Johnson, Andrew in United States

Johnson, Andrew

JOHNSON, Andrew, 17th President of the United States: b. Raleigh, N. C., 29 Dec, 1808; d. Carter’s Station, Tenn., 31 July 1875. Johnson’s father died when the boy was 5 years old, and at 10 he was apprenticed to a tailor in his native town. While at work, Johnson gained the first rudiments of an education from a gentlemen who often visited the tailor’s shop and read aloud to the journeymen and the apprentices from a volume of speeches of eminent British orators. Johnson became interested and received the book as a gift from the owner and learned to read and spell at the same time. In 1824, having completed his apprenticeship, he left Raleigh and went to Laurens Court House. In 1826 he returned to Raleigh, but in September of the same year he left with his mother, whom he always showed the greatest solicitude and respect, for Greenville, Tenn. The following year he married. Encouraged and aided by his wife he learned to write and figure. Becoming interested in the problems of his fellow-workers he was elected alderman (1828), to which office he was twice re-elected. In 1830 he was elected mayor, and held the position for three terms. He was also chosen by the County Court as trustee of Rhea Academy, which he held until he entered the State legislature. In 1839 he took an active part in the adoption of a new State constitution which greatly enlarged the freedom of the masses and guaranteed freedom of speech and of the press. The next year he was elected to the State legislature from the counties of Washington and Green where he was especially pronounced in his opposition to the wild schemes of internal improvements then in vogue. Defeated in 1837 for re-election, he was returned in 1839 when the State realized the justice of his position in view of the crisis of 1837. Johnson canvassed eastern Tennessee for the Democratic candidate in 1840, and served as presidential elector-at-large. In the following year he entered the State senate, signalizing his advent by the introduction of a judicious measure for internal improvements. In 1843 he was nominated from the first district for Congress, and in December took his seat in the national House of Representatives, which he continued to hold for 10 years. While in the lower house he supported a bill for refunding the fine imposed on General Jackson, the annexation of Texas, the war measures of Polk’s administration, and a homestead measure, and opposed all schemes of internal improvement when local in scope and the tariff of 1842. On 2 Aug. 1848, he made a speech setting forth his ideas with regard to the President’s veto power. “A veto as exercised by the executive,” he declared, “is conservative and enables the people through their tribunician officer, the President, to arrest or suspend for the time being unconstitutional, hasty and improvident legislation until the people, the sovereigns in this country, have time and opportunity to consider its propriety.” This utterance was made the theme of an interesting article in the Democratic Review in its January issue. Returning to his own State he was chosen for governor in 1853. His inaugural excited much criticism for its ultra radical statements. Two years later he was elected to the United States Senate. As senator he gained special distinction in advocating a homestead measure, only to see his efforts thwarted by President Buchanan.

By this time the slavery problem was the real issue of the nation. Johnson, a Southern Democrat, himself the owner of slaves “acquired by the toil of his hands,” mildly upheld slavery, but he did not believe in compromises nor in agitating the slavery controversy, deeming all such discussions as futile. For this reason he disbelieved in the right of petition but supported the Compromise of 1850 because he thought each resolution embodied his views. Nevertheless he did not sanction the Southern attitude of threatening the national government. In the National Democratic Convention at Charleston in 1860, Johnson was a candidate, but in the election he supported the Breckenridge ticket. When he saw the determination of the South to secede, he alone of the Southern members refused “to go with his State” when it withdrew. In 1861 he returned to Tennessee and often at the risk of his life worked in behalf of the Union. In 1862 he became military governor of that part of Tennessee under the control of the Northern forces and began organizing a Union government. Two years later Johnson was placed on the ticket with Lincoln in order to secure the votes of the border States and the Democrats.

At the sudden death of Lincoln, Johnson undertook the difficult problem of reconstruction left unfinished by his predecessor. Perhaps no man in the Union was so unfitted for this task as the President. Egotistical, tactless, self-confident, fond of making extravagant speeches, radical by nature, and uneducated, Johnson was incapable of grasping the subject. Where Lincoln by his skill could have molded opinion to his view, Johnson aroused a storm of opposition. Yet, to the radical Republicans, Johnson’s succession to the mild Lincoln was received with acclaim, for the new incumbent had always displayed himself as a vigorous prosecutor of the recalcitrant Southerners. But no sooner was Johnson in office than he began to change, probably due to Seward’s influence and the added responsibility of his new office. In so doing, Johnson soon found himself in opposition to the legislative branch of the government.

Two possible agencies were available to handle the new situation. One, the executive branch, working on the theory that the President as commander-in-chief of the army had the power to establish military rule and withdraw it; the other, the legislative body, on the assumption that restoration was a part of the lawmaking function. Lincoln, in dealing with the parts of Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana recovered from the Confederacy, had undertaken the task of reconstruction by issuing his Amnesty Proclamation (8 Dec. 1863), in which he had declared that when a number of citizens of the State equal to one-tenth of the vote of that particular State in 1860 had taken the prescribed presidential oath, they might establish a civil government; but the President had definitely stated that the admission of their senators and representatives to Congress would rest entirely with the legislative branch. Congress showed its opposition to this scheme by hastily passing the Wade-Davis Bill (2 July 1864). Lincoln “pocket vetoed” the bill, but the significance of the struggle demonstrated the determination of Congress to exert its full prerogatives.

Notwithstanding this warning from Congress, Johnson embarked on the same policy at his succession, and on 29 May 1865 issued a similar Amnesty Proclamation, excluding, however, more classes than Lincoln had done. Immediately the work of creating provisional government in the seceded States began, and by October six Southern States had carried out Johnson’s ideas by denying the right of secession and abolishing slavery. Three circumstances, however, contributed to destroy the efficacy of his plan; (1) the South adopted harsh “black codes” which, by prescribing severe restrictions covering apprenticeship, vagrancy and employment of the freedmen, led the North to suspect the new establishments of good faith; (2) the selection of old secession leaders as new representatives, Georgia even going so far as to choose Stephens, the ex-Vice-President of the Confederacy as one of her United States senators; (3) the determination of the radicals in Congress to exclude the Southern leaders and give the negro political rights, thereby assuring the supremacy of the Republican party. Accordingly, a bitter contest began between the President and Congress, led by Stevens and Sumner, over the question of reconstruction. On 4 Dec. 1865 Stevens introduced a resolution creating a Reconstruction Committee composed of nine representatives and six senators. This started the conflict. Johnson replied by vetoing (19 Feb. 1866) the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill intended to aid the negro; and, three days later, he delivered a public address to a serenading party in which he charged Stevens, Sumner and Wendell Phillips with trying to destroy the principles of the government. From this time on the breach was irremediable and Congress passed over the President’s veto the Civil Rights Bill, a new Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, and submitted the 14th Amendment to the States. Both parties appealed to the people in the fall election for vindication, and, owing to Johnson’s lack of tact and decorum in his “swinging round the circle campaign,” and an unfortunate riot in New Orleans with its accompanying evil effects on the North of the Southern good intentions, the radicals carried the election. Therefore in 1867 Congress set forth the Congressional plan of reconstruction which meant the disfranchisement of the ex-Confederates and the enfranchisement of the negroes. Johnson, to his credit, carried out faithfully these laws, but the final test came with the removal of Stanton as Secretary of War in violation of the Tenure of Office Act, 2 March 1867.

This act forbade the President dismissing any officer without the consent of the Senate. Counseled by his Attorney-General that the act was unconstitutional, Johnson dismissed Stanton, now in open accord with the radicals and for whose protection the law had been enacted. In dismissing Stanton, Johnson broke with Grant over a question of veracity, and thereby gave Congress its opportunity. In February 1868 the House of Representatives voted to impeach him. The main charges brought against the President were (1) his dismissal of Stanton; (2) his declarations that certain laws were unconstitutional; (3) his speeches in the campaign of 1866; (4) his opposition to Congressional reconstruction. The trial was poorly conducted; the evidence showed much animus; and the fear that Wade, president of the Senate, would succeed, combined with the happy appointment of General Schofield as Secretary of War, turned the tide in favor of the President. Thus on the final vote he was acquitted (35-19), the requisite two-thirds for conviction not having been obtained. In 1868 Johnson was a candidate in the Democratic National Convention but failed to secure the nomination. He returned to Greenville, and after several unsuccessful attempts was elected senator in 1875. His triumph was short, for he died in July.

Bibliography. — DeWitt, D. M., ‘The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson’ (New York 1903); Chadsey, C. E., ‘The Struggle between President Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction’ (New York 1896); Seward, F. W., ‘Andrew Johnson’ (Philadelphia 1890); Dunning, W. A., ‘Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction’ (New York 1898); id., ‘More Light on Andrew Johnson’ (in American Historical Review, April 1906); Foster, L., ‘Life and Speeches of Andrew Johnson’ (New York 1866).
Main Source: The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)