The Rise and Fall of Andrew Johnson - Research Paper Example

Andrew Johnson Summary After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson assumed office and became the 17th president of the United States of America. He served from 1865 to 1869 and became the first president in the US to be impeached (Venezia, 5). Before he became a politician, he was a tailor by profession, and he lacked formal education since he grew in poverty. In his political career, was in the US Congress, he was a Tennessee legislature and the governor of Tennessee. He was a Democrat who championed the measures by the populists, and he was a supporter of the state. He was also the only southern senator who remained loyal to the movement during the US civil war. He was inaugurated as the Vice president of united stated in 1865 and six weeks later, the president was murdered. His first obligation as the president was to ensure that the south was drawn back to the union as he clashed with Radical republicans. The Congress impeached him in 1868, but he survived and remained in power. It is said that this was the key reason why he opted not to run for the second term in office. Early Life Andrew Johnson was born in a log cabin in Raleigh on 29 December 1808 in North Carolina (Venezia, 23). His mother was Mary “Polly” McDonough Johnson and was married to a porter at an inn by the name of Jacob Johnson who is the father of Johnson. He died while Johnson was 3years old. This situation made him grow up in an impoverished situation which made him not to attend school, but in his early teen, he was an apprentice to a tailor (Venezia, 23). He moved to Greenville Tennessee in 1826 where he managed to be an established tailor. He got married in 1827 to Eliza McCardle who was a daughter to a shoemaker. The two had a family, which comprised of five children. His wife managed to tutor him in learning writing skills and rudimentary reading at the same time learning some math. In time, he was able to prosper in life, and he bought properties including several slaves who worked in his home. Political Life Johnson’s political journey started in 1829 after he became an alderman in Greenville through an election. It was in this year that fellow Democrat and Tennessean, Andrew Jackson was elected the seventh president of the United States. The two of them considered themselves as champions of the common people. He was angry with the rich planters and he always favored the policies and rights of the populists (Gordon-Reed, 45). Since he was a skilled orator, he was given the position of the Greenville’s mayor in 1834 and the following year marked his election to the Tennessee state legislature. He served for in the 1830s and early 1840s and in 1843, he was elevated again and joined the U.S. House of Representatives (Gordon-Reed, 45). He championed the introduction and passing of the Homestead Act, which granted the settlers the mandate of acquiring undeveloped public land. This act was passed in 1862. During his time in the congress, the slavery issue was a crucial issue and majority of the Americans were divided on this issue. There are individuals who were interested in giving an extension to the peculiar institution, which was seen to be on newly acquired territories in the west while others were gravely against it. Since Johnson was a strong supporter of the constitution, he believed that people had the right of owning slaves. He became the Governor of Tennessee in 1853 after he had left the congress (Stewart, 27). In 1857, he vacated the seat of governorship to join the US Senate. He continued to push for the slave ownership in 1850s even as the country was divided between the South and the North. This struggle led to the Southern leaders to call for secession, but he still remained remorseful and wanted them to retain and preserve the union. Johnson and the Civil War The whole ideology is traced back to 1860 after the Abraham Lincoln was elected the president, and was believed to be a strong anti-slavery advocate together with his party members. The same year, the slaveholders of South Carolina decided to break away from the union. It was followed by six other Southern states who decided to form the Confederation States of America in 1861 February. This union was later comprised of 11 Southern states (Johnson and Benjamin, 36). The Civil War broke out a month after Lincoln was inaugurated. This started when there was firing at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in South Carolina by the confederation forces. In June of the same year, Tennessee decided to vote in approval of seceding from the union to join the Confederacy. Johnson was the only Tennessean in favor of the union and had travelled across the state speaking against the breakaway. He still remained loyal even after the state had seceded. He was appointed as Tennessee’s military governor by Lincoln in 1862 which made him resign from the senate (Venezia, 67). He tried to establish a federal authority in Tennessee because of his role, but had mixed reaction from the public. Johnson as Vice President Lincoln chose Johnson to be his running mate during his re-election bid in 1864. There was a tight race for the running mate as his opponent was Hannibal Hamlin who was a former senator from Maine. He was deemed fit for the position due to his loyalty to Lincoln as he was rendered a War Democrat and a Southern Unionist. Lincoln was able to win by a margin of 212 to 21 as he defeated General George McClellan. He had garnered the popular vote of 55%. Lincoln and Johnson were sworn in on 4th March 1865 (McKitrick, 56). During this time, Johnson drank some whiskey as he awaited the ceremony since he was recovering from typhoid fever. They believed that whiskey would make a sick person feel better. This made him slurry and he gave an incoherent inaugural speech, which made people believe that he was an alcoholic. April 9 witnessed the surrendering of the Confederate army led by General Robert E Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. This was seen as the end of the Civil war. On April 14, Lincoln was shot and injured by his partner sympathizer John Wilkes Booth as he was watching a play at Fords Theater in Washington D.C. Lincoln died from the bullet wounds the following morning and Johnson was sworn in as president on the same day. He was at his Washington hotel where Salmon Chase who was the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court conducted the ceremony (Gordon-Reed, 81). According to the initial plan, the assassin was also interested in killing Johnson together with the secretary of state William Seward. Seward survived after he was attacked. Andrew Johnson's Challenging Presidency His first priority once he was in office was to ensure that the Southern states are restored back to the union. The former Confederates were granted amnesty, and the rebel states were given the opportunity of electing governments. The governments were formed, and it included ex-Confederate officials. They decided to enact the black code measures which were their way of repressing and controlling the slaves who were recently freed (Johnson and Benjamin, 76). In December 1865, the US congress convened, but the Southerners refused to be part of the congress. It was a difficult time for Johnson as he was unable to be with the legislatures who were the radical republicans. They viewed his type of leadership in the form of reconstruction to be lenient to the rebels. Johnson decided to veto the Civil Rights bill and Freedman’s bill in 1866, which was a legislation that was aimed at protecting the blacks. The same year, the congress decided to pass the 14th amendment, which was aimed at granting blacks with citizenship. However, the southern states were urged by the president not to ratify it though it was ratified in July 1968. The Congressional election held in 1866 Johnson came up with the idea of multiple-city campaign, which was aimed at building his reconstruction policies. His campaign was dubbed “a swing around the circle,” but proved to be a failure. The republicans who came up with their own enactment of reconstruction policies and measures won the majority in both houses. There was a great hostility between the congress and the president. The president was voted for impeachment by the House of Representatives in February 1868 (McKitrick, 78). He was accused of 11 charges amongst them being the violation of tenure of office Act. He had suspended secretary of war Edwin Stanton who had opposed the president’s policies of reconstruction. The president was acquainted of all the charges by the senate by one vote. One of the issues that president Johnson will always pride himself upon is the purchase of Alaska annexed Midway Island. During this time, it was controlled by the British. He decided to negotiate with them after they had successfully completed the construction of the transatlantic cable. He was also visited by the greatest novelist Charles Dickens and Queen Emma who was famous for Sandwich Island (Gordon-Reed, 92). The first President to ever hold the Easter Egg roll in the white house was Johnson who invited 300 children on his sixtieth birthday party at the white house. Johnson decided not to run for re-election as president in 1868. This decision was made after the democrats did not choose him as their presidential candidate as they opted for Horatio Seymour who was the former governor of New York. The presidency was won by the republican candidate and Civil war hero Ulysses Grant and became the 18th president of United States of America. Johnson after Presidency After leaving the white house, Johnson still engaged himself in politic as he went back to Tennessee to run for US Senate. He was defeated and in 1872, he was unable to capture his seat a US house of representatives. His persistence led him to clinch the seat of senate in 1875. He was the only ex-president to ever become successful on such a quest. However, he had a brief session in office as he died in July of the same year at the age of 66 (McKitrick, 106). He suffered a stroke as he was visiting his family in Carter County, Tennessee. He was buried with the constitution and the US flag in Greeneville. His final resting place was chosen to be on top of a hill, which was later changed to be known as Monument Hill. Works Cited Gordon-Reed, Annette. Andrew Johnson. New York, NY: Times Books/Henry Holt, 2011. Print. Johnson, Andrew, and Benjamin P. Poore. Trial of Andrew Johnson: President of the United States, Before the Senate of the United States, on Impeachment by the House of Representatives for High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Washington: Govt. Print. Off, 1868. Print. Johnson, Andrew, LeRoy P. Graf, Ralph W. Haskins, and Paul H. Bergeron. The Papers of Andrew Johnson. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1967. Print. McKitrick, Eric L. Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Print. Stewart, David O. Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print. Venezia, Mike. Andrew Johnson. New York: Children's Press, 2005. Print. Read More