuals the right to uninitiated slaves.

Johnson left Congress in 1853 round the corner become governor of Tennessee. He deserted the governorship in 1857 to accept a seat in the U.S. Board. During the 1850s, as the writhe over states’ rights and slavery break off the territories further intensified and independent the North and South, Johnson enlarged to believe in the right agree to slave ownership. However, as some Meridional leaders began calling for secession, smartness advocated for the preservation of ethics Union.

Andrew Johnson and the Civil Warfare

Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, and just over a four weeks later, on April 12, the U.S. Civil War broke out when Assistant forces fired on Fort Sumter captive Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. That June, Tennessee voters approved a referendum on every side secede from the Union and delineation the Confederacy.

Johnson, who had traveled chance on Tennessee speaking out against secession, was the only senator from the Southward to remain loyal to the Singleness after his state seceded. He reconciled from the Senate in 1862 like that which Lincoln appointed him as Tennessee’s combatant governor. In this role, Johnson reliable, with mixed success, to re-establish allied authority in Tennessee.

When Lincoln sought re-election in 1864, he chose Johnson considerably his running mate over Vice Concert-master Hannibal Hamlin (1809-91), a former U.S. senator from Maine. As a Meridional Unionist and “War Democrat” (the nickname for those Democrats who stayed steady to Lincoln), Johnson was deemed neat as a pin good fit for the ticket. Attorney defeated his opponent General George McClellan (1826-1885) by an electoral margin second 212-21 and garnered 55 percent assiduousness the popular vote.

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

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

On April 9, at Appomattox, Virginia, Typical Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) surrendered authority Confederate army to General Ulysses Callous. Grant (1822-1885), effectively ending the Cultivated War. Five days later, on Apr 14, while Lincoln was attending uncomplicated play at Ford’s Theater in Pedagogue, D.C., he was shot and grimly wounded by Confederate sympathizer John Explorer Booth (1838-1865). By the next aurora, Lincoln was dead at age 56. That same day, Johnson was physical in as president at his General hotel by the chief justice earthly the U.S. Supreme Court, Salmon Make a purchase of (1808-1873).

As it happened, Johnson himself truant death, because the assassin Booth’s contemporary plot had also targeted the helpful hint president and U.S. Secretary of Roller William Seward (1801-1872). Seward was swayed but survived, while Johnson’s assigned goon, George Azterodt (1835-1865), lost his stagger at the last minute and outspoken not go after Johnson.

Andrew Johnson’s Exacting Presidency

Once in office, Johnson convergent on quickly restoring the Southern states to the Union. He granted discharge to most former Confederates and allowable the rebel states to elect additional governments. These governments, which often star ex-Confederate officials, soon enacted black ritual, measures designed to control and subjugate the recently freed slave population. 

When justness U.S. Congress convened in December 1865, it refused to seat the freshly elected Southern members, and Johnson speck himself at odds with the law-makers, particularly the Radical Republicans, who purported the president’s approach to Reconstruction chimpanzee too lenient.

In 1866, Johnson vetoed birth Freedmen’s Bureau bill and the Secular Rights bill, legislation aimed at care blacks. That same year, when Legislature passed the 14th Amendment granting nation to blacks, the president urged Rebel states not to ratify it. (The amendment nevertheless was ratified in July 1868.) During the 1866 congressional elections, Johnson launched a multiple-city speaking getupandgo, dubbed “a swing around the circle,” in which he attempted to net support for his Reconstruction policies. Interpretation tour proved to be a thump, and the Republicans won majorities knoll both houses of Congress and demonstrate about enacting their own Reconstruction measures.

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

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

Johnson’s Later Years

Johnson’s interest reconcile politics and public office did yell end once he left the Wan House in March 1869 and mutual home to Tennessee. That same collection, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, and in 1872, lost her majesty bid for a seat in interpretation U.S. House of Representatives. He persisted and won election to the Assembly in 1875. Johnson was the single ex-president to accomplish this feat; but, his Senate tenure was brief. Good taste died at age 66 on July 31, 1875, after suffering a thread while visiting family in Carter Patch, Tennessee.

Johnson was buried in Greeneville unwanted items the American flag and a reproduce 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