Andrew
Johnson was born in Rayleigh,
North Carolina on 29th December, 1808. His father, a porter in an
local inn, died when Johnson was only three years old. Too poor to
go to school, Johnson became an apprentice tailor at fourteen. Three
years later he opened his own shop in Greeneville, Tennessee.
Johnson took a keen interest in politics and his tailor shop became
the home of a discussion group. A strong advocate of improved political
rights for poor whites, Johnson helped form the Workingman's Party.
After serving as a local alderman and mayor, he was elected to the
state senate (1841) and congress (1843).
After joining the Democratic Party,
Johnson was elected as governor of Tennessee (1853-57) and in 1856
was elected to the U.S. Senate. He was a mainstream Democrat favouring
lower tariffs and opposing anti-slavery
legislation. However, Johnson disapproved when Tennessee seceded from
the union in June, 1861.
Johnson supported Abraham Lincoln during
the Civil War and was the only Southern
senator who refused to join the Confederacy. He made it clear that
he was fighting for the Union and not the abolition of slavery.
He openly told the people of Tennessee: "I believe slaves should
be in subordination and I will live and die so believing." In
May 1862, Lincoln rewarded Johnson for his loyalty by making him military
governor of Tennessee.
On 22nd September, 1862, Abraham Lincoln
issued his Emancipation Proclamation.
He told the nation that from the 1st January, 1863, all slaves in
states or parts of states, still in rebellion, would be freed. Johnson
complained to Lincoln about this decision and as a result it was agreed
that this proclamation would not apply to Tennessee.
In February, 1863, Johnson decided to travel to Washington.
On the way he stopped at several Northern cities where he made speeches
where he explained his views on slavery.
At Indianapolis he told the large crowd: "I have lived among
negroes, all my life, and I am for this Government with slavery under
the Constitution as it is."
Johnson made it clear that under the right conditions
he would be willing to accept the abolition of slavery.
He stressed the economic rather than the moral arguments against slavery.
He told his audiences that he owned slaves and told the story of how
two had run away but later returned as free men to work for wages.
Johnson argued that they were more productive as free men than they
had been as slaves.
Southern newspapers criticised Johnson for these speeches and claimed
he was making a bid for higher office. The Nashville
Daily Press pointed out that: "No man in Tennessee
has done more than Andrew Johnson to create, to perpetuate and embitter
in the minds of the Southern people, that feeling of jealousy and
hostility against the free States, which has at length culminated
in rebellion and civil war. Up to 1860, he had been for 20 years among
the most bigoted and intolerant of the advocates of slavery and Southernism".
The newspaper accused him "of having but one aim, the Vice Presidency
of the United States, on any rabid ticket likely to be successful."
After Johnson's successful speaking tour leading members of the Republican
Party began to suggest that Johnson should replace Hannibal
Hamlin as Abraham Lincoln's running mate in the 1864 presidential
election. Hamlin was a Radical Republican
and it was felt that Lincoln was already sure to gain the support
of this political group. It was argued that what Lincoln needed was
the votes of those who had previously supported the Democratic
Party in the North.
Abraham Lincoln originally selected General
Benjamin Butler as his 1864 vice-presidential
candidate. Butler, a war hero, had been a member of the Democratic
Party, but his experiences during the American
Civil War had made him increasingly radical. Simon
Cameron was sent to talk to Butler at Fort Monroe about joining
the campaign. However, Butler rejected the offer, jokingly saying
that he would only accept if Lincoln promised "that within three
months after his inauguration he would die".
It was now decided that Johnson would make the best candidate for
vice president. By choosing the governor of Tennessee, Lincoln would
emphasis the fact that Southern states were still part of the Union.
He would also gain the support of the large War Democrat faction.
At a convention of the Republican Party
on 8th July, 1864, Johnson received 200 votes to Hamlin's 150 and
became Lincoln's running mate.
During the election Johnson made it clear that
he supported what he called "white man's government". However,
when faced with black audiences he spoke of the need of improved civil
rights and on one occasion during a speech in Washington
offered to "be your Moses and lead you through the Red Sea of
war and bondage to a fairer future of liberty and peace."
The military victories of Ulysses S. Grant,
William Sherman, George
Meade, Philip Sheridan and George
H. Thomas in the American Civil War
in 1864 reinforced the idea that the Union
Army was close to bringing the war to an end. This helped Lincoln's
presidential campaign and with 2,216,067 votes, Lincoln comfortably
beat General George McClellan (1,808,725)
in the election.
Johnson had been a heavy drinker for several years. Both his sons,
Charles and Robert, were alcoholics. Charles Johnson died in April
1863 after falling from his horse. Colonel Robert Johnson, a member
of the Union Army, was found to be drunk
while on duty and was sent home in order to avoid further embarrassment
to the Vice President.
On inauguration day Johnson was drunk while he made his speech to
Congress. After making several inappropriate comments Hannibal
Hamlin, the former Vice President had to intervene and help him
back to his seat. After the inauguration, one of the senators, Zachariah
Chandler, wrote to his wife that Johnson "was too drunk to
perform his duties and disgraced himself and the Senate by making
a drunken foolish speech."
On 14th April, 1865 Abraham Lincoln went
to Ford's Theatre with his wife, Mary Lincoln,
Clara Harris and Major Henry
Rathbone to see a play called Our American
Cousin. John Parker, a constable
in the Washington Metropolitan Police Force, was detailed to sit on
the chair outside the presidential box. During the third act Parker
left to get a drink. Soon afterwards, John
Wilkes Booth, entered Lincoln's box and shot the president in
the back of the head. William Seward
(Secretary of State) was also attacked by one of Booth's fellow conspirators,
Lewis Paine. Another friend of Booth's,
George Atzerodt, had been ordered
to kill Johnson. Despite making the necessary preparations he surprisingly
made no attempt to do this.
Abraham Lincoln
died at 7.22 on the morning of 15th April. Three hours later Chief
Justice Salmon Chase administered the
oath of office at Johnson's Kirkwood House. Later that day a group
of Radical Republicans led by Benjamin
Wade met with Johnson. It was suggested that Henry
G. Stebbins, John Covode and Benjamin
Butler should be appointed to the Cabinet to make sure that laws
would be passed that would benefit former slaves in the South.
Johnson was unwilling to change the Cabinet he had inherited from
Abraham Lincoln. This included William
Seward (Secretary of State), Henry
McCulloch (Secretary of the Treasury), Edwin
M. Stanton (Secretary of War), Gideon
Welles (Secretary of the Navy), James
Speed (Attorney General), John Usher
(Secretary of the Interior) and William
Dennison (Postmaster General).
However, Johnson insisted that he intended to punish leading Confederates:
"Robbery is a crime; rape is a crime; treason is a crime; and
crime must be punished. The law provides for it; the courts are open.
Treason must be made infamous and traitors punished." After these
discussions Benjamin Wade told Johnson
that he total faith in his new administration.
On 17th April Johnson received a deputation led by John
Mercer Langston, the president of the National Rights League.
Langston was a strong supporter of universal male suffrage and like
the Radical Republicans left the meeting
satisfied with the response of the new president. Johnson also had
visits from other progressives such as Robert
Dale Owen and Carl Schurz who advocated
racial equality.
On 1st May, 1865, President Andrew Johnson
ordered the formation of a nine-man military
commission to try the conspirators involved in the assassination
of Lincoln. It was argued by Edwin M. Stanton,
the Secretary of War, that the men should be tried by a military court
as Lincoln had been Commander in Chief of the army. Several members
of the cabinet, disapproved, preferring a civil trial. However, James
Speed, the Attorney General, agreed with Stanton and therefore
the defendants did not enjoy the advantages of a jury trial.
The trial began on 10th May, 1865. The military
commission included leading generals such as David
Hunter, Lewis Wallace, Robert
Foster, August Kautz, Thomas
Harris and Albion Howe. The Attorney
General selected Joseph Holt and John
Bingham as the government's chief prosecutors.
Mary Surratt, Lewis Paine, George
Atzerodt, David Herold, Samuel
Mudd, Michael O'Laughlin, Edman
Spangler and Samuel Arnold were
all charged with conspiring to murder Lincoln. During the trial Joseph
Holt and John Bingham attempted
to persuade the military commission that Jefferson
Davis and the Confederate government had been involved in conspiracy.
Joseph Holt attempted to obscure the fact
that there were two plots: the first to kidnap and the second to assassinate.
It was important for the prosecution not to reveal the existence of
a diary taken from the body of John Wilkes
Booth. The diary made it clear that the assassination plan was
established just before the act took place. The defence surprisingly
did not call for Booth's diary to be produced in court.
On 29th June, 1865 Mary Surratt, Lewis
Powell, George Atzerodt, David
Herold, Samuel Mudd, Michael
O'Laughlin, Edman Spangler and
Samuel Arnold were found guilty of being
involved in the conspiracy to murder Lincoln. Surratt, Powell, Atzerodt
and Herold were hanged at Washington Penitentiary on 7th July, 1865.
Surratt, who was expected to be reprieved, was the first woman in
American history to be executed. Later Joseph
Holt claimed that Johnson surprisingly ignored the Military Commission's
plea for mercy.
The Radical Republicans became concerned
when Johnson began surrounding himself with advisers such as Preston
King, Henry W. Halleck and Winfield
S. Hancock, who were well known for their reactionary views. Johnson
also began to clash with those cabinet members such as Edwin
M. Stanton, William Dennison and
James Speed who favoured the granting
of black suffrage. In this he was supported by conservatives in the
government such as Gideon Welles and
and Henry McCulloch.
Southern politicians began to realize that
Johnson was going to use his position to prevent reform taking place.
One Confederate senator, Benjamin Hill, wrote from his prison cell:
"By this wise and noble statesmanship you have become the benefactor
of the Southern people in the hour of their direst extremity and entitled
yourself to the gratitude of those living and those yet to live."
Johnson now began to argue that African American men should only be
given the vote when they were able to pass some type of literacy test.
He advised William Sharkey, the governor of Mississippi, that he should
only "extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who
can read the Constitution of the United States in English and write
their names, and to all persons of color who own real estate valued
at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars."
In early 1865 General William
T. Sherman set aside a coastal strip in South Carolina, Georgia
and Florida for the exclusive use of former slaves. A few months later,
General Oliver Howard, the head of the
new Freeman's Bureau, issued a circular
regularizing the return of lands to previous owners but exempting
those lands that were already being cultivated by freeman. Johnson
was furious with Sherman and Howard for making these decisions and
over-ruled them.
Johnson also upset radicals and moderates in the Republican
Party when he issued an amnesty proclamation exempting fourteen
classes from prosecution for their actions during the American
Civil War. This included high military, civil, and judicial officers
of the Confederacy, officers who had surrendered their commissions
in the armed forces of the United States, war criminals and those
with taxable property of more than $20,000. Vice President Alexander
Stephens was one of those that Johnson pardoned.
Johnson became increasingly hostile to the work of General Oliver
Howard and the Freeman's Bureau.
Established by Congress on 3rd March, 1865, the bureau was designed
to protect the interests of former slaves.
This included helping them to find new employment and to improve educational
and health facilities. In the year that followed the bureau spent
$17,000,000 establishing 4,000 schools, 100 hospitals and providing
homes and food for former slaves.
In early 1866 Lyman
Trumbull introduced proposals to extend the powers of the Freeman's
Bureau . When this measure was passed by Congress it was vetoed
by Johnson. However, the Radical Republicans
were able to gain the support of moderate members of the Republican
Party and Johnson's objections were overridden by Congress.
In April 1866, Johnson also vetoed the Civil
Rights Bill that was designed to protect freed slaves from Southern
Black Codes (laws that placed severe
restrictions on freed slaves such as prohibiting their right to vote,
forbidding them to sit on juries, limiting their right to testify
against white men, carrying weapons in public places and working in
certain occupations). On 6th April, Johnson's veto was overridden
in the Senate by 33 to 15.
Johnson told Thomas C. Fletcher, the governor of Missouri: "This
is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President,
it shall be a government for white men." His views on racial
equality was clearly defined in a letter to Benjamin B. French, the
commissioner of public buildings: "Everyone would, and must admit,
that the white race was superior to the black, and that while we ought
to do our best to bring them up to our present level, that, in doing
so, we should, at the same time raise our own intellectual status
so that the relative position of the two races would be the same."
Johnson's unwillingness to promote African American civil rights in
the South upset the radical members of his Cabinet. In 1866 William
Dennison (Postmaster General), James
Speed (Attorney General) and James Harlan
(Secretary of the Interior) all resigned. They were all replaced by
the conservatives Alexander Randall
(Postmaster General), Henry Stanbury
(Attorney General) and Orville Browning
(Secretary of the Interior).
In June, 1866, the Radical Republicans
managed to persuade Congress to pass the Fourteenth
Amendment of the Constitution. The amendment was designed to grant
citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves.
It did this by prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges
or immunities of citizens of the United States, depriving any person
of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying
to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws.
The elections of 1866 increased the the Republican
Party two-thirds majority in Congress. There were also a larger
number of Radical Republicans and in
March, 1867, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act. This act forbade
the President to remove any officeholder, including Cabinet members,
who had been appointed with Senate consent. Once again Johnson attempted
to veto the act.
In 1867 members of Radical Republicans
such as Benjamin Loan, James
Ashley and Benjamin Butler, began
claiming in Congress that Johnson had been involved in the conspiracy
to murder Abraham Lincoln. Butler asked
the question: "Who it was that could profit by assassination
(of Lincoln) who could not profit by capture and abduction? He followed
this with: "Who it was expected by the conspirators would succeed
to Lincoln, if the knife made a vacancy?" He also implied that
Johnson had been involved in tampering with the diary of John
Wilkes Booth. "Who spoliated that book? Who suppressed that
evidence?"
Much was made of the fact that John Wilkes
Booth had visited Johnson's house on the day of the assassination
and left his card with the message: "Don't wish to disturb you.
Are you at home?" Some people claimed that Booth was trying to
undermine Johnson in his future role as president by implying he was
involved in the plot. However, as his critics pointed out, this was
unnecessary as it was Booth's plan to have Johnson killed by George
Atzerodt at the same time that Abraham
Lincoln was being assassinated.
On 7th January, 1867, James Ashley charged
Johnson with the "usurpation of power and violation of law by
corruptly using the appointing, pardoning, and veto powers, by disposing
corruptly of the property of the United States, and by interfering
in elections." Congress responded by referring Ashley's resolution
to the Judiciary Committee.
Congress passed the first Reconstruction
Acts on 2nd March, 1867. The South was now divided into five military
districts, each under a major general. New elections were to be held
in each state with freed male slaves being allowed to vote. The act
also included an amendment that offered readmission to the Southern
states after they had ratified the Fourteenth
Amendment and guaranteed adult male suffrage. Johnson immediately
vetoed the bill but Congress repassed the bill the same day.
Johnson consulted General Ulysses
S. Grant before selecting the generals to administer the military
districts. Eventually he appointed John
Schofield (Virginia), Daniel Sickles
(the Carolinas), John Pope (Georgia, Alabama
and Florida), Edward Ord (Arkansas and
Mississippi) and Philip Sheridan (Louisiana
and Texas).
It soon became clear that the Southern states would prefer military
rule to civil government based on universal male suffrage. Congress
therefore passed a supplementary Reconstruction
Act on 23rd March that authorized military commanders to supervise
elections and generally to provide the machinery for constituting
new governments. Once again Johnson vetoed the act on the grounds
that it interfered with the right of the American citizen to "be
left to the free exercise of his own judgment when he is engaged in
the work of forming the fundamental law under which he is to live."
Radical Republicans were growing increasing
angry with Johnson over his attempts to veto the extension of the
Freeman's Bureau, the Civil
Rights Bill and the Reconstruction
Acts. This became worse when Johnson dismissed Edwin
M. Stanton, his Secretary of War, and the only radical in his
Cabinet and replaced him with Ulysses S. Grant.
Stanton refused to go and was supported by the Senate. Grant now stood
down and was replaced by Lorenzo Thomas.This
was a violation of the Tenure of Office Act and some members of the
Republican Party began talking about
impeaching Johnson.
At the beginning of the 40th Congress Benjamin
Wade became the new presiding officer of the Senate. As Johnson
did not have a vice-president this meant that Wade was now the legal
successor to the president. This was highly significant as attempts
to impeach the president had already began.
Johnson continued to undermine the Reconstruction
Acts. This included the removal of two of the most radical military
governors. Daniel Sickles (the Carolinas)
and Philip Sheridan (Louisiana and
Texas) were replaced them with Edward Canby
and Winfield Hancock.
In November, 1867, the Judiciary Committee voted 5-4 that Johnson
be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. The majority report
written by George H. Williams contained
a series of charges including pardoning traitors, profiting from the
illegal disposal of railroads in Tennessee, defying Congress, denying
the right to reconstruct the South and attempts to prevent the ratification
of the Fourteenth Amendment.
On 30th March, 1868, Johnson's impeachment trial
began. Johnson was the first president of the United States to be
impeached. The trial, held in the Senate in March, was presided over
by Chief Justice Salmon Chase. Johnson
was defended by his former Attotney General, Henry
Stanbury, and William M. Evarts.
One of Johnson's fiercest critics, Thaddeus
Stevens was mortally ill, but he was determined to take part in
the proceedings and was carried to the Senate in a chair.
Charles Sumner, another long-time opponent of Johnson led the
attack. He argued that: "This is one of the last great battles
with slavery. Driven from the legislative chambers, driven from the
field of war, this monstrous power has found a refuge in the executive
mansion, where, in utter disregard of the Constitution and laws, it
seeks to exercise its ancient, far-reaching sway. All this is very
plain. Nobody can question it. Andrew Johnson is the impersonation
of the tyrannical slave power. In him it lives again. He is the lineal
successor of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis; and he gathers about
him the same supporters."
Although a large number of senators believed that Johnson was guilty
of the charges, they disliked the idea of Benjamin
Wade becoming the next president. Wade, who believed in women's
suffrage and trade union rights, was considered
by many members of the Republican Party
as being an extreme radical. James Garfield
warned that Wade was "a man of violent passions, extreme opinions
and narrow views who was surrounded by the worst and most violent
elements in the Republican Party."
Others Republicans such as James
Grimes argued that Johnson had less than a year left in office
and that they were willing to vote against impeachment if Johnson
was willing to provide some guarantees that he would not continue
to interfere with Reconstruction.
When the vote was taken all members of the Democratic
Party voted against impeachment. So also did those Republicans
such as Lyman Trumbull, William
Fessenden and James Grimes, who
disliked the idea of Benjamin Wade becoming
president. The result was 35 to 19, one vote short of the required
two-thirds majority for conviction. The editor of The
Detroit Post wrote that "Andrew Johnson is innocent because
Ben Wade is guilty of being his successor."
A further vote on 26th May, also failed to get
the necessary majority needed to impeach Johnson. The Radical
Republicans were angry that not all the Republican
Party voted for a conviction and Benjamin
Butler claimed that Johnson had bribed two of the senators who
switched their votes at the last moment.
On 25th July, 1868 Johnson vetoed the decision by Congress to extend
the activities of the Freeman's Bureau
for another year. Once again Johnson decision was speedily overturned.
Johnson critics claimed that he had taken these decisions in an attempt
to win the Democratic Party nomination.
The party approved Johnson's actions but chose Horatio
Seymour as its presidential candidate.
Johnson continued to issue pardons for people who had participated
in the rebellion. By the end of his period in office he gave 13,350
pardons, including one for Jefferson Davis,
the president of the Confederacy during the American
Civil War.
On 25th December, 1868, Johnson used his last annual message as president
to attack the Reconstruction Acts.
He claimed that: "The attempt to place the white population under
the domination of persons of color in the South has impaired, if not
destroyed, the friendly relations that had previously existed between
them; and mutual distrust has engendered a feeling of animosity which,
leading in some instances to collision and bloodshed, has prevented
the cooperation between the two races so essential to the success
of industrial enterprise in the Southern States."
Johnson retired from office in March 1869. He returned to his 350
acre farm near Greenville, Tennessee. Soon afterwards his son, Robert
Johnson, who had been unable to overcome his alcoholism, committed
suicide. His sole remaining son, Andrew Johnson, wrote from Georgetown
College, promising his parents that he would never "let any kind
of intoxicating liquor" pass his lips.
Andrew Johnson
failed in his attempt to win a seat in the Senate
in 1869. He was also unsuccessful in his bid for a seat in the House
of Representatives in 1872. However, he was elected to the Senate
shortly before his death at Carter Station, Tennessee, on 31st July,
1875.
Forum Debates
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
(1)
Andrew Johnson, speech in Indianapolis (26th February, 1863)
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.
(2)
The Nashville Press on Andrew Johnson's speaking tour of Northern
cities (February, 1863)
No
man in Tennessee has done more than Andrew Johnson to create, to perpetuate
and embitter in the minds of the Southern people, that feeling of
jealousy and hostility against the free States, which has at length
culminated in rebellion and civil war. Up
to 1860, he had been for 20 years among the most bigoted and intolerant
of the advocates of slavery and Southernism.
(3)
Andrew Johnson, letter to William
Sharkey, the governor of Mississippi (June, 1865)
If you could extend the
elective franchise to all persons of color who can read the Constitution
of the United States in English and write their names and to all persons
of color who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and
fifty dollars and pay taxes thereon, and would completely disarm the
adversary. This you can do with perfect safety. And as a consequence,
the radicals, who are wild upon negro franchise, will be completely
foiled in their attempts to keep the Southern States from renewing
their relations to the Union.
(4)
Zachariah Chandler, letter to his wife
about Andrew Johnson's behaviour at Abraham Lincoln's Inauguration
on 4th March, 1865.
The inauguration went off very well except that the Vice President
Elect was too drunk to perform his duties and disgraced himself and
the Senate by making a drunken foolish speech. I was so mortified
in my life, had I been able to find a hole I would have dropped through
in out of sight.
(5)
Andrew Johnson, letter to Benjamin B. French, the commissioner of
public buildings (8th February, 1866)
Everyone
would, and must admit, that the white race was superior to the black,
and that while we ought to do our best to bring them up to our present
level, that, in doing so, we should, at the same time raise our own
intellectual status so that the relative position of the two races
would be the same.
(6) The Freeman's
Bureau created by Congress at the end of the American
Civil War was an attempt to preserve the freedom of former slaves.
When Congress attempted to increase the powers of the Freemen's Bureau
in February, 1866, the proposed bill was vetoed by Andrew Johnson.
I share with Congress the strongest desire
to secure to the freedmen the full employment of their freedom and
property and their entire independence and equality in making contracts
for their labor, but the bill before me contains provisions which
in my opinion are not warranted by the Constitution and are not well
suited to accomplish the end in view.
The bill proposes to establish, by authority of Congress, military
jurisdiction over all parts of the United States containing refugees
and freedmen. It would by its very nature apply with most force to
those parts of the United States in which the freedmen most abound,
and it expressly extends the existing temporary jurisdiction of the
Freedmen's Bureau, with greatly enlarged powers, over those states
"in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been
interrupted by the rebellion."
(7)
On 27th March, 1866, Andrew Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Bill that
had been passed by Congress.
The bill in effect proposes a discrimination
against large numbers of intelligent, worthy, and patriotic foreigners,
and in favor of the Negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the
avenues to freedom and intelligence have just now been suddenly opened.
He must, of necessity, from his previous unfortunate condition of
servitude, be less informed as to the nature and character of our
institutions than he who, coming from abroad, has to some extent at
least, familiarized himself with the principles of a government to
which he voluntarily entrusts "life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness."
(8)
Lyman Trumbull of Illinois led the
attack on Andrew Johnson after he vetoed the Civil Rights Bill in
March, 1866.
The bill neither confers nor abridges the
rights of anyone but simply declares that in civil rights there shall
be equality among all classes of citizens and that all alike shall
be subject to the same punishment. Each state, so that it does not
abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under the Constitution,
to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil rights as it pleases;
all that is required is that, in this respect, its laws shall be impartial.
And yet this is the bill now returned with the President's objections.
Whatever may have been the opinion of the President at one time as
to "good faith requiring the security of the freemen in their
liberty and their property," it is now manifest from the character
of his objections to this bill that he will approve no measures that
will accomplish the object.
(9) A letter published in the Norwegian newspaper,
Aftenbladet (28th September, 1866)
President
Johnson has surrendered completely to the 'Copperheads' and the Rebels
in the South allied with them, and is furiously opposing the party
that elevated him to power. Because of this the Rebels have begun
to stir once more. It has almost got to be so that a loyal man cannot
travel or stay, in most of the Southern states. During the absence
of Sheridan - he has received military charge of Texas and Louisiana
- the military in New Orleans was placed under the command of a former
Rebel general by telegraphed order from the President. It is hard
to imagine a greater insult either to the Army or the country.
But President Johnson is hardly furthering the cause of the South
by behaving in this manner, as time will show very soon. The Republican
press is breathing smoke and fire. Hundreds of newspapers which supported
the President six months ago have changed their attitude completely.
But the Republican Party is so strong that for a while yet it will
have a majority both in the Senate and in Congress; and the South
will not be allowed to send representatives until the North has received
complete guarantees that the money and the blood expended on the defense
of the Union were not sacrificed in vain.
(10)
Mary Todd Lincoln, letter to Sally Orme
about her belief that Andrew Johnson
was involved in her husband's death (15th March, 1866)
That, that miserable inebriate Johnson, had cognizance
of my husband's death. Why, was that card of Booth's, found in his
box, some acquaintance certainly existed. I have been deeply impressed,
with the harrowing thought, that he, had an understanding with the
conspirators & they knew their man. As sure, as you & I live,
Johnson, had some hand, in all this.
(11)
Benjamin Loan, speech in the House of Representatives
about the consequences of the assassination of Abraham
Lincoln (24th January, 1867)
In the beginning the assassination
of Lincoln had been thought the deed "of a reckless young man.
But subsequent developments have shown it to have been the result
of deliberate plans adopted in the interests of the Rebellion."
An assassin's bullet wielded and directed by Rebel hands and paid
for by Rebel gold made Andrew Johnson President. The price that he
was to pay for his promotion was treachery.
(12)
Charles Nordhoff, managing editor of the New York Evening Post
had a meeting with Andrew Johnson about the planned Reconstruction
Act. In a letter to his friend, William Cullen Bryant, he described
the president's views on the act (2nd February, 1867)
The president grew much excited and expressed
the most bitter hatred of the measure in all its parts, declaring
that it was nothing but anarchy and chaos, that the people of the
South, poor, quiet, unoffending, harmless, were to be trodden under
foot "to protect niggers," that the States were already
in the Union, that in no part of the country were life and property
so safe as in the Southern States.
He
is a pig headed man, with only one idea - a bitter opposition to universal
suffrage and a determination to secure the political ascendancy of
the old Southern leaders, who, he emphasized, must in the nature of
things rule the South.
(13)
President Andrew Johnson explained why he had decided to veto the
Reconstruction Act in a speech
in the House of Representatives (2nd March, 1867)
The excuse given for the bill in the preamble
is admitted by the bill itself not to be real. The military rule which
is establishes is plainly to be used, not for any purpose of order
or for the prevention of crime but solely as a means of coercing the
people into the adoption of principles and measures to which it is
known that they are opposed and upon which they have an undeniable
right to exercise their own judgment. I submit to Congress whether
this measure is not in its whole character, scope, and object without
precedent and without authority, in palpable conflict with the plainest
provisions of the Constitution, and utterly destructive to those great
principles of liberty and humanity for which our ancestors on both
sides of the Atlantic have shed so much blood and expended so much
treasure.
(14)
In April, 1867, Radical Republicans
began to call for Andrew Johnson's bank accounts to be examined. He
wrote about this to his friend, Colonel Moore (1st May, 1867)
I have had a son killed,
a son-in-law die during the last battle of Nashville, another son
has thrown himself away, a second son-in-law is in no better condition,
I think I have had sorrow enough without having my bank account examined
by a Committee of Congress.
(15)
Charles Sumner, speech during the impeachment
trial of President Andrew Johnson (May,
1868)
This is one of the last great battles
with slavery. Driven from the legislative chambers, driven from the
field of war, this monstrous power has found a refuge in the executive
mansion, where, in utter disregard of the Constitution and laws, it
seeks to exercise its ancient, far-reaching sway. All this is very
plain. Nobody can question it. Andrew Johnson is the impersonation
of the tyrannical slave power. In him it lives again. He is the lineal
successor of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis; and he gathers about
him the same supporters.
This formal accusation is founded on certain recent transgressions,
enumerated in articles of impeachment, but it is wrong to suppose
that this is the whole case. It is very wrong to try this impeachment
merely on these articles. It is unpardonable to higgle over words
and phrases when, for more than two years, the tyrannical pretensions
of this offender, now in evidence before the Senate have been manifest
in their terrible heartrending consequences.
This usurpation, with its brutalities and indecencies, became manifest
as long ago as the winter of 1866, when, being President, and bound
by his oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution,
and to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, he took to
himself legislative powers in the reconstruction of the Rebel states;
and, in carrying forward this usurpation, nullified an act of Congress,
intended as the cornerstone of Reconstruction, by virtue of which
Rebels are excluded from office under the government of the United
States.
(16)
James Grimes, speech during the impeachment
trial of President Andrew Johnson (May,
1868)
I come now to the question of intent.
Admitting that the President had no power under the law to issue the
order to remove Mr. Stanton to and appoint General Thomas secretary
for the Department of War, did he issue those orders with a manifest
intent to violate the laws and "the Constitution of the United
States" as charged in the articles, or did he issue them, as
he says he did, with a view to have the constitutionally of the Tenure
of Office Act judicially decided?
I cannot believe it to be our duty to convict the President of an
infraction of a law when, in our consciences, we believe the law itself
to be invalid, and therefore having no binding effect. If the law
is unconstitutional, it is null and void, and the President has committed
no offence and done to act deserving of impeachment.
(17)
Andrew Johnson, speech to Congress (25th December, 1868)
The
attempt to place the white population under the domination of persons
of color in the South has impaired, if not destroyed, the friendly
relations that had previously existed between them; and mutual distrust
has engendered a feeling of animosity which, leading in some instances
to collision and bloodshed, has prevented the cooperation between
the two races so essential to the success of industrial enterprise
in the Southern States.
(18) Benjamin
Butler, Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General
Benjamin F. Butler (1892)
Andrew Johnson had been suspected by many
people of being concerned in the plans of Booth against the life of
Lincoln or at least cognizant of them. A committee of which I was
the head, felt it their duty to make a secret investigation of that
matter, and we did our duty in that regard most thoroughly. Speaking
for myself I think I ought to say that there was no reliable evidence
at all to convince a prudent and responsible man that there was any
ground for the suspicions entertained against Johnson.
(19)
In his autobiography, Reminiscences, Henry
Stuart Foote, the former Senator of Mississippi, explained why
he believed Andrew Johnson was involved in the assassination of Abraham
Lincoln (1873)
First: Mr. Johnson's well-known and anxious
desire for the highest official honors which the country could bestow
upon him, for the space of at least twenty years before the "deep
damnation" of Mr. Lincoln's "taking off" had blurred
so unfortunately the historic record of our country.
Second: the utter extinction of his hopes of Presidential advancement
along the accustomed pathway to promotion, by his shameless drunkenness
on the day of his being sworn into office as Vice President.
Third: his falling out with Mr. Lincoln soon after, and delivering
a speech on Pennsylvania Avenue in bitter denunciation of humanity
and moderation.
Fourth: that Booth called at Mr. Johnson's private room, only a few
hours before the murder occurred, and on finding him absent wrote
upon a card the deep disappointment which he felt at not having met
with the only human being on earth who could possibly profitably Mr.
Lincoln's death, and who was at the same time the only individual
in the world who could give assurance to the murderer of his own pardon.
(20)
Carl Schurz wrote about the
differences between Abraham Lincoln and
Andrew Johnson in his autobiography published in 1906.
It
was pretended at the time and it has since been asserted by historians
and publicists that Mr. Johnson's Reconstruction policy was only a
continuation of that of Mr. Lincoln. This is true only in a superficial
sense, but not in reality. Mr. Lincoln had indeed put forth reconstruction
plans which contemplated an early restoration of some of the rebel
states. But he had done this while the Civil War was still going on,
and for the evident purpose of encouraging loyal movements in those
States and of weakening the Confederate State government there. Had
he lived, he would have as ardently wished to stop bloodshed and to
reunite as he ever did. But is it to be supposed for a moment that,
seeing the late master class in the South intent upon subjecting the
freedmen again to a system very much akin to slavery, Lincoln would
have consented to abandon those freemen to the mercies of that master
class?
(21) New York Times (1st August,
1875)
Andrew Johnson, ex-President of the United
States and member of the Senate from Tennessee, died at the house
of his daughter, Mrs. W.R. Brown, near Elizabethtown, Carter County,
Tenn., at 2 o'clock yesterday morning. The history this man leaves
is a rare one. His career was remarkable, even in this country; it
would have been quite impossible in any other. It presents the spectacle
of a man who never went to school a day in his life rising from a
humble beginning as a tailor's apprentice through a long succession
of posts of civil responsibility to the highest office in the land,
and evincing his continued hold upon the popular heart by a subsequent
election to the Senate in the teeth of a bitter personal and political
opposition. Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, N.C., Dec. 29, 1808.
His father, Jacob Johnson, who was in the humblest circumstances,
was drowned while attempting to save the life of Editor Henderson,
of the Raleigh Gazette, in 1812, and six years later young Andrew,
at the age of ten, was apprenticed to a tailor named Selby. School
was then out of the question, of course, and the outlook was that
the young man would grow up to an illiterate life. But the intellect
that was in him was aroused through the instrumentality of a Raleigh
gentleman, whose practice it was to read aloud to the tailor's employees
from books of published speeches. The speeches of some of the British
statesmen particularly attracted his attention, and he set about learning
to read with the same determination which characterized his later
life. By resolute application after work hours and in moments taken
from sleep, he soon succeeded and was able to read the speeches and
other books for himself.
He left Raleigh in 1824, before his apprenticeship had expired, and
went to Laurens Court House, S.C., where he worked two years at his
trade, and then, after a return to Raleigh and a brief stay there,
he removed with his mother to Greenville, Tenn. He soon married, and
was fortunate enough to get a wife who was a help-meet to him in every
sense of the word. She set herself at once to supply his greatest
lack, became his teacher, giving him such oral instruction as was
possible while he was at work, and teaching him writing, arithmetic,
and other branches at night. Under her faithful tuition he acquired
a fair education. The native forces of his mind supplied the remaining
elements of his success.
We find him early in politics. In natural sympathy with the laboring
classes, he became their local champion, and organized a Working Man's
party in 1828, and, as its candidate for Alderman of Greenville, defeated
the more aristocratic party and broke their rule in the town. In 1830
he was chosen Mayor, and held that office for three years. Four years
later he gained a more than local prominence by active exertions to
secure the adoption of a new State Constitution, and offering himself
the next year as a Democratic candidate for the lower branch of the
Legislature, he was elected, winning support mainly by his vigorous
speeches. A grand and costly scheme of internal improvement which
came before the Legislature incurred his earnest opposition, and though
his denunciation of it made him temporarily unpopular and defeated
him in the canvass of 1837, yet his course was vindicated by the deplorable
working of the enacted bill, and he was returned to the Legislature
in 1839.
He was one of the Democratic electors in the Presidential year of
1840, and canvassed Tennessee for Martin Van Buren. His powers of
oratory were then first publicly revealed, and they proved very effective
even against some of the noted public men of the day. He was elected
to the State Senate in 1841, and gained much credit for the introduction
and advocacy of a judicious plan of internal improvement of the eastern
portion of the State. But he was destined to a broader sphere of influence.
In 1843 he was elected to Congress in the First Tennessee District,
defeating Col. John A. Asken, a Democrat of the United States Bank
stamp. By successive re-elections he was continued in Congress for
ten years. He was during the time a prominent supporter of the national
measures of his party, favoring the annexation of Texas and the Mexican
war, and being a conspicuous advocate of the Homestead bill, to give
160 acres of the public lands to any one who would settle upon and
till them. It is curious and suggestive to find him in 1848 making
a long and powerful speech in favor of the veto power.
By a redistricting of his State a Whig majority was created in his
district, and in 1853 he was defeated in the Congressional canvass.
Compensation came in his election as Governor of the State the same
year, over Gustavus A. Henry, the Whig and "Know-Nothing"
candidate. The canvass was unusually spirited, even for Tennessee,
and on one occasion when he was to address a large gathering, Mr.
Johnson appeared on the platform with a pistol in his hand. He was
re-elected Governor in 1855, and his administration of the State affairs,
both in that and the preceding term of office, was marked by a regard
for the public interest, rather than party fealty. A higher honor
came to him in his election to the United States Senate by the Legislature
of 1857. In his Senatorial career he was generally found upon the
side of retrenchment and the interests of the laboring classes. He
opposed the increase of the Army and the Pacific Railroad bill, and,
as in the House, urged the passage of the Homestead bill -- which,
however, was lost by President Buchanan's veto -- and took an active
part in the discussion concerning retrenchment. Coming from a slave
State, and himself owning slaves, he held slavery to be protected
by the Constitution and beyond the interference of Congress; nevertheless,
he believed in its ultimate overthrow. He denounced the John Brown
raid, and in those early mutterings of the coming tempest he urged
concessions to the South to calm the rising discontent, and new guarantees
for the protection of slavery.
It was in the era of the rebellion that Andrew Johnson achieved his
greatest distinction. It was not necessary for him to weigh the chances
of the coming struggle, or to nicely estimate its moral elements,
like some others of the less radical class of Southern statesmen.
He was by principle and training unreservedly for the right, and he
declared without hesitation for the Union, and strove with all the
strength of his rugged soul against the secession faction. In the
Presidential campaign of 1860, he at first supported Breckinridge
and Lane, who represented the ultra-Southern Democrats, but at the
first unmasking of the secession designs of this wing of his party
he quitted their camp and vehemently denounced their unhallowed purpose.
He saw no threat of injustice to the South in the election of Abraham
Lincoln, and in the memorable Senate debates which preceded the withdrawal
of the Southern members his powerful appeal to them to remain and
"fight for the constitutional rights on the battlements of the
Constitution," defined most clearly his position, and will be
remembered as a noble and patriotic effort. But secession had then
too vigorous a growth to be checked by any forensic effort, however
moving. One after another the Southern States seceded, and finally
Mr. Johnson's own State, Tennessee, was declared out of the Union
by its Legislature, though the people had voted against holding a
convention to consider the question of secession. Out of this discord
a condition of mob law and anarchy was speedily developed, and when
Senator Johnson returned home in April, 1861, at the close of the
session of Congress, he found himself exposed to violence, and in
the gravest personal peril. He was burned in effigy in nearly every
city in the State, and on one occasion a mob entered a railroad car
in which he was riding declaring that they were going to lynch him.
He met them with a pistol in his hand and cowed them. At the East
Tennessee Union Convention of May 3, 1861, he was prominent, and a
little later, while on his way to attend a special session of Congress,
he was honored by an enthusiastic public reception in Cincinnati.
Through his efforts the Unionists of East Tennessee, persecuted and
driven from their homes by the rebels, were given shelter, food and
protection at Camp Dick Robinson, established by the Government.
President Lincoln nominated Mr. Johnson Military Governor of Tennessee
March 4, 1862, and on the 12th he assumed the trying responsibilities
of that office at Nashville. The rebel State Government had been driven
from that city to Memphis. Mr. Johnson's wife and child had only a
little while before been driven from their home and his property and
slaves confiscated, but in a proclamation announcing his appointment,
he said that, though it might be necessary to punish conscious treason
in high places, no merely vindictive or retaliatory policy would be
pursued. It required no common courage to rule with the firmness he
displayed in that dark and perilous time. Civil officers who refused
to take the oath of allegiance were at once removed and their places
filled by Union men. He even imprisoned the disloyal clergymen of
Nashville after they had expressed their determination not to take
the oath. He levied a tax upon prominent secessionists to maintain
the women and children whose husbands and fathers had been "forced
into the armies of this unholy and nefarious rebellion." In the
Summer of 1863 the entire State of Tennessee was brought under Federal
military control, and a convention was held at Nashville in September
to consider the question of restoring the State to the Union. Gov.
Johnson then expressed the belief that it had never been out of the
Union, holding that there was no constitutional provision permitting
secession. In January, 1864, the machinery of the State civil government
was set in motion again by an election of State and county officers
ordered by him. The National Republican Convention of June 7, 1864,
held at Baltimore, renominated Abraham Lincoln for President, with
Andrew Johnson as the nominee for Vice President. In September he
ordered an election in Tennessee for the choice of Presidential Electors,
and made a rigid test oath the condition of suffrage. He was inaugurated
with Mr. Lincoln March 4, 1865.
Undoubtedly the greatest misfortune that ever befell Andrew Johnson
was the assassination of President Lincoln, April 14, 1865. It promoted
him to the eminent position of President of the nation, it is true,
but the student of history is forced to conclude that his posthumous
fame would have been brighter without this high honor and the consequences
it entailed. Up to this time Mr. Johnson's public life had been such
that he incurred, in weightier matters, only the hostility of men
whose opposition was, to an upright and honest man, more honorable
than their approval; but his Presidential acts were of a kind that
speedily alienated from him the party whose votes elected him, and
left him only the questionable and lukewarm support of the opposition.
In a speech of welcome to a delegation of citizens of Illinois who
called on him on the 18th of April, President Johnson said:"The
times we live in are not without instruction. The American people
must be taught -- if they do not already feel -- that treason is a
crime and must be punished; that the Government will not always bear
with its enemies; that it is strong not only to protect but to punish."
These words seemed to foreshadow a reconstruction policy which would
deal with the leading secessionists severely, as the people were then
in a mood to demand. He offered $100,000 for the arrest of Jefferson
Davis, and large sums also for other leading Confederates. Early in
May rules were issued governing trade with the States lately in rebellion,
but on the 24th of June all restrictions were removed. Then rapidly
followed orders restoring Virginia to her Federal relations, establishing
provisional governments in the Southern States, and (on May 29) granting
a general amnesty to all persons engaged in the rebellion, except
certain classes who could receive pardon by special application.
When Congress assembled the popular opposition to this hasty method
of reconstruction took shape in a quarrel between Congress and the
President. The Republican majority held that some substantial guarantee
of good faith should be required of the rebellious States before they
were admitted to their former rights and privileges, and that some
provision should be made for protecting the freedmen. The difference
of opinion between the Executive and Congress led to his vetoing the
first Civil Rights bill and an act extending the Freedmen's Bureau.
The bills were both passed over his veto, and President Johnson, certainly
with questionably taste, repeatedly asserted in public that Congress
was in an attitude of rebellion. It was not possible for the Cabinet
chosen by Mr. Lincoln to be in harmony with his successor's policy,
and in July, Postmaster General Dennison, Attorney General Speed,
and Secretary of the Interior Harlan resigned, and the President at
once filling their places. In the latter part of August President
Johnson with Secretaries Seward and Welles, and Gen. Grant and others,
set out for Chicago to attend the ceremonies of laying the corner-stone
of the monument to Stephen A. Douglas. It was this trip that gave
rise to the well-known expression "swinging around the circle."
The President spoke very freely of his policy in the different places
on the route, openly denouncing Congress and saying many things that
were decidedly inconsistent with the dignity of his position, and
unquestionably injurious to him. The Fall elections showed incontestably
that the popular approval was with Congress. On the reassembling of
Congress the President vetoed bills denying the admission of States
that had not ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, and giving the right
of suffrage without distinction of color in Territories and the District
of Columbia. Congress passed the bills over his veto, however. That
body having also passed over his veto a bill establishing military
districts in ten of the seceding States and making the civil authority
therein subordinate to the military commanders, representing the United
States Government, there arose a difficulty that widened the breach
between the Executive and the Congress.
Attorney General Stanbury decided, on application of the President,
that some provisions of the act were unconstitutional, whereby its
enforcement by the military commanders was greatly impeded. Congress
passed another act in July, 1867, making these commanders responsible
only to the General of the Army, and after its passage over his veto
President Johnson removed the commanders and substituted others. On
the 12th of August, the same year, Edwin M. Stanton was removed from
the office of Secretary of War by the President, and Gen. Grant appointed.
The Tenure-of-office bill, passed the previous March, made the consent
of the Senate necessary to such removals, and provided that its sanction
was required, at the next ensuing session, in the case of appointments
made in recess. Accordingly Secretary Stanton vacated his office under
protest. The Senate, at its reassembling, refused to sanction his
removal, and Gen. Grant at once resigned in his favor, but it was
not in the nature of so determined a man as Andrew Johnson to yield
the point thus, and he again removed Mr. Stanton, and appointed Gen.
Lorenzo Thomas in his stead. The Senate at once declared that the
President had exceeded his authority, and the House of Representatives
passed a resolution -- 126 yeas to 47 nays -- that he be impeached
for high crimes and misdemeanors.
The House agreed to the articles of impeachment March 3, 1868, and
the Senate received them two days later. They specified his removal
of Secretary Stanton, his publicly-expressed contempt for the Thirty-ninth
Congress and his hindrances to the execution of its measures as acts
calling for his impeachment. The trial began in the Senate, sitting
as a high court of impeachment, on March 23. The managers of the trial
on the part of the accusation were Thaddeus Stevens, B.F. Butler,
John H. Bingham, George S. Boutwell, J.F. Wilson, T. Williams, and
John A. Logan, all members of the House; for the President appeared
Attorney General Henry Stanbury, Benjamin R. Curtis, Jeremiah S. Black,
William M. Evarts, and Thomas A.R. Nelson. The votes on the two articles
were taken May 16 and 26, standing, in each case, thirty-five guilty
and nineteen not guilty, which acquitted the President, as a two-thirds
vote is required to convict. Mr. Stanton at once resigned, and General
Schofield was made Secretary of War.
The remainder of his Presidential career is not especially noteworthy.
He issued a full pardon to everybody who had taken part in the rebellion,
on the 25th of December. On the expiration of his term, in March,
1869, he retired to his home at Greenville, Tenn. In 1870 he was a
candidate for the United States Senate, but was defeated by two votes;
in 1872 he was defeated on independent nomination for Congress.
He came again into public life, however, in the beginning of the present
year, being elected to the United States Senate by the Tennessee Legislature
after an exciting contest, receiving on the fifty-fifth ballot fifty-two
votes, which was only four more than was necessary for a choice. The
popular demonstrations and rejoicings in the cities and towns of his
vicinity were very flattering to him, and only expressed the genuine
satisfaction that was felt all over the country at his return to the
councils of the nation, in which, just then, the Louisiana affair
and financial questions were in active discussion. It is needless
to review this latest public service of Mr. Johnson, as it is recent,
and fresh in the memory. Suffice it to say that he was honest and
courageous as ever. Whatever else may be said of him, his integrity
and courage have been seldom questioned though often proved. He was
by nature and temperament squarely disposed toward justice and the
right, and was a determined warrior for his convictions. He erred
from limitation of grasp and perception, perhaps, or through sore
perplexity in trying times, but never weakly or consciously. He was
always headstrong and "sure he was right" even in his errors.
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