Johnson, Andrew 1808-75
17th President of the USA

Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, he went to Laurens, South Carolina, in 1824 to work as a journeyman tailor, and in 1826 emigrated to Greenville, Tennessee. In 1841 he was elected to the state senate, and in 1843 to Congress. In 1853 and 1855 he was Governor of Tennessee, and in 1857 US senator. A moderate Jacksonian Democrat, Johnson was alone among Southern senators in standing by the Union during the Civil War and was made military Governor of Tennessee (1862) and elected to the vice-presidency (March 1865). On Abraham Lincoln's assassination (14 April 1865) he became President. He sought to carry out the conciliatory policy of his predecessor, but the assassination had provoked a revulsion of public feeling, and Johnson's policy was denounced as showing disloyalty. He urged the readmission of Southern representatives, but the Radical Republican majority insisted that the Southern states should be kept for a period under military government. His removal of Secretary Stanton from the war department precipitated a crisis. He claimed the right to change his 'constitutional advisers', but was charged with violation of the 'Tenure of Office Act', in doing so without the consent of the Senate. He was impeached and brought to trial, and acquitted by a single vote. He retired from office in 1869, and was elected to the Senate in 1875.

Bibliography: Robert W Winston, Andrew Johnson, Plebeian and Patriot (1928)