DK - The American Civil War

Impeachment ticket

This is a facsimile of a ticket that admitted

the bearer to the gallery to watch the Senate

proceedings against President Johnson. Only

a limited number were available each day.

whiskey. He gave a rambling, incoherent
inauguration speech and was generally
held to have disgraced himself. Six
weeks later, following the seismic shock
of Lincoln’s death, there was further
consternation at the thought of Johnson
as the new president.
His position was politically awkward.
A lifetime Democrat, he found himself at
the head of a Republican administration,
and it soon became apparent that his
political agenda was very different from
that of much of the party.

Controversy brews
The falling out began barely six weeks
into Johnson’s presidency, when he
issued two key proclamations. One
granted amnesty and restored property
to almost all Southerners prepared to
swear allegiance to the Union. The other
set in motion a process by which former
Confederate states could be readmitted
to the Union. Although intended
specifically for North Carolina, it came
to be seen as a model for other states as
well. The process provided for the
election of a representative body to
frame a new state constitution. Crucially,
the electorate involved would be
exclusively white.
Johnson’s proposals brought
into focus the clash between two
very different views of the future
of the nation. On one side, the
radical wing of the Republican
Party imagined a transformed
South in which emancipated
blacks would have the same
citizenship rights as their white
neighbors, including the right to
vote. On the other, Democrats

and moderate Republicans, as well

as the vast body of white opinion

in the South itself, visualized a

situation in which little would

have changed in the postwar

states except for the abolition

of slavery as an institution.

Support for the South

Great tact and political sure-

footedness were required to keep

the two sides from each other’s

throats, and Johnson failed to

show either. Through the

summer of 1866, the situation

became inflamed, as the new

administrations of the former

Confederate states passed a

series of Black Codes severely

restricting the rights of black

people. There were reports,

too, of attacks on black citizens

by white mobs: In Memphis

46 people were killed, in New

Orleans 40. Opinion among

hardline anti-Southern

Republicans, known as Republican

Radicals, was outraged, and much of the

ire was directed at Johnson, who had

vetoed a bill to extend the life of the

Freedmen’s Bureau, a federal agency set

up under Lincoln to protect black rights in

the South. Worse still, he went on to

veto a Civil Rights Bill that would have

given citizenship to blacks on the same

terms as the rest of the population.

Infuriated radicals and moderates came

together to override both vetoes and

push the measures through.

The conflict simmered for the next two

years, eventually polarizing into a

struggle between Johnson and his

secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, a

champion of the Republican Radical

cause. To prevent Johnson from purging

his cabinet of radicals, Congress took the

unprecedented step of passing a Tenure

of Office Act, forbidding the president

from removing high-ranking officials

without the Senate’s approval.

When Johnson flouted the act by

seeking to replace Stanton, the

power struggle between legislature

and executive came to a head.

The House voted to impeach the

president—the first time that it

had done so in its 80-year

history—and Johnson was

duly forced to stand trial. In

the event, enough moderate

Republican senators rallied to

the president’s cause to deny

the impeachers the two-thirds

majority they needed by just

one vote. Johnson had been

saved by the skin of his

teeth, and served out the

remaining eight months of

his term. He was succeeded

in office by the Union war

hero Ulysses S. Grant.

Johnson retained support in the South,

and in time was re-elected to the

Senate, serving for five months before

his death from a stroke. Since

then, his reputation has risen

and fallen in line with attitudes

to Reconstruction as a whole.

Generally, historians have

placed Johnson in the category

of presidents found wanting.

ANDREW JOHNSON

TIMELINE

Johnson pardons Rebels

An contemporary illustration shows Johnson

pardoning Rebels at the White House. All Rebels

except the Confederate leaders were pardoned,

and all property was returned except slaves.

The parrot

Johnson parrots the word

“Constitution,” referring to

his support for the South

during Reconstruction.

■ December 29, 1808 Born in Raleigh, North

Carolina, the third child of stableman Jacob

Johnson and his wife Mary, a weaver.

■ 1812 His father dies, leaving the family in poverty.

Johnson has no formal education.

■ 1822 Apprenticed to a tailor.

■ 1825 Runs away with his brother, William, to

Greeneville, Tennessee, where Andrew finds

work as a tailor.

■ 1827 Marries Eliza McArdle, with whom he will

have five children over the next 25 years.

■ March 4, 1843 Enters the U.S. House of

Representatives as a Democrat. Over the next

ten years he will serve five consecutive terms

in the House.

■ October 17, 1853 Takes office as Governor

of Tennessee.

■ October 8, 1857 Enters the U.S. Senate as junior

senator for Tennessee. As such he argues

passionately against secession.

■ March 12, 1862 President Lincoln appoints him

military governor of Tennessee following Union

gains there. His area of authority grows as Union

armies expand their grip on the state.

■ June 1864 Selected as Abraham Lincoln’s running

mate for the presidential election of that year. The

two men stand in the name of the newly created

National Union Party.

■ March 4, 1865 Takes office as vice president

of the United States. He is widely criticized for

being drunk when giving his inauguration speech

to the Senate.

■ April 15, 1865 On the morning after Lincoln’s

assassination, Johnson is sworn in as 17th

president of the United States.

■ March 27, 1866 Breaks with the Republicans in

Congress by vetoing the Civil Rights Bill, which

would confer citizenship on freed slaves.

■ March 5, 1868 Impeachment proceedings get

underway in the Senate, with Johnson accused

of intentional violation of the Tenure of Office Act.

■ May 26, 1868 The Senate proceedings are

adjourned, his accusers having failed by one

vote to secure the two-thirds majority needed to

impeach the president.

■ March 4, 1869 Leaves office at the end of his

four-year term after announcing a controversial

amnesty for all Confederates not covered by

previous pardons.

■ March 4, 1875 Re-enters the Senate, voted in

by the Tennessee legislature.

■ July 31, 1875 Dies of a stroke at age 66, at his

daughter’s house near Elizabethton, Tennessee.

JOHNSON’S TAILOR SHOP IN GREENEVILLE

“Now that we have peace, let us

enforce the Constitution.”

ANDREW JOHNSON SPEAKING TO CITIZENS OF WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 22, 1866

Johnson was the only former U.S. president

to serve in the Senate after leaving the

White House. He was re-elected as a

senator for Tennessee, a post he had

previously held from 1857 to 1862.