Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson served as the 17th president of the United States from 1865 - 1869. Johnson took over the presidency following the assassination of President Lincoln. He was tried by the Senate in 1868 and acquitted by one vote.
Johnson died on July 31, 1875.
Resources
- Andrew Johnson: Miller CenterAndrew Johnson gives truth to the saying that in America, anyone can grow up to become President. Born in a log cabin in North Carolina to nearly illiterate parents, Andrew Johnson did not master the basics of reading, grammar, or math until he met his wife at the age of seventeen. The only other man to attain the office of President with so little formal education was Abraham Lincoln. Whereas Lincoln is esteemed as America's greatest President, Johnson, his successor, is ranked as one of the worst.
- Andrew Johnson: White HouseWith the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson became the 17th President of the United States (1865-1869), an old-fashioned southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states’ rights views.
- The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (1868) President of the United StatesDuring the years immediately following the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson clashed repeatedly with the Republican-controlled Congress over reconstruction of the defeated South. Johnson vetoed legislation that Congress passed to protect the rights of those who had been freed from slavery.
Reference, Archives, & Primary Sources
- Andrew Johnson: Credo ReferenceA Credo Reference landing page on Andrew Johnson. This page includes links to reference works, journal articles, and a mind map.
- Andrew Johnson Papers: Library of CongressThe papers of vice president, senator, and representative Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), who became the seventeenth president of the Unites States in 1865 after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, consist of 40,000 items (63,710 images), most of which were digitized from 55 reels of previously produced microfilm. Spanning the years 1783-1947, with the bulk dating 1865-1869, the collection contains correspondence, memoranda, diaries, messages and speeches, courts-martial and amnesty records, financial records, lists, newspaper clippings, printed matter, scrapbooks, photographs, and other papers relating chiefly to Johnson’s presidency. Subjects include the Civil War, National Union Party, Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and assassination, Reconstruction, and Johnson’s presidential administration and impeachment. The collection also documents Johnson’s service as military governor of Tennessee (1862-1865) and his business affairs, including his tailor shop in Greeneville, Tennessee. Shorthand diaries kept by Johnson’s secretary, William G. Moore, are included in the collection and accompanied by typed transcriptions.
Going to the Devil: The Impeachment of 1869
What can 1868 teach us about 2020? Going to the Devil: The Impeachment of 1868, the first-time-ever original narrative documentary from The Great Courses, is a unique retelling of the turbulent events leading up to and through the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. With back-stabbings, acts of violence, and a cult of personalities, experience the history of this case unfolding like fiction.
Source: Kanopy
Perspectives
Andrew Johnson
A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian recounts the tale of the unwanted president who ran afoul of Congress over Reconstruction and was nearly removed from office Andrew Johnson never expected to be president. But just six weeks after becoming Abraham Lincoln's vice president, the events at Ford's Theatre thrust him into the nation's highest office. Johnson faced a nearly impossible task--to succeed America's greatest chief executive, to bind the nation's wounds after the Civil War, and to work with a Congress controlled by the so-called Radical Republicans. Annette Gordon-Reed, one of America's leading historians of slavery, shows how ill-suited Johnson was for this daunting task. His vision of reconciliation abandoned the millions of former slaves (for whom he felt undisguised contempt) and antagonized congressional leaders, who tried to limit his powers and eventually impeached him. The climax of Johnson's presidency was his trial in the Senate and his acquittal by a single vote, which Gordon-Reed recounts with drama and palpable tension. Despite his victory, Johnson's term in office was a crucial missed opportunity; he failed the country at a pivotal moment, leaving America with problems that we are still trying to solve.
The Failed Promise
When Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, the country was on the precipice of radical change. Johnson, seemingly more progressive than Lincoln, looked like the ideal person to lead the country. He had already cast himself as a ?Moses? for the Black community, and African Americans were optimistic that he would pursue aggressive federal policies for Black equality. Despite this early promise, Frederick Douglass, the country's most influential Black leader, soon grew disillusioned with Johnson's policies and increasingly doubted the president was sincere in supporting Black citizenship. In a dramatic and pivotal meeting between Johnson and a Black delegation at the White House, the president and Douglass came to verbal blows over the course of Reconstruction. As he lectured across the country, Douglass continued to attack Johnson's policies, while raising questions about the Radical Republicans' hesitancy to grant African Americans the vote. Johnson meanwhile kept his eye on Douglass, eventually making a surprising effort to appoint him to a key position in his administration. Levine grippingly portrays the conflicts that brought Douglass and the wider Black community to reject Johnson and call for a guilty verdict in his impeachment trial. He brings fresh insight by turning to letters between Douglass and his sons, speeches by Douglass and other major Black figures like Frances E. W. Harper, and articles and letters in the Christian Recorder, the most important African American newspaper of the time. In counterpointing the lives and careers of Douglass and Johnson, Levine offers a distinctive vision of the lost promise and dire failure of Reconstruction, the effects of which still reverberate today.
The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson
Details the impeachment and trial of Andrew Johnson.
Andrew Johnson: The impeached president
Raised in poverty, uneducated, a working class figure whose political ethos was "my way or the highway," Andrew Johnson's surprising rise to the Oval Office upon Abraham Lincoln's assassination was followed by a torturous relationship with Congress and the first impeachment of a U.S. president. Mo Rocca looks back at the life of the Southern Democrat who was one of America's most unfortunate chief executives.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N466WTClpe4