After US President Abraham Lincoln was killed in an assassination attempt in Washington on April 15, 1865, Vice President Andrew Johnson took over his post.
Andrew Johnson was US President for the Democratic Party from 1865 to 1869.
He was previously US Vice President from March to April 1865.
In 1868, for the first time in history, impeachment proceedings were initiated against Andrew Johnson.
Washington -
Andrew Johnson
(* December 29, 1808, † 1875) was the
17th President
in
US
history
.
He came from a poor background and was considered uneducated.
Prior to serving as US President, Johnson was a member of the House of Representatives, Governor of the State of Tennessee, US Senator, and Military Governor during the Civil War.
After US President
Abraham Lincoln
(* February 12, 1809, † 1865) was killed in an assassination attempt in Washington on April 15, 1865, Vice President
Andrew Johnson
took over
his post.
Andrew Johnson - The Life of the US President
Andrew Johnson
was born on December 29, 1808 in
Raleigh
,
North Carolina
.
The
house
where he was born
can still be visited today at the
Mordecai Historical Park
in Raleigh.
The house can be found on Google Maps a few blocks north of William Peace University.
After his father died of a heart attack in 1812, Johnson and his two younger siblings grew up in
poor conditions
.
He attended school only irregularly before he decided at the age of ten
to begin
an
apprenticeship as a tailor
just like his brother
.
During this time, the future US president learned to read and write from his colleagues.
After his apprenticeship, Johnson worked as a tailor in Alabama and Tennessee.
He
only discovered
his
interest in politics
later.
Andrew Johnson - His family and children
As was customary for the time, Johnson married very early.
At the age of 19
, Johnson married Eliza McCardle
(* 04.10.1810, † 1876), the daughter of a shoemaker.
The wedding took place on May 17, 1827.
Together, the couple opened a tailoring shop in Greeneville, Tennessee, which was very successful.
Nowadays there is a
museum
about Andrew Johnson
in the former tailor's shop
.
Johnson and McCardle remained married until his death in 1875.
The couple had five children.
Andrew Johnson - The beginning of his political career
Even while
Johnson was working
as a tailor, he developed a keen interest in debates.
It was precisely this interest that brought the future
US president
into politics.
In the 1830s he took over his first political office and became mayor of his then hometown Greeneville.
In the following years he took on these activities:
From 1835 - Member of the Tennessee House of Representatives
From 1841 - member of the State Senate
1843 to 1853 - Member of the United States House of Representatives
Fall 1844 - Aide in the presidential election campaign for James K. Polk
Even in his youth, Johnson was enormously influenced by the former US President Andrew Jackson (* March 15, 1767, † 1845), who also did not come from the upper class.
Andrew Johnson
used his rhetorical skills and made politics for the simple, mostly uneducated lower class.
A
southerner by
birth
, a
slave owner,
and an active
supporter of slavery
in the southern states, Johnson was a
racist
.
He is also considered to be
one of the first populist presidents of the United States
.
During his political career he always made politics for the simple, white bourgeoisie and
despised the upper class
.
Johnson was therefore enormously popular, especially among the white lower class.
Andrew Johnson - The Democratic Party
Andrew Johnson
belonged to the Democratic Party.
As a
racist and advocate of slavery
, however, he repeatedly triggered internal party conflicts.
These conflicts led, among other things, to the fact that in the
1850s
the Democratic Party put up
a second candidate, Landon Carter Haynes (* October 2nd, 1816, † 1875) in the election of the MPs for the House of Representatives in the hope that
Andrew Johnson
would lose
his
seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives
.
However, Johnson was re-elected from his strong bourgeois base.
Andrew Johnson - Governor of Tennessee
Despite all internal party conflicts,
Andrew Johnson
could
still count on the
support of
his Democratic counterparts
in the 1850s
.
In 1853 he was nominated by his party for
governor of Tennessee
.
His
opponent was Gustavus Adolphus Henry (* 04.10.1804,
†
1880)
from the
Whig Party
.
In August 1853 the election for governor of Tennessee took place, which Johnson won with 63,413 votes to 61,163 votes.
Johnson also narrowly won the gubernatorial election of 1855.
During his four years as Governor of Tennessee, Johnson made a special effort to
better equip educational institutions
.
In order to be able to implement this project financially, he increased taxes in the entire state of Tennessee.
Andrew Johnson - US Senator
Andrew Johnson
decided in
1857
not to run for
governor of
Tennessee
a third time
.
Instead, he stood as a candidate for the
US Senate, to which he was elected in October 1857.
For this post he left his home town of Greeneville after more than 30 years and moved to Washington.
During his time as a
US Senator
,
Johnson campaigned,
among other things, for a
settlement law
, which, however, was not passed.
He also continued to advocate slavery.
He argued that the
Declaration of Independence
“all people are created equal”
only applied to the “white race” and not to African Americans.
Andrew Johnson as Military Governor during the American Civil War
After
the civil war between the north and south of
the USA began
in
April 1861
,
Andrew Johnson
was
appointed
military governor
by the then
US President Abraham Lincoln
.
He received this post because he had repeatedly spoken out in favor of unity in the heavily divided USA.
During the war, Johnson, reluctantly and reluctantly, changed his public opinion on slavery.
He argued that it must be destroyed if it were able to threaten the unity of the country.
Also, under Johnson's leadership, more and more African American citizens were being recruited into the army.
Andrew Johnson - Elected Vice President
As both the
Republicans
led by
Lincoln
and some
Democrats
like
Andrew Johnson
clearly opposed negotiations with the Confederation in the South and in favor of the continuation of the Civil War, the two groups formed a common party, the
National Union Party
.
In
1864
, that party ran with
Lincoln as a presidential candidate and Johnson as a vice presidential candidate
in the presidential election.
The team prevailed with a clear majority of 212 to 21 electors, making Lincoln again
President
and Johnson
Vice President
.
The swearing-in took place on March 4, 1865.
Andrew Johnson - The Rise of the US President
Less than a month after he was sworn in, on April 14, 1865,
Abraham Lincoln
was
assassinated
.
This made
Andrew Johnson
US President
for the end of his term
.
He
was
sworn in
on April 15, 1865
.
As
President Johnson
was primarily responsible for reintegrating the former Confederation of the Southern States into the United States immediately after the civil war that had just ended.
However, this “
reconstruction
” led by Johnson to some conflicts with the
Republicans
.
For example, while the Republicans wanted to secure far-reaching civil rights for the freed slaves, Johnson spoke out against it because he saw African Americans as intellectually and morally inferior.
The conflicts culminated in the House of Representatives
voting
for
impeachment
on February 24, 1868
.
However, this deposition was missed with one vote in May 1868, so that Johnson remained US President until 1869.
Johnson was the first US president against whom impeachment proceedings were sought.
