Andrew Johnson

D

Vice President of the United States

In June 1864 the Republicans met in Baltimore, Maryland, and renominated President Lincoln. The convention was known as the National Union Convention to attract the support of the War Democrats. To reward the Southerners who had remained loyal to the Union, Johnson, a War Democrat, was nominated as Lincoln’s running mate in place of Vice President Hannibal Hamlin. In November the Lincoln-Johnson slate was elected.

On inauguration day, March 4, 1865, Johnson felt weak and sick. He was ill with typhoid fever and had taken some brandy before the ceremony. He made a long, rambling speech, boasting of his rise from humble origins. His friends were embarrassed, and his enemies used the unfortunate incident to label him a ruffian and an alcoholic. However, Lincoln defended Johnson by stating, “I have known Andy Johnson for many years; Andy ain’t a drunkard.”

Only six weeks after Johnson was sworn in as vice president, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. One of Booth’s accomplices, George A. Atzerodt, was supposed to assassinate Johnson on the same night, April 14, 1865, but he failed to carry out his part of the plan.

IV

President of the United States

Johnson was sworn in as president by the chief justice of the United States Salmon P. Chase, on April 15, 1865, a few hours after Lincoln died. The new president immediately announced that he would retain Lincoln’s Cabinet. Johnson faced many difficult issues upon becoming president. Although most of them concerned reuniting the country torn apart by war, several international situations also required attention.

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A

Foreign Affairs

In foreign affairs, Johnson allowed himself to be guided by his secretary of state, William H. Seward. Seward’s most farsighted act of diplomacy was the acquisition of Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000. However, in 1867, when the purchase was made, it was ridiculed as “Seward’s folly.”

In 1863, by force of arms, France had set up a European prince as the so-called emperor of Mexico. This was a flagrant violation of the U.S. policy called the Monroe Doctrine, which forbade European intervention in the western hemisphere. During the war, Seward had been unable to do more than register the disapproval of the United States. By 1867, however, Seward’s firm pressure on France had resulted in the withdrawal of all French troops from Mexico.

Seward was not able to solve one vexatious international problem that was also connected with the Civil War. Supported by Johnson, Seward insisted that Britain pay for damages caused by the Alabama and other cruisers of the Confederate States of America that had been built and outfitted in British ports (see Alabama Claims). In January 1869, almost at the end of Johnson’s term, a settlement of the claims was submitted to the Senate for ratification. In April 1869 the Senate rejected the convention.

Another instance of international conflict during Johnson’s administration was the raiding of Canada by Irish revolutionaries based in the United States, known as the Fenians. In June 1866, 1500 Fenians crossed into Canada and were defeated by Canadian militia. When the Fenians retreated into New York, they were arrested. Although they were soon freed, the Fenians did not again invade Canada during Johnson’s term.

B

Reconstruction

Embittered by Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson was at first inclined to be vindictive in his treatment of the defeated Confederate leaders, who also represented the privileged class that he hated. In the first month of his administration the president and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton hunted down and imprisoned officials of the Confederacy. “Treason must be made infamous and traitors must be impoverished,” President Johnson said. His attitude won him the approval of the militant wing of the Republican Party, called the Radical Republicans.

However, to the chagrin of the Radicals, Johnson soon dropped these punitive activities for more constructive tasks. Basing his program for Reconstruction of the Union on the policy of conciliation developed by Lincoln, Johnson started a process to restore the former Confederate states to full membership in the Union. First, the white residents were to take an oath to uphold the Union. When 10 percent of a state’s 1860 voting population had taken the oath, they could elect a state government. When that government wrote a constitution recognizing the end of slavery, it could apply to Congress for the power to once again elect senators and representatives to the U.S. Congress.

The job was simplified by the fact that Johnson, like Lincoln, denied that the states had ever broken away from the Union and by the fact that Congress was adjourned from April to December 1865.

On May 9, 1865, Johnson recognized a Reconstruction government in Virginia. On May 29 he issued two proclamations. One was a proclamation of amnesty, which restored full citizenship to many former Confederates if they would swear allegiance to the Union. The other proclamation dealt with the restoration of civil government in North Carolina. The “loyal” people of the state were to elect delegates to a convention, which was to make constitutional and other changes needed to restore the state to the Union. Johnson issued similar proclamations for other seceded states.

In compliance with Johnson’s wishes, the Southern state conventions repealed the ordinances of secession, abolished slavery, and, with the exception of Mississippi, ratified the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits slavery in the United States. The conventions also repudiated state debts contracted during the war.

In line with a suggestion of Lincoln’s, Johnson’s Reconstruction program included a recommendation that a few highly qualified blacks be given the vote, but none of the Southern states followed his recommendation. Instead, new state laws, known as the Black Codes, limited the civil rights of blacks and placed many economic restrictions on them.

B

1

Congressional Opposition

By the time Congress convened in December 1865, all the Southern states except Texas had established Reconstruction governments in accordance with Johnson’s program. However, Congress was not pleased. The Radical Republicans were angered by the Black Codes and by the reemergence into public life of former Confederate leaders. Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, the leader of the congressional Radicals, attacked the president’s policies. Stevens declared, “The punishment of traitors has been wholly ignored by a treacherous Executive ...” A long battle between the president and Congress began.

The Radicals in Congress set up a Joint Committee on Reconstruction. In February 1866, Congress passed a bill to enlarge the scope of the Freedmen’s Bureau, which Congress had established in March 1865 to help the freed slaves. Johnson vetoed the bill. However, in July 1866 a second bill was enacted over his veto. In April 1866 the first Civil Rights Act, which was designed to nullify the Black Codes by guaranteeing equal civil rights to blacks, was also passed over Johnson’s veto.

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