President Andrew Johnson

1. PresidentAndrew Johnson Pgs. 185-186

2. Early Life • Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, Andrew Johnson never attended school. • He was apprenticed to a tailor (along with his older brother William) by his parents at age fourteen, but they ran away and hid, and were not found, despite rewards for their capture posted by the tailor.

3. Early Life • He eventually returned to Raleigh, where he picked up his family and moved them to Greeneville, Tennessee, where he married Eliza McCardle and started a career as a tailor. • Mrs. Johnson was better educated than her husband and used her education to improve his reading and writing skills. She also taught the future president arithmetic.

5. Early Life • Johnson was elected as mayor of Greeneville in 1830. He became known as a talented politician. He called himself a Jacksonian Democrat. • From mayor of Greeneville, he rose to the Tennessee State Legislature, then to the House of Representatives. • While there, he was an advocate of a homestead bill that would give free farmland to poor farmers.

6. Early Life • In 1853 he became Governor of Tennessee. • Johnson was Governor of Tennessee until 1857, when he was elected to the United States Senate.

7. Johnson’s Beliefs • Johnson supported the Fugitive Slave Law and defended slavery. On August 8, 1863, Johnson freed his personal slaves. • He also supported Abraham Lincoln's chief opponent in the 1860 presidential election, Stephen Douglas. • He also spoke sternly against both secessionists and abolitionists as dangerous to the existence of the Union and the Constitution.

8. War in Tennessee • When war erupted, Tennessee was an early battlefield. • Union victories in the state placed large parts of the state in federal control, and occupied areas were administered by appointed military governors.

9. Military Governor • In 1862 President Lincoln appointed Andrew Johnson as military governor of Tennessee. Johnson ruled with a firm hand silencing sources of anti-Union sentiment. • Johnson held the military governorship of Tennessee until 1864.

10. Election of 1864 • Lincoln, was concerned about his reelection. He decided that it would be a good political move to run with a Southern Democrat who was loyal to the Union. • Johnson was admired by many in the North and considered a traitor by many in the South.

11. Assassination of Lincoln • With the tragic assassination of Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater by John Wilkes Booth, Andrew Johnson became President of the United States on April 15, 1865. • No president had ever been assassinated before Lincoln.

12. President Johnson • He was the first Vice President to succeed to the U.S. Presidency upon the assassination of a President and the third to succeed upon the death of a President. (William Henry Harrison/John Tyler - 1841 and Zachary Taylor/Millard Filmore – 1850) • Johnson was thrust into the spotlight. He had never thought when he became Vice President that he would actually become President.

13. President Johnson • It was a hard time to be president, and Johnson did not do well. Johnson wanted to help the South recover from the war, while many people in Congress wanted to punish the South. • Because of these disagreements Johnson nearly became the first president ever removed from office.