Andrew Johnson

Johnson soon turned to politics, rising to governor and U.S. senator. He became a spokesman for the Jacksonian Democrats of his state, favoring populist measures, particularly a homestead bill. In 1860-1861, he remained loyal to the Union, the only senator from a seceding state to do so, and in 1862, Abraham Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee.

In 1864 Johnson was elected vice president. Inaugurated as president after Lincoln's assassination, he announced his hatred for "traitors," but in reality embraced a lenient Reconstruction policy. A firm believer in states' rights, he held that blacks were innately inferior. Consequently, he asserted that the southern states had never left the Union and ought to be restored quickly, without regard to the safety of the freedmen. This was the rationale for his granting amnesty to all but a few ex-Confederates and appointing provisional governors charged with calling on white voters to reestablish loyal governments. The resulting administrations enacted Black Codes that virtually remanded the freedmen to slavery.

Congress, however, refused to seat the newly elected southern members and broke with the president when he vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau and civil rights bills and opposed the Fourteenth Amendment. His attempt to create a new conservative party and his "swing around the circle," a national tour during which he delivered unbecoming harangues, contributed to the defeat of his supporters in the 1866 midterm elections. Congress then curtailed his powers by passing the Tenure of Office Act to protect radical appointees and a measure to restrict his authority as commander in chief of the army. His objections proved unavailing, as was his bitter opposition to the Reconstruction Acts.

Because Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton opposed his policies, Johnson sought to replace him with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Not only did the House attempt to impeach the president, but the Senate refused to concur in the secretary's suspension and ordered his reinstatement. After Grant refused to cooperate with Johnson, the president decided to rid himself of Stanton once and for all, this time in defiance of the Tenure of Office Act. In February 1868 he announced the appointment of Lorenzo Thomas as secretary ad interim, whereupon the House passed a resolution of impeachment. In the trial that followed, Johnson's opponents failed to obtain the necessary two-thirds for conviction, and the Senate acquitted him by one vote. After his retirement, Johnson was reelected to the Senate in 1875. He served only briefly, for he died soon thereafter.

Although not successful as president, Johnson was a shrewd politician who repeatedly defeated both Whigs and Democrats in his home state. But by failing to take advantage of the opportunity of remaking the South in the months after Appomattox and by undermining Congressional Reconstruction, he contributed materially to its failure and kept the South a "white man's country."

James E. Sefton, Andrew Johnson and the Uses of Constitutional Power (1980); Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson: A Biography (1989).

HANS L. TREFOUSSE

The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.