S1 E2: Andrew Johnson

Today’s episode is all about Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, a man whose presidency is synonymous with the missed opportunities of the post-Civil War era. Never elected, Johnson instead became president after Abraham Lincoln’s tragic assassination. Rather than continuing Lincoln’s agenda, Johnson instead undermined black citizenship, and attempted at every turn to thwart the Republican Party’s Reconstruction efforts in the South.  He is today remembered as a bitter, angry, and failed president, and the first ever to be impeached by the House of Representatives.  But he wasn’t always remembered so harshly. We will learn why today. 

Here’s a quick refresher on Johnson.  Born in deep poverty in North Carolina in 1808, he apprenticed as a tailor, settled in Tennessee, and won election to the House of Representatives in 1843. After five terms in the House, he served as Tennessee’s governor and then its senator in Washington, remaining the only Senator from a Confederate State to remain loyal to the Union after secession.  Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee as a reward, and then brought Johnson onto the Republican national ticket during the critical election of 1864, hoping inclusion of a Southerner, and a Democrat, might help him win a tough and troubled re-election campaign.  No one imagined he’d be President a mere six weeks after Lincoln’s second inauguration.    

It fell to Johnson to reunite the nation after the apocalyptic Civil War, but he couldn’t even make peace in Washington DC.  Perpetually at odds with Congress, he opposed the 14th amendment made freed black Americans full citizens, supported and even pardoned former Confederate leaders, and undermined the Freedman’s Bureau created to help former enslaved individuals adjust to their new lives of freedom.  Years of open political warfare led to his impeachment, which he survived by a single vote in the Senate—a vote historians now believed was bought.  Rejected by both major political parties, he left office in 1868 a man reviled in the North he’d supported during the war, and beloved in the former Confederacy he’d fought against.  

Why?  Because of race, plain and simple.

To help understand his presidency and discuss Johnson’s legacy more broadly, we spoke to two esteemed scholars: Dr. Lesley Gordon and Jon Meacham.

For more information on our guests, show notes, recommended readings and more, please visit www.pastpromisepresidency.com!