Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), the 17th U.S. president, assumed office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Johnson, who served from 1865 to 1869, was the first American president to be impeached. A tailor before he entered politics, Johnson grew up poor and lacked a formal education. He served in the Tennessee legislature and U.S. Congress, and was governor of Tennessee. A Democrat, he championed populist measures and supported states’ rights. During the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865), Johnson was the only Southern senator to remain loyal to the Union. Six weeks after Johnson was inaugurated as U.S. vice president in 1865, Lincoln was murdered. As president, Johnson took a moderate approach to restoring the South to the Union, and clashed with Radical Republicans. In 1868, he was impeached by Congress, but he was not removed from office. He did not run for a second presidential term.
Andrew Johnson’s Early Years
Andrew Johnson was born on December 29, 1808, in a log cabin in Raleigh, North Carolina. His father, Jacob Johnson (1778-1812), was a porter at an inn, among other jobs, and died when Andrew was 3, while his mother, Mary “Polly” McDonough Johnson (1783-1856), was a laundress and seamstress.
Did you know? During Andrew Johnson’s presidency, his secretary of state, William Seward, negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. At the time of the 1867 deal, critics dubbed it “Seward’s Folly.” Alaska became the 49th U.S. state on January 3, 1959.
Johnson, who grew up poor and never attended school, was apprenticed to a tailor by his early teens. In 1826, he moved to Greeneville, Tennessee, and established himself as a tailor. The following year, Johnson married Eliza McCardle (1810-1876), the daughter of a shoemaker. The couple had five children. Eliza Johnson helped her husband improve his rudimentary reading and writing skills, and tutored him in math. Over time, Andrew Johnson became prosperous enough to buy property and acquire several African-American slaves, who worked in his home.
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