Andrew Johnson by Jason Abrahimi Per. 1

Andrew Johnson was born in North Carolina in 1808. Johnson grew up in poverty as an apprentice to a tailor, and later ran away to Tennessee where he opened his own tailor shop and learned to debate ate the local academy. He was a member of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 1840's and 50's. When Tennessee seceded from the Union Johnson disagreed with their choice and decided to stay in the Senate and was viewed as a hero in the North but as a traitor in the South. Abraham Lincoln then appointed him Military Governor of Tennessee. He was then nominated to run for Vice President with Lincoln in the 1864 election. When Lincoln died Johnson continued reconstruction of the southern states by pardoning all who took and oath of allegiance. The more wealthy and higher ranking officers, however, needed a special presidential pardon. Andrew Johnson didn't believe in full rights for freed slaves so he allowed the southern Black Codes to be put in place. When Congress met they tried to undo many of the reconstruction steps that Johnson had implemented with their own bills like the Civil Rights Act which stated that all persons born in the United States are citizens and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill which gave shelter newly freed slaves and gave them protection of their rights in court. Although, Johnson vetoed many of the bills most were overridden and passed anyway. Johnson also wanted to remove Abraham Lincoln's republican cabinet and replace them with people he trusted as he was a democrat but Congress did not want this so they passed the Tenure of Office Act which said that a president couldn't fire any federal officials without approval from the Senate. Due to this Andrew Johnson attempted to win back public support in the 1866 congressional elections. He went from speech to speech attempting to promote the candidates he wanted but ended up badmouthing the previous members of congress in an attempt to get them replaced. This backfired however and he lost many of his supporters. After this Andrew Johnson felt that challenging the Tenure of Office Act which he believed to be unconstitutional was his only option, so as a last ditch effort he decided that he wanted to take this to the supreme court. He then fired his secretary of war, Stanton, and was impeached by Congress. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Congress and Johnson would have been removed from office had one more vote been cast against him. Andrew Johnson was a very heavy drinker in his life and was drunk when he gave his inauguration speech to Congress. Both of his sons were alcoholics. At the end of his term in 1869 he had given over 13,000 pardons. After his presidency he returned to a farm in Tennessee and tried to get back into the House of Representatives and the Senate but was not able to get back into the Senate until 1875 shortly before he died.

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