Andrew Johnson (1808-1875)

Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), who was impeached, became Chief Executive upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War had just ended. Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee, wanted to carry out Lincoln's program of kind and generous treatment for the defeated Confederate States. But he faced a Republican Congress controlled by men determined to punish the South. Congress passed a series of harsh laws over Johnson's repeated vetoes. Feelings became so strong that the House of Representatives voted to impeach him. But the Senate failed by one vote to remove Johnson from office.

Johnson was one of the most unpopular Presidents. But the American people realized during his lifetime that he had been treated unjustly. Many historians feel that his acquittal in the impeachment trial saved the presidency from being weakened, with the President a mere figurehead.

The stocky Johnson was a typical man of the frontier. A tailor by profession, he was the only President who had never gone to school. His wife taught him how to write. Johnson had the touchy pride of a self-made man. Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, who had served with Johnson in the United States Senate, felt he had "the pride of having no pride."

A serious man, Johnson had neither tact nor humor. One contemporary said his face had "no genial sunlight in it." Johnson lacked Lincoln's skill in getting men to work together. But he was honest, brave, and intelligent. An unshakable faith in the Constitution guided his actions during his 20 years as a U.S. Representative, a governor, and a U.S. Senator. One of his lawyers at the impeachment trial wrote: "He is a man of few ideas, but they are right and true, and he could suffer death sooner than yield up or violate one of them."

During Johnson's term, the United States purchased Alaska, and Nebraska became a state. Southerners worked to repair their ruined towns and farms, and to reorganize their economy without slavery. The typewriter and the railroad refrigerator car were invented, and the first plastics were used in billiard balls. Mary Baker Eddy founded the Christian Science movement.  Newspapers gained increasing importance in politics, and Johnson became the first President to grant a reporter a formal interview.