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JOHNSON, ANDREW (1808–1875)

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Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 462 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOHNSON, See also:ANDREW (1808–1875) , seventeenth See also:president of the See also:United States, was See also:born at See also:Raleigh, See also:North Carolina, on the 29th of See also:December 18o8. His parents were poor, and his See also:father died when Andrew was four years old. At the See also:age of ten he was apprenticed to a tailor, his spare See also:hours being spent in acquiring the rudiments of an See also:education. He learned to read from a See also:book which contained selected orations of See also:great See also:British and See also:American statesmen. The See also:young tailor went to See also:Laurens See also:Court See also:House, See also:South Carolina, in 1824, to See also:work at his See also:trade, but returned to Raleigh in 1826 and soon afterward removed to Greeneville in the eastern See also:part of See also:Tennessee. He married during the same See also:year Eliza McCardle (1810–1876), much his See also:superior by See also:birth and education, who taught him the See also:common school branches of learning and was of great assistance in his later career. In See also:East Tennessee most of the See also:people were small farmers, while See also:West Tennessee was a See also:land of great slave plantations. Johnson began in politics to oppose the aristocratic See also:element and became the spokesman and See also:champion of the poorer and labouring classes. In 1828 he was elected an See also:alderman of Greeneville and in 183o–1834 was See also:mayor. In 1834, in the Tennessee constitutional See also:convention he endeavoured to limit the See also:influence of the slaveholders by basing See also:representation in the See also:state legislature on the See also:white See also:population alone. In 1835–1837 and 1839–1841 Johnson was a Democratic member of the state House of Representatives, and in 1841–1843 of the state See also:Senate; in both houses he uniformly upheld the cause of the " common people," and, in addition, opposed legislation for " See also:internal improvements." He soon was recognized as the See also:political champion of East Tennessee. Though his favourite leaders became Whigs, Johnson remained a Democrat, and in 184o canvassed the state for See also:Van Buren for president.

1 Ira Remsen was born in New See also:

York See also:City on the loth of See also:February 1846, graduated at the See also:college of the City of New York in 1865, studied at the New York college of physicians and surgeons and at the university of See also:Gottingen, was See also:professor of See also:chemistry at See also:Williams College in 1872-1876, and in 1876 became professor cf chemistry at Johns See also:Hopkins University. He published many textbooks of chemistry, organic and inorganic, which were republished in See also:England and were translated abroad. In 1879 he founded the American Chemical See also:Journal. In 1843 he was elected to the See also:national House of Representatives and there remained for ten years until his See also:district was gerrymandered by the Whigs and he lost his seat. But he at once offered himself as a See also:candidate for See also:governor and was elected and re-elected, and was then sent to the United States Senate, serving from 1857 to 1862. As governor (1853–1857) he proved to be able and non-See also:partisan. He championed popular education and recommended the See also:homestead policy to the national See also:government, and from his sympathy with the working classes and his oft-avowed See also:pride in his former calling he became known as the " mechanic governor." In See also:Congress he proved to be a tireless See also:advocate of the claims of the poorer whites and an opponent of the See also:aristocracy. He favoured the See also:annexation of See also:Texas, supported the See also:Polk See also:administration on the issues of the Mexican See also:War and the See also:Oregon boundary controversy, and though voting for the See also:admission of See also:free See also:California demanded national See also:protection for See also:slavery. He also advocated the homestead See also:law and See also:low tariffs, opposed the policy of " internal improvements," and was a zealous worker for See also:budget economies. Though opposed to a See also:monopoly of political See also:power in the South by the great slaveholders, he deprecated See also:anti-slavery agitation (even favouring denial of the right of See also:petition on that subject) as threatening abolition or the See also:dissolution of the See also:Union, and went with his sectional leaders so far as to demand freedom of choice for the Territories, and protection for slavery where it existed—this even so See also:late as 186o. He supported in 186o the ultra-Democratic See also:ticket of See also:Breckinridge and See also:Lane, but he did not identify the See also:election of See also:Lincoln with the ruin of the South, though he thought the North should give renewed guarantees to slavery. But he followed See also:Jackson rather than See also:Calhoun, and above everything else set his love of the Union, though believing the South to be grievously wronged.

He was the only See also:

Southern member of Congress who opposed See also:secession and refused to " go with his state " when it withdrew from the Union in 1861. In the See also:judgment of a leading opponent (O. P. See also:Morton) " perhaps no See also:man in Congress exerted the same influence on the public sentiment of the North at the beginning of the war " as Johnson. During the war he suffered much for his See also:loyalty to the Union. In See also:March 1862 Lincoln made him military governor of the part of Tennessee captured from the Confederates, and after two years of autocratic See also:rule (with much danger to himself) he succeeded in organizing a Union government for the state. In 1864, to secure the votes of the war Democrats and to please the border states that had remained in the Union, Johnson was nominated for See also:vice-president on the ticket with Lincoln. A See also:month after the inauguration the See also:murder of Lincoln See also:left him president, with the great problem to solve of reconstruction of the Union. All his past career and utterances seemed to indicate that he would favour the harshest See also:measures toward ex-Confederates, hence his acceptability to the most See also:radical republicans. But, whether because he See also:drew a distinction between the See also:treason of individuals and of states, or was influenced by See also:Seward, or simply, once in responsible position, separated Republican party politics from the question of constitutional See also:interpretation, at least he speedily showed that he would be influenced by no acrimony, and adopted the lenient reconstruction policy of Lincoln. In this he had for some See also:time the cordial support of his See also:cabinet. During the summer of 1865 he set up provisional See also:civil governments in all the seceded states except Texas, and within a few months all those states were reorganized and applying for readmission to the Union.

The radical congress (Republican by a large See also:

majority) sharply opposed this See also:plan of restoration, as they had opposed Lincoln's plan: first, because the members of Congress from the Southern States (when readmitted) would almost certainly See also:vote with the Democrats'; secondly, because relatively few of the Confederates were punished; and thirdly, because the newly organized Southern States did not give political rights to the negroes. The question of the status of the See also:negro proved the crux of the issue. Johnson was opposed to See also:general or immediate negro See also:suffrage. A See also:bitter contest began in Feb. 1866, between the president and the Congress, which refused to admit representatives from the South and during 1866 passed over his See also:veto a number of important measures, such as the Freedmen's See also:Bureau See also:Act and the Civil Rights Act, and submitted to the States the Fourteenth See also:Amendment to the Constitution. Johnson took a prominent and undignified part in the congressional See also:campaign of 1866, in which his policies were voted down by the North. In 1867 Congress threw aside his work of restoration and proceeded with its own plan, the See also:main features of which were the disfranchisement of ex-Confederates and the enfranchisement of negroes. On the 2nd of March 1867 Congress passed over the president's veto the See also:Tenure of See also:Office Act, prohibiting the president from dismissing from office without the consent of the Senate any officer appointed by and with the See also:advice and consent of that See also:body, and in addition a See also:section was inserted in the See also:army See also:appropriation See also:bill of this session designed to subordinate the president to the Senate and the general-in-See also:chief of the army in military matters. The president was thus deprived of practically all power. See also:Stanton and other members of his cabinet and General See also:Grant became hostile to him, the president attempted to remove Stanton without regard to the Tenure of Office Act, and, finally, to get rid of the president, Congress in 1868 (February–May) made an See also:attempt to impeach and remove him, his disregard of the Tenure of Office Act being the See also:principal See also:charge against him. The charges' were in part quite trivial, and the See also:evidence was ridiculously inadequate for the graver charges. A two-thirds majority was necessary for conviction; and the votes being 35 to 19 (7 Republicans and r 2 Democrats voting in his favour on the See also:crucial clauses) he was acquitted.

The misguided animus of the See also:

impeachment as a piece of partisan politics was soon very generally admitted; and the importance of its failure, in securing the continued power and See also:independence of the presidential element in the constitutional See also:system, can hardly be over-estimated. The See also:rest of his See also:term as president was comparatively quiet and uneventful. In 1869 he retired into private See also:life in Tennessee, and after several unsuccessful efforts was elected to the United States Senate, free of party trammels, in 1875, but died at See also:Carter's Station, Tenn., on the 31st of See also:July 1875. The only speech he made was a skilful and temperate See also:arraignment of President Grant's policy towards the South. ' The charges centred in the president's removal of Secretary Stanton, his ad See also:interim See also:appointment of Lorenzo See also:Thomas, his campaign speeches in 1866, and the relation of these three things to the Tenure of Office Act. Of the eleven charges of impeachment the first was that Stanton's removal was contrary to the Tenure of Office Act; the second, that the appointment of Thomas was a violation of the same law; the third, that the appointment violated the Constitution; the See also:fourth, that Johnson conspired with Thomas "to hinder and prevent See also:Edwin M. Stanton. .. from holding. .. office of secretary for the See also:department of war "; the fifth, that Johnson had conspired with Thomas to " prevent and hinder the See also:execution " of the Tenure of Office Act; the See also:sixth, that he had conspired with Thomas " to seize, take and possess the See also:property of the United States in the department of war," in violation of the Tenure of Office Act; the seventh, that this See also:action was " a high See also:misdemeanour "; the eighth, that the appointment of Thomas was " with See also:intent unlawfully to See also:control the disbursements of the moneys appropriated for the military service and for the department of war "; the ninth, that he had instructed See also:Major-General Emory, in command of the department of See also:Washington, that an act of 1867 appropriating See also:money for the army was unconstitutional; the tenth, that his speeches in 1866 constituted " a high misdemeanour in office "; and the See also:eleventh, the " See also:omnibus " See also:article, that he had committed high misdemeanours in saying that the 39th Congress was not an authorized Congress, that its legislation was not binding upon him, and that it was incapable of proposing amendments. The actual trial began on the 3oth of March (from the 5th of March it was adjourned to the 23rd, and on the 24th of March to the 3oth). On the 16th of May, after sessions in which the Senate repeatedly reversed the rulings of the chief See also:justice as to the admission of evidence, in which the president's counsel showed that their See also:case was excellently prepared and the prosecuting counsel appealed in general to political passions rather than to judicial impartiality, the eleventh article was voted on and impeachment failed by a single vote (35 to 19; 7 republicans and 12 democrats voting " Not guilty ") of the necessary two-thirds. After ten days' See also:interval, during which B.

F. See also:

Butler of the prosecuting counsel attempted to prove that corruption had been practised on some of those voting " Not guilty," on the 26th of May a vote was taken on the second and third articles with the same result as on the eleventh article. There was no vote on the other articles. President Johnson's leading political principles were a reverence of Andrew Jackson, unlimited confidence in the people, and an intense veneration for the constitution. Throughout his life he remained in some respects a " backwoodsman." He lacked the finish of systematic education. But his whole career sufficiently proves him to have been a man of extraordinary qualities. He did not rise above untoward circumstances by favour, nor—until after his election as senator—by fortunate and fortuitous connexion with great events, but by strength of native talents, persistent purpose, and an See also:iron will. He had strong, rugged See also:powers, was a See also:close reasoner and a forcible See also:speaker. Unfortunately his extemporaneous speeches were See also:commonplace, in very See also:bad See also:taste, fervently intemperate and denunciatory; and though this was probably due largely to temperament and habits of stump-speaking formed in See also:early life, it was attributed by his enemies to drink. Resorting to stimulants after illness, his marked excess in this respect on the occasion of his inauguration as vice-president undoubtedly did him harm with the public. Faults of See also:personality were his great See also:handicap. Though approach-able and not without kindliness of manner, he seemed hard and inflexible; and while president, See also:physical See also:pain and domestic anxieties, added to the struggles of public life, combined to accentuate a naturally somewhat severe temperament.

A lifelong Southern Democrat, he was forced to See also:

lead (nominally at least) a party of See also:Northern Republicans, with whom he had no See also:bond of sympathy See also:save a common opposition to secession; and his ardent, aggressive convictions and See also:character, above all his See also:complete lack of tact, unfitted him to See also:deal successfully with the passionate partisanship of Congress. The See also:absolute integrity and unflinching courage that marked his career were always ungrudgingly admitted by his greatest enemies. See L. See also:Foster, The Life and Speeches of Andrew Johnson (1866); D. M. De Witt, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1903) ; C. E. Chadsey, The Struggle between President Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction (1896); and W. A. Dunning, Essays on the Civil - War and Reconstruction (1898). Also see W. A.

Dunning's See also:

paper " More See also:Light on Andrew Johnson" (in the American See also:Historical See also:Review, See also:April 1906), in which apparently conclusive evidence is presented to prove that Johnson's first inaugural, a notable state paner, was written by the historian See also:George See also:Bancroft.

End of Article: JOHNSON, ANDREW (1808–1875)

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