Biography of Andrew Johnson


Index

Johnson, Andrew. Seventeenth president of the United States. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1808. By trade a tailor, and a self-educated man. He became a member of the legislature of Tennessee (his adopted state); was elected to Congress, 1843-53; and became governor of Tennessee in 1853, and again in 1855. In 1857, be was elected to the national Senate and, in 1862, appointed military governor of his state. Elected vice-president of the Union by the Republican Party in 1864, he was sworn in as president in 1865, following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. His opposition to the measures adopted by Congress for the reconstruction of the southern states involved him in a struggle, which ended in 1868 with his impeachment on charges of high crimes and misdemeanors against the state. He was brought to trial in March, and acquitted on the 26th of May following. In January, 1875, he was again elected to the United States Senate. Died 1875.