Today in History: December 29
The 17th President
Andrew Johnson, between 1855-1865.
Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies, 1789-Present
Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth president of the United States, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina on December 29, 1808. His father's death left the family in poverty. From age ten to seventeen, young Johnson was apprenticed to a tailor. He plied that trade for a number of years during which time he moved with his mother to Greenville, Tennessee. Johnson never attended school but after his marriage to Eliza McCardle acquired a good common education under her tutelage.
A gifted political orator, Johnson ascended the political ladder quickly. In 1829, he won his first office as an alderman. In rapid succession he became mayor of Greenville, a member of the Tennessee state legislature, U.S. Congressman, governor of Tennessee, and U.S. Senator. In Congress, Johnson was a strong advocate of the annexation of Texas, the Mexican-American War, and the Homestead Bill. He was the only Southerner in Congress who firmly supported the Union throughout both the succession crisis and the Civil War. After federal forces captured portions of Tennessee, Lincoln appointed him military governor of the state, an office he assumed in the face of lynch mobs and bullets.
Andrew Johnson Residence, Greeneville, Tennessee
Samuel H Gottscho, photographer, September 20, 1961.
Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America, 1935-1955
Search on Andrew Johnson in Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America, 1935-1955 to see more photographs of the Johnson residence in Greeneville.
Two years later, men like Reverdy Johnson and William Seward worked to secure Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, as Lincoln's running mate on the Republican party ticket. According to a May 20, 1865 editorial in Harper's Weekly, Seward had seen in Johnson "that his fellow-Senator, a land-reformer, a stern Union man, a trusted representative of the people of the South as distinguished from the planting aristocracy, was the very kind of leader by whom the political power of the aristocracy was ultimately to be overthrown in its own section."
After Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, Johnson assumed the presidency. His administration ran more smoothly in the foreign than the domestic arena: in 1867, Secretary of State William Seward purchased Alaska and helped negotiate France's withdrawal of troops from Mexico. Domestically, Johnson faced a crisis with radical congressional Republicans who determined his Civil War Reconstruction policies far too lenient. Ill will and deep political disagreements culminated in Congress voting articles of impeachment in February 1868. On May 16, 1868, the U.S. Senate acquitted Johnson of the impeachment charges and he served the remainder of his presidential term.
After his presidency, Johnson's next bid to reenter politics was unsuccessful, but, in 1874, Tennessee again elected him to the U.S. Senate. He died just months into his term.
- See the Today in History feature on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson to read about the first president to be impeached by the House and tried in the Senate.
- The Historic American Sheet Music: 1850-1920 has a Timeline feature which presents representative pieces for each decade between 1850 and 1920, and includes a chronology of current events. Explore, for example, 1860-1869, which covers the years when Johnson served as vice-president and as president.
"President Johnson's Grand March," 1865.
Historic American Sheet Music: 1850-1920 - The Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana contains two pieces of sheet music which mention "Andy" Johnson. Search the collection on Abe and Andy to find them.
- To find resources for learning about elections and U.S. presidents, explore these Learning Page presentations:
- See Finding Precedent: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson which provides excerpts from over 200 articles from Harper's Weekly during the period 1865-1869.
