Early life and marriage

Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on December 29, 1808. He was the younger of two sons of Jacob and Mary McDonough Johnson. Jacob died when Andrew was 3 years old, leaving the family in poverty.

Andrew's mother worked as a spinner and weaver to support her family. Even after remarrying, she was unable to send her children to school. When Andrew was 14 she hired him out to a tailor. He learned the trade but was so unhappy at his job that he refused to serve out his apprenticeship. In 1826 the family moved to Greeneville, Tennessee. There Andrew opened his own tailor shop.

Johnson made an effort to educate himself by hiring a man to read to him while he worked. He was especially interested in history and the United States Constitution.

In 1827, at the age of 18, Johnson married 16-year-old Eliza McCardle, daughter of a shoemaker. She taught her husband arithmetic and helped him improve his reading and writing. She, too, often read to him as he worked. The Johnsons had five children.

Political career

Johnson became a successful tailor and an important figure in Greeneville. His simple ways and little education helped him to attract the political support of the town's poor. He was elected a city alderman three times and then mayor. In 1835 he was elected to the state legislature, where he became a spokesman for mountaineers and small farmers. He served two terms in the state House of Representatives and one term in the Senate.

In 1843 Johnson began his first of five terms in the United States Congress. He was elected governor of Tennessee in 1853 and reelected in 1855. In 1857 he became a United States senator from Tennessee.

As a senator Johnson attracted the attention of the North with his arguments for preserving the Union. After Abraham Lincoln became president in 1860, Southern states that feared he would end slavery began to withdraw from the Union. Johnson was the only Southern senator who did not resign his post and side with the Confederacy in the Civil War. Lincoln rewarded his loyalty to the Union by appointing him military governor of Tennessee in May 1862.

A difficult presidency

Politically, Johnson was a Democrat. In the 1864 election, however, the Republicans nominated him as Lincoln's vice-presidential running mate. The party chose him in hopes of winning the votes of Democrats who supported the Union. Under the name Union Party, the Lincoln-Johnson ticket won an easy victory.

When Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, Johnson took over the presidency. By that time the Civil War was nearly over, but Johnson faced the enormous problem of rebuilding the Union. The so-called Radical Republicans in Congress demanded harsh measures against the South. They were angered by Johnson's mild policies, which allowed the Southern states back into the Union with little punishment.

Johnson spent much of his term in a bitter power struggle with Congress. In elections of 1866, the Radical Republicans won large majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In 1867 and 1868 Congress passed four acts establishing rules for allowing ten Southern states to return to the Union. Johnson vetoed every one of these measures. Each time, however, Congress overrode the president's disapproval.

In 1867 Congress passed a law designed to limit the president's power. The next year Johnson tested the law by trying to remove one of his Cabinet members from office. The House of Representatives responded to the president's move by voting to impeach him, or put him on trial, for misdeeds. Johnson was the first United States president to be impeached. Acting as a trial court, the Senate found Johnson not guilty.

Retirement and election to the Senate

Johnson left office in 1869 and returned to Tennessee. In 1872 he lost a race for a seat in the House of Representatives. Two years later, however, he was elected to the United States Senate. He died several months after taking office, on July 31, 1875.