17th President • 1865–1869
Andrew Johnson
A loyal Unionist elevated by Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson inherited the nation’s greatest test of reunion—and used the presidency to resist federal protection of the newly freed.
The Road to the Presidency
From a Tailor’s Shop to the White House
Johnson’s rise reflected determination, political skill, and unwavering Union loyalty—but not a commitment to racial equality.
Andrew Johnson rose from deep poverty without formal schooling. Apprenticed to a tailor as a child, he settled in Greeneville, Tennessee, built a business, and entered politics as a champion of white workingmen.
He served as mayor, state legislator, congressman, governor, and United States senator. Johnson was a Democrat and a slaveholder, but he opposed the wealthy planter class and rejected secession. When Tennessee left the Union, he became the only senator from a seceded state who remained in the Senate.
Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of occupied Tennessee in 1862. In 1864, Republicans and War Democrats joined under the National Union banner and selected him as Lincoln’s running mate—a symbol that loyal Southerners still had a place in the Union.
Johnson had been vice president for only six weeks when John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln. He took the presidential oath on April 15, 1865, with the Confederacy collapsing and four million formerly enslaved Americans facing an uncertain future.
Why He Matters
Who Would Control Reconstruction?
The constitutional struggle concerned more than reunion. It asked whether emancipation would produce genuine citizenship—and whether the president or Congress would set the terms.
Rapid restoration
While Congress was out of session in 1865, Johnson appointed provisional governors and allowed Southern states to reorganize after abolishing slavery and repudiating secession. He issued thousands of pardons, permitting many former Confederate leaders and planters to regain political power.
Black Codes
New Southern governments enacted laws restricting the movement, employment, property rights, and legal freedom of Black Americans. To congressional Republicans, the codes demonstrated that ending slavery without federal enforcement would leave much of the old racial order intact.
Congress responds
Congress refused to seat many Southern representatives and moved to protect freedpeople through the Freedmen’s Bureau, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment, and military Reconstruction. Johnson fought these measures through vetoes, speeches, and executive resistance.
Defining Decisions
The Great Failure of Johnson’s Presidency
Johnson vetoed an extension of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The Civil Rights Act declared people born in the United States citizens and guaranteed basic civil rights without regard to race. Congress overrode Johnson’s veto—the first override of a major presidential veto in American history.
He also opposed the Fourteenth Amendment, which constitutionalized birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection. Johnson encouraged former Confederate states to reject it. Congress ultimately made ratification a condition for restoration.
Johnson preserved loyalty to the Union during secession, but as president he confused reunion with restoration of white political control.
The central judgment: Johnson’s constitutional objections cannot be separated from their consequences. Southern governments restricted Black freedom while the president fought the national protections designed to make emancipation meaningful.
Johnson argued that the federal government was exceeding its constitutional authority and that the states should control voting and civil relations. But his approach offered little protection against racial violence or discriminatory state law. His public rhetoric was openly racist, and his 1866 speaking tour—the “Swing Around the Circle”—further damaged his standing with Northern voters.
The 1866 elections gave congressional Republicans veto-proof majorities. Congress then passed the Reconstruction Acts over Johnson’s veto, dividing most of the former Confederacy into military districts and requiring new state constitutions that recognized Black male suffrage and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment.
Constitution & Power
The First Presidential Impeachment
Johnson’s battle with Congress became a constitutional crisis over removal power, Reconstruction policy, and the meaning of impeachable conduct.
Congress enacted the Tenure of Office Act over Johnson’s veto, restricting the president’s ability to remove certain officials whose appointments had required Senate consent.
Johnson attempted to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, an ally of congressional Reconstruction, and replace him with Lorenzo Thomas.
The House voted 126–47 to impeach Johnson. Eleven articles were eventually adopted, most centered on the Stanton dispute and alleged violations of the Tenure of Office Act.
The Senate vote on conviction was 35–19—one vote short of the two-thirds required to remove him. Two later votes produced the same result.
Johnson’s acquittal did not vindicate his Reconstruction policy. Several senators who opposed him nevertheless feared that removal on disputed statutory and political grounds would dangerously weaken presidential independence. The episode established an enduring distinction: impeachment is not merely a parliamentary vote of no confidence.
The Tenure of Office Act was later partially repealed, and the Supreme Court’s 1926 decision in Myers v. United States rejected a similar congressional limit on the president’s removal power. That later ruling did not directly decide Johnson’s case, but it strengthened the argument that the 1867 act rested on doubtful constitutional ground.
War & Foreign Policy
Foreign Affairs and Other Developments
The Alaska Purchase
Secretary of State William H. Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867. Critics mocked the acquisition, but it became the administration’s clearest long-term achievement.
France leaves Mexico
The administration maintained American pressure against the French-backed empire of Maximilian in Mexico. French forces withdrew, and the Mexican republic under Benito Juárez was restored.
Return to the Senate
Johnson left office in 1869 and later returned to the U.S. Senate in 1875. He remains the only former president to serve there after leaving the White House. He died only months after taking his seat.
Lasting Legacy
A Presidency Unequal to Its Moment
Andrew Johnson’s life contains a striking contradiction. His courage during the secession crisis was real: he risked his career and personal safety by remaining loyal to the United States when Tennessee joined the Confederacy. His rise from an impoverished tailor’s apprentice to the presidency also reflected unusual determination.
Yet the presidency must be judged primarily by how he used power when the stakes were highest. Johnson’s lenient restoration program empowered former Confederate elites, his opposition to federal civil-rights protections encouraged resistance to Reconstruction, and his racism prevented him from recognizing freedom as requiring citizenship and equal protection under law.
Union Loyalty
He rejected secession and retained his Senate seat when Tennessee joined the Confederacy.
Equal Citizenship
He resisted federal protection of the rights and security of formerly enslaved Americans.
Among the Lowest
His Reconstruction record places him near the bottom of most presidential assessments.
Loyal to the Union, hostile to equal citizenship
Johnson deserves credit for rejecting secession and for preserving executive independence against a legally questionable removal restriction. Those strengths cannot outweigh his central failure. At the moment when presidential leadership could have joined national reunion to civil freedom, he used his office to obstruct protections for the formerly enslaved. Congress—not Johnson—supplied the constitutional vision that produced the Civil Rights Act, the Fourteenth Amendment, and a broader definition of American citizenship.
Sources & Further Reading
Trace the Evidence
- Andrew Johnson National Historic Site — National Park Service
- Andrew Johnson: Domestic Affairs — Miller Center
- The Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson — U.S. Senate
- Power Struggle Over a New America — U.S. House History
- Andrew Johnson: A Resource Guide — Library of Congress
- The Fourteenth Amendment — National Archives
Editorial note: The historical assessment distinguishes Johnson’s genuine Union loyalty from the consequences of his Reconstruction policy and opposition to federal civil-rights enforcement.