Historical Figure
Andrew Johnson
1808–1875
President of the United States from 1865 to 1869
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Biography
Andrew Johnson was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. The 16th vice president, he assumed the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a War Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket in the 1864 presidential election, coming to office as the American Civil War concluded. Johnson favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union without protection for the newly freed people who were formerly enslaved, as well as pardoning ex-Confederates. This led to conflict with the Republican Party-dominated U.S. Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1868. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote.
In Their Own Words (5)
I am a-goin' for to tell you here to-day; yes, I'm a-goin for to tell you all, that I'm a plebian! I glory in it; I am a plebian! The people — yes, the people of the United States have made me what I am; and I am a-goin' for to tell you here to-day — yes, to-day, in this place — that the people are everything.
First address as Vice-President, widely reported as having been delivered while he was inebriated. (5 March 1865). , 1865
No, gentlemen, if I am to be shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.
As military governor of Tennessee, asserting that he would walk alone, to friends who offered to escort him to the statehouse, after postings of a placard saying he should be "shot on sight." (c.1862); as quoted in Andrew Johnson, President of the United States: His Life and Speeches (1866) by Lillian Foster. , 1866
I have lived among Negroes, all my life, and I am for this Government with slavery under the Constitution as it is. I am for the Government of my fathers with Negroes, I am for it without Negroes. Before I would see this Government destroyed, I would send every negro back to Africa, disintegrated and blotted out of space.
Speech in Indianapolis, Indiana (26 February 1863). , 1863
The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people.
As quoted in Andrew Johnson, Plebeian and Patriot (1928) by Robert Watson Winston , 1928
Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests at least equally important and equally deserving the considerations of Congress.
Veto message to the House of Representatives (22 February 1869). , 1869
Timeline
The story of Andrew Johnson, told in moments.
Sworn in as the 17th president at a Washington boarding house, hours after Lincoln's death. A conspirator had been assigned to kill Johnson too but lost his nerve.
Impeached by the House of Representatives. The Senate acquitted him by a single vote. Seven Republicans broke ranks. Kansas Senator Edmund Ross, who cast the deciding vote, said: "I almost literally looked down into my open grave."
Died of a stroke at 66. He'd been elected to the Senate just months before, the only former president to serve in the Senate after leaving office.
Artifacts (12)
Andrew Johnson
Irwin & Sartain
Fate of the Radical Party
Andrew Johnson|Schulyer Colfax Jr.|Benjamin Franklin Butler|Thaddeus Stevens|Ulysses S. Grant|The American News Co.|Currier & Ives
Andrew Johnson
Ehrgott & Forbriger Lithography Company, active 1856 - 1869
Andrew Johnson
Zorn & Company, active 1860 - 1870?
A Little Game of Bagatelle, Between Old Abe the Rail Splitter & Little Mac the Gunboat General
John L. Magee|Ulysses S. Grant|General George B. McClellan|Abraham Lincoln|Andrew Johnson
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