Andrew Johnson (1808 to 1875) was the 17th President of the United States, who was suddenly thrust into the office in 1865 after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A gruff Southern Democrat, Johnson favored a quick end to Reconstruction (circa 1863 to 1877), which pitted him against the Radical Republicans in control of Congress. His opposition to 'Radical Reconstruction' led to his impeachment in 1868, which he survived by a single vote. After leaving the presidency in disgrace on 4 March 1869, he plotted a return to national politics, but died on 31 July 1875 shortly after winning election to the US Senate. He is often ranked as one of the worst US presidents, unequal to the crucial moment of Reconstruction.

Johnson was born into poverty. Indeed, as one acquaintance would later recall, Johnson's life was "one intense, unceasing, desperate upward struggle" (quoted in Foner, 176). He was born in a two-room cabin in Raleigh, North Carolina, on 29 December 1808. His father, Jacob Johnson, died when Andrew was only three – a poor and illiterate hotel porter, Jacob had dropped dead of a heart attack after rescuing two wealthy hotel guests from drowning. Andrew's widowed mother, Mary 'Polly' McDonough, was then left as the sole breadwinner for the family, working tirelessly as a washerwoman to provide enough food for Andrew and his older brother William (a third Johnson child, Elizabeth, had already died in infancy).

Perhaps to lighten her financial load, Polly decided to apprentice both her sons to James Selby, a local tailor. Only 14 years old, Andrew was contractually bound to work at Selby's shop until his 21st birthday. In the meantime, he learned the craft and became quite proficient at it. Oftentimes, as he worked, neighbors would come into the shop and read to him and the other apprentices; this sparked a lifetime love of reading and learning, which would serve Johnson well in his political development. In 1826, 17-year-old Johnson grew bored with life in Selby's shop. He and William broke their indenture and ran away, fleeing to New Carthage, North Carolina, where they began working as tailors. Selby issued warrants for their arrests, citing breach of apprenticeship, leading Johnson to return to his mother. The entire family soon moved West and travelled to Greeneville, Tennessee. There, Johnson opened his own tailor's shop in front of his home. He met Eliza McCardle, the 16-year-old daughter of a shoemaker. They began courting almost immediately and were soon married. Eliza helped her new husband further his education by tutoring him in reading, writing, and arithmetic, reading to him as he worked.

It did not take long for Johnson to ingratiate himself into the Greeneville community. The locals were impressed by his rustic, folksy style of speech, as well as his background as a self-made, self-educated man. His shop became a gathering place for political discussion, leading Eliza to encourage him to seek political office. In 1829, 21-year-old Johnson was elected alderman and, only a few years later, became mayor of Greeneville. In 1835, he was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives and would forge a career in state politics for the next eight years. During his tenure in the state capital of Nashville, Johnson curated a reputation as the defender of the poor common man. He won the support of the mechanics, artisans, and rural farmers, who formed the core part of his constituency. Johnson's politics became increasingly aligned with those of the Jacksonian Democrats, and indeed, he often spoke in favor of the populist administration of President Andrew Jackson.

In 1843, Johnson won election to the US House of Representatives and set out for Washington, D.C. He was forced to leave Eliza behind – she had contracted tuberculosis, which had rendered her infirm and unable to travel. Nevertheless, she continued to support him from afar and even helped write his speeches. In Congress, Johnson continually sided with the Democratic Party in issues involving slavery and states' rights. He was a slaveowner himself, having purchased his first enslaved person – a 14-year-old girl named Dolly – the same year he went to Congress. At this time, he believed that slaves were personal property, and that the US Constitution prohibited federal or state governments from abolishing slavery on those grounds.

He supported the expansionist, 'manifest destiny' policies of the Democrats, including the Mexican-American War (1846 to 1848), although he personally disliked President James K. Polk and often quarreled with him. Johnson generally supported the Compromise of 1850 that would allow California to enter the Union as a free state; however, he opposed the provision that would ban slavery in Washington, D.C. He lost his congressional seat in 1852, when his opponents successfully gerrymandered his district out of existence. At first, Johnson was disheartened, lamenting that his career was over.

He would make a quick comeback, however, as he was elected governor of Tennessee the following year. Returning to Nashville, he found that this position left him as little more than a figurehead with no real authority. Nevertheless, he leveraged what influence he had to push for public libraries and to implement the first public school system in Tennessee. In 1856, he returned to Congress, this time as a US Senator. He once again towed the Democratic Party line, advocating for lower tariffs and opposing antislavery measures.

By now, the nation was rapidly hurtling toward civil war; the issue of slavery had divided the country along sectional lines, pitting the 'free states' of the North against the 'slave states' of the South. Though Johnson was a Southerner and a slaveholder himself, he was also a staunch Unionist and shuddered at any thought that the slave-holding states might secede and form their own country. In December 1859, in the wake of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Johnson gave a speech on the Senate floor in which he berated Northerners and abolitionists for refusing to compromise on the slavery issue, blaming their rigidity for the looming crisis.

Tensions continued to worsen until November 1860, when the candidate of the new antislavery Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, won election to the presidency. This triggered the so-called 'Secession Winter' of 1860 to 61, when seven 'slave states' seceded from the Union and declared independence as the Confederate States. Johnson vehemently opposed secession and was horrified to find that his home state was considering joining the Confederacy. In the spring of 1861, he returned to Tennessee to argue against secession. His pro-Union stance earned him multiple death threats, and he often had to give his speeches with a gun sitting on his lectern, in case he was attacked. Despite his efforts, Tennessee voted to secede and joined the Confederacy in June 1861. Unlike many other Southern politicians who remained loyal to their state even if they had initially been Unionists, Johnson refused to accept Tennessee's decision and defiantly remained in the US Senate.

Johnson's hardline Unionist stance turned him into a hero amongst Republicans and Northerners. He spent the winter of 1861 advocating for military action to recover his home state; he was gratified the following spring, when Union forces occupied much of central and western Tennessee and captured Nashville. In March 1862, President Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of Tennessee, charging him with the administration of the Union-occupied portions of the state. When Johnson accepted, the Confederates retaliated by seizing his lands, confiscating his slaves, and turning his home into a military hospital.

Johnson moved to suppress Confederate influence in Tennessee. He required public officials to swear oaths of loyalty to the Union, shut down pro-Confederate newspapers, and worked to fortify Nashville. Despite his loyalty to the Union, Johnson was certainly no abolitionist; indeed, he had convinced Lincoln to exempt Tennessee from the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which freed the slaves in all other rebel states. Yet, he eventually realized that slavery had to end if the Confederacy were to ever be defeated, and reluctantly supported efforts to recruit former slaves into the Union army.

In the run-up to the all-important US presidential election of 1864 – an election that many felt would literally determine the outcome of the war – Johnson was added to Lincoln's ticket as his running mate. Since Johnson was a Southerner and a Democrat, it was believed that his presence would soothe the concerns of Northern Copperheads, who may have felt that Lincoln and the Republicans were becoming too radical. Additionally, Johnson's presence on the ticket would hopefully support the message of national unity that the Lincoln administration was trying to promote.

This Lincoln-Johnson coalition, known as the National Union Party, succeeded in winning the election in November 1864, beating the Democratic candidate, George B. McClellan. Their victory all but sealed the fate of the Confederacy, which had been counting on a McClellan presidency as the only way to avoid unconditional surrender. Johnson was inaugurated as vice president on 4 March 1865. The night before, he had gotten staggeringly drunk at a party held in his honor. Still horribly hung over, he gave a long, rambling, and incoherent speech that shocked and embarrassed his allies.

Johnson was unexpectedly thrust into the office of the presidency on 15 April 1865, the morning that Lincoln died of a gunshot wound inflicted by John Wilkes Booth, a stage actor and Confederate sympathizer. Johnson – who had also been targeted by Booth's conspiracy, but had remained unharmed – was at Lincoln's bedside when he died at 7:22 a.m., and was sworn in as president a few hours later. The cabinet members, many of whom had last seen Johnson drunk at the inauguration, were surprised at his demeanor, described as solemn and dignified. Johnson held his first cabinet meeting that same day and opted to retain Lincoln's cabinet. The next few days were a whirlwind. Johnson presided over Lincoln's funeral ceremonies in Washington, D.C., and received word that the last major Confederate army had surrendered. The American Civil War was now over, but the task of reconstructing the nation still lay ahead. All eyes turned to Johnson for his leadership.

At first, many Republicans were optimistic about a Johnson presidency. They believed that he would not only carry on the work that Lincoln had started, but that he would enfranchise the formerly enslaved (freed by the Thirteenth Amendment) and punish the South; after all, here was a man who had once said that treason "must be made odious, and traitors must be punished and impoverished" (quoted in White, 35). Yet it very quickly became clear that Johnson's views on Reconstruction were quite different from those of Radical Republicans.

Johnson shared his predecessor's belief that secession was unconstitutional and that the Southern states had never actually left the Union. As such, he believed that the process of Reconstruction should be as quick and painless as possible. He offered former Confederate states lenient paths back into the Union that did not require them to grant suffrage or civil rights to freedpeople. Johnson believed the issue of voting rights should be left to the states, and moreover, he did not think the Northern states, many of which did not yet offer suffrage to freedmen themselves, had any business forcing the South to do so. He also offered amnesty to any ex-Confederate with property amounting to less than $20,000. This reflected Johnson's belief that the poor White Southerner had been misled by the slave-holding aristocracy into rebelling against the federal government.

Johnson's lenient Reconstruction program – a period later known as 'Presidential Reconstruction' – angered congressional Republicans who believed that the South needed to be punished, and that former slaves needed federal protection and aid to truly make the transition to freedom. Yet for months they could do nothing, as Congress would not reconvene until December. During this time, the former Confederate states took advantage of Johnson's leniency to reassert their power.

They elected ex-Confederates to Congress and sought to limit the civil rights of freedpeople with the Black Codes. Passed by virtually all former Confederate states between 1865 to 66, the Black Codes revived old vagrancy laws to restrict Black Americans' freedom of movement and forced them to contract themselves as farm laborers or face imprisonment. Many Republicans were outraged by the Black Codes, which they viewed as slavery under a new name, yet under Johnson's Reconstruction plan, nothing could be done. White supremacist terror groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, also began arising during this period, terrorizing Black voters and communities.

When Congress reconvened, the Republicans knew that they had to move quickly, lest they lose the upper hand they had gained by winning the Civil War. They refused to seat the newly elected Southern congressmen and set up a Joint Committee to oversee their own Reconstruction plan. Johnson was outraged, viewing this as a usurpation of his presidential authority. He sought to thwart this new phase of Reconstruction – 'Radical Reconstruction' – by vetoing two congressional measures aimed at protecting Black liberties. However, his vetoes only succeeded in deepening the partisan divide, turning both moderate and Radical Republicans against him.

Congress overrode both vetoes, and the acts – the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and an extension of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill – became law. Congress also passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, guaranteeing citizenship to all persons born on US soil and giving them equal protection under the law. Johnson opposed the amendment, but to no avail; it was ratified by the requisite number of states, including his home state of Tennessee.

In response to this congressional defiance, Johnson went on the warpath. He went on an 18-day speaking tour of the Midwest in the run-up to the 1866 midterm elections, defending his actions and lambasting his Radical Republican opponents. This tour, which the folksy Johnson called a "swing around the circle," backfired spectacularly; Johnson made self-aggrandizing speeches, at times comparing himself to Jesus, and often got into undignified arguments with hecklers. In the end, the Republicans carried the midterm elections in a landslide and maintained control of Congress.

In January 1867, Radical Republican leader Thaddeus Stevens introduced legislation to institute martial law in the South, dissolving the state governments and redrawing them into five military districts. This culminated in the Reconstruction Acts, which Congress implemented on 2 March 1867 despite Johnson's pocket veto. Ironically, by trying to hasten the end of Reconstruction, Johnson had inadvertently drawn it out, and had only worsened the partisan divide.

On the same day that it passed the Reconstruction Acts, Congress also passed the Tenure of Office Act, which restricted the president's right to remove certain officeholders without congressional approval; this act was created in direct response to rumors that Johnson intended to fire certain members of his cabinet who supported Radical Reconstruction. Already enraged by how much power he was losing to Congress, Johnson opted to call their bluff by firing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, a close ally of the Radical Republicans.

Rather than calling the Republicans' bluff, however, Johnson had walked straight into their trap, as Congress immediately began to draw up impeachment proceedings against the president. Never before had a president been impeached, and many Americans wondered what this meant for the future of the nation. Republicans rejoiced at the idea that Johnson could be removed and replaced with someone more supportive of Radical Reconstruction, while Johnson's supporters believed that Congress was trying to nullify the power of the president and assume dictatorial powers for itself.

On 24 February 1868, the US House of Representatives impeached Johnson, by a vote of 128 to 47, alleging that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act. On 5 March, the impeachment trial began in the Senate, with Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presiding; should Johnson be convicted, he would be removed from office. The prosecution argued that, by firing Stanton and appointing his own candidate to the office, Johnson had abused his executive power and denied the authority of Congress.

The defense stated that Johnson had not violated the Tenure of Office Act, which they argued only applied to officeholders appointed by the current administration; since Lincoln had appointed Stanton, Johnson had done nothing wrong. Furthermore, the defense argued that the president should be allowed to test the constitutionality of congressional legislation without worrying about impeachment. In the end, Johnson was acquitted, as the prosecution fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority it needed to secure a conviction. The president was said to have wept upon hearing the outcome.

But although Johnson had salvaged the rest of his term, his effectiveness as a leader was ruined. Congress was still controlled by the Radical Republicans, who hated him, and the impeachment proceedings had tarnished his reputation. Although he remained very popular among ex-Confederates and poor Southern Whites, Johnson lost his bid for renomination at the Democratic National Convention in July 1868.

He spent the last months of his presidency fighting against Radical Reconstruction and issuing new pardons to former rebels. On Christmas Day 1868, he issued his most all-encompassing pardon yet, which even gave amnesty to former Confederate President Jefferson Davis. On 3 March 1869, the last day of his presidency, he held a large public reception at the White House and refused to attend the inauguration ceremony of his successor, Ulysses S. Grant.

After leaving Washington in 1869, Johnson returned to Greeneville, where he was feted by his friends and neighbors. This homecoming soon turned sour, however, as Johnson's son Robert committed suicide that same year. Bereft by Robert's death and restless in little Greeneville, Johnson sought to return to national politics and rebuild his reputation. In 1875, he won election to the US Senate and returned to the nation's capital.

By this point, Reconstruction was drawing to an end – US citizens were growing weary of the Republicans' military occupation of the South, while the popularity of President Grant's administration was waning due to financial difficulties and corruption scandals. The timing looked ripe for Johnson's political comeback. However, fate would intervene. On 31 July 1875, only a few months after returning to politics, Johnson died of a stroke at the age of 66. He is often remembered as one of the weakest and least effective US presidents, who was unable to live up to the critical moment of Reconstruction.