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Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31,
1875) was the sixteenth Vice President of the
United States|Vice President (1865) and the
seventeenth President of the United States
(1865–1869), succeeding to the presidency
upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  

Johnson presided over the Reconstruction of the
United States following the American Civil War,
and his conciliatory policies towards the defeated
rebels and his vetoes of civil rights bills
embroiled him in a bitter dispute with the
Congressional Republicans, leading the United
States House of Representatives|House of
Representatives to impeachment|impeach him in
1868; he was the first President to be impeached.
He was subsequently acquitted by a single vote in
the United States Senate|Senate.

==Early life==  

Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, to
Jacob Johnson and Mary McDonough on December 29,
1808.  At the age of 4 his father died. At the age
of 13 he was apprenticed to a tailor, but ran away
to Greeneville, Tennessee in 1826, where he
continued his employment as a tailor. He never
attended any type of school; his wife has
historically been credited with teaching him to
read and write.

==Early political career==
Johnson served as an alderman in Greeneville from
1828 to 1830 and mayor of Greeneville from 1834 to
1838. He was a member of the State House of
Representatives from 1835 to 1837 and 1839 to
1841. He was elected to the State Senate in 1841,
and elected as a United States Democratic
Party|Democrat to the Twenty-eighth and to the
four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1843 to March
3, 1853).  He was chairman of the Committee on
Public Expenditures (Thirty-first and
Thirty-second Congresses).

==Political ascension==
Johnson did not seek renomination, having become a
candidate for the governorship of Tennessee. He
was Governor of Tennessee from 1853 to 1857, and
was elected as a Democrat to the United States
Senate and served from October 8, 1857 to March 4,
1862, when he resigned. He was chairman of the
Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent
Expense (Thirty-sixth Congress). At the time of
secession of Confederate States of America|the
Confederacy, Johnson was the only Senator from the
seceded states to continue participation in
Congress. Johnson was then appointed by President
Abraham Lincoln as Military Governor of Tennessee
in 1862.

==National office==
He was elected Vice President of the United States
on the National Union ticket headed by Republican
Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and was inaugurated March
4, 1865. He became President of the United States
on April 15, 1865, upon the death of Lincoln. He
was the first Vice President to succeed to the
U.S. Presidency upon the assassination of a
President and the third to succeed upon the death
of a President.



===Cabinet===
{| cellpadding="1" cellspacing="4"
style="margin:3px; border:3px solid #000000;"
align="left"
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|OFFICE||align="left"|NAME||align="le
ft"|TERM
|-
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|President of the United
States|President||align="left" |Andrew
Johnson||align="left"|1865–1869
|-
|align="left"|Vice President of the United
States|Vice
President||align="left"|None||align="left"| 
|-
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
State|Secretary of State||align="left"|William H.
Seward||align="left"|1865–1869
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of the
Treasury|Secretary of the
Treasury||align="left"|Hugh
McCulloch||align="left"|1865–1869
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
War|Secretary of War||align="left"|Edwin M.
Stanton||align="left"|1865–1868
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|John M.
Schofield||align="left"|1868–1869
|-
|align="left"|Attorney General of the United
States|Attorney General||align="left"|James
Speed||align="left"|1865–1866
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Henry
Stanberry||align="left"|1866–1868
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|William M.
Evarts||align="left"|1868–1869
|-
|align="left"|Postmaster General of the United
States|Postmaster General||align="left"|William
Dennison||align="left"|1865–1866
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Alexander
Randall||align="left"|1866–1869
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of the
Navy|Secretary of the Navy||align="left"|Gideon
Welles||align="left"|1865–1869
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of the
Interior|Secretary of the
Interior||align="left"|John P.
Usher||align="left"|1865
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|James Harlan
(senator)|James
Harlan||align="left"|1865–1866
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Orville H.
Browning||align="left"|1866–1869
|}



===Impeachment===


Congress and Johnson argued in an increasingly
public way about Reconstruction: the manner in
which the Southern secessionist states would be
readmitted to the Union. Johnson favored a very
quick restoration of all rights and privileges of
other states. However, "Congressional
Reconstruction", enforced by repeated acts passed
over Johnson's veto, provided for provisional
state governments run by the military and ensuring
the local passage of civil rights laws and
otherwise imposing the will of the United States
Congress — which, of course, was run by the
North. Johnson's public criticisms of Congress
provoked much talk of impeachment over the months.

On February 21, 1868, Johnson notified Congress
that he had removed Edwin Stanton as Secretary of
War, and was replacing him in the interim with
Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas. This was an
apparent violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act,
made law in March of 1867, which was a law that
Congress had specifically designed to protect
Stanton. The Act said, "...every person holding
any civil office, to which he has been appointed
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate
... shall be entitled to hold such office until a
successor shall have been in like manner appointed
and duly qualified," thus removing the President's
previous unlimited power to fire any of his
Cabinet members at will. Johnson had previously
vetoed the Act, claiming it was unconstitutional,
and subsequently Congress had passed the Act again
by the required two-thirds majority to make it
law, over the objection of the President. (Years
later in Myers v. United States (1926), the
Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court
ruled that such laws were indeed
unconstitutional.)


The Senate and House entered into hot debate.
Thomas attempted to move into the War office, for
which Stanton had Thomas arrested. Three days
after Stanton's removal, the House passed a
resolution to impeach Johnson for "high crimes and
misdemeanors", specifically, for intentionally
violating the Tenure-of-Office Act and thus
violating the law of the land, which he had sworn
an oath to enforce.  

On March 5, 1868 a court of impeachment was
organized in the Senate to hear charges against
the President. William M. Evarts served as his
counsel. Eleven articles were set out in the
resolution and the trial before the Senate lasted
three months. Johnson's defense was based on a
clause in the Tenure-of-Office Act stating that
the then-current Secretaries would hold their
posts throughout the term of the President who
appointed them. Since Lincoln had appointed
Stanton, it was claimed, the applicability of the
Act had already run its course.

Johnson was acquitted by a vote of thirty-five for
conviction to nineteen for acquittal. He had
avoided removal from office by a single vote.
There were two votes in the Senate: one on May 16,
1868 for the 11th article, and another on May 26
for the other 10.  

Johnson was the first President to be impeached,
and the only one until the Impeachment of Bill
Clinton|impeachment of Bill Clinton on December
19, 1998.

=== States Admitted to the Union ===
* Nebraska – March 1, 1867

==Post-Presidency==
Johnson was an unsuccessful candidate for election
to the United States Senate in 1868 and to the
House of Representatives in 1872. He was elected
as a Democrat to the Senate and served from March
4, 1875, until his death near Elizabethton,
Tennessee, on July 31, 1875.  Interment was in the
Andrew Johnson National Cemetery, Greeneville,
Tennessee.

==See also==
* U.S. presidential election, 1864
* History of the United States (1865-1918)

==References==
* Newspaper clippings, 1865–1869:
http://www.impeach-andrewjohnson.com/
* Series of Harper's Weekly articles covering the
impeachment controversy and trial:
http://www.andrewjohnson.com/09ImpeachmentAndAcqui
ttal/ImpeachmentAndAcquittal.htm
* Johnson's obituary, from the New York Times:
http://starship.python.net/crew/manus/Presidents/a
j2/aj2obit.html

==External links==
Wikisource author
*
http://jbw1291-essays.wikispaces.org/The+Andrew+Jo
hnson+Administration The Andrew Johnson
Administration
*
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/i
mpeach/articles.html Articles of Impeachment
*
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/aj17.
html White House Biography


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succession box|title=U.S. Congressman for the 1st
District of Tennessee|before=Thomas Dickens
Arnold|after=Brookins Campbell| years=1843 –
1853
succession box|title=List of Governors of
Tennessee|Governor of Tennessee|before=William B.
Campbell|after=Isham G. Harris| years=1853 –
1857
succession box|title=List of United States
Senators from Tennessee|U.S. Senator from
Tennessee|before=James C. Jones| after=David T.
Patterson (a)| years=1857 – 1862
succession box|title=List of Governors of
Tennessee|Governor of Tennessee|before=Isham G.
Harris|after=E. H. East| years=1862 – 1865
succession box|title=United States Republican
Party|Republican Party (b) Vice
President of the United States|Vice Presidential :