Andrew JOHNSON, Congress, TN (1808-1875)

JOHNSON Andrew , a Representative and a Senator from Tennessee and a Vice President and 17th President of the United States; born in Raleigh, N.C., on December 29, 1808; self-educated; at the age of 13 was apprenticed to a tailor; moved to Tennessee in 1826; employed as a tailor; alderman of Greeneville, Tenn., 1828-1830; mayor of Greeneville 1834-1838; member, State house of representatives 1835-1837, 1839-1841; elected to the State senate in 1841; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1843-March 3, 1853); chairman, Committee on Public Expenditures (Thirty-first and Thirty-second Congresses); did not seek renomination, having become a gubernatorial candidate; Governor of Tennessee 1853-1857; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from October 8, 1857, to March 4, 1862, when he resigned; chairman, Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expenses (Thirty-sixth Congress), Committee on the District of Columbia (Thirty-sixth Congress); appointed by President Abraham Lincoln Military Governor of Tennessee in 1862; elected Vice President of the United States on the Republican ticket with Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and was inaugurated on March 4, 1865; became President of the United States on April 15, 1865, upon the death of Abraham Lincoln; wide differences arising between the President and the Congress, a resolution for his impeachment passed the House of Representatives on February 24, 1868; eleven articles were set out in the resolution and the trial before the Senate lasted three months, at the conclusion of which he was acquitted (May 26, 1868) by a vote of thirty-five for conviction to nineteen for acquittal, the necessary two-thirds vote for impeachment not having been obtained; retired to his home in Tennessee upon the expiration of the presidential term, March 3, 1869; unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1869 and to the House of Representatives in 1872; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1875, until his death near Elizabethton, Carter County, Tenn., July 31, 1875; interment in the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery, Greeneville, Greene County, Tenn.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law; Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1989; Johnson, Andrew. The Papers of Andrew Johnson. Edited by LeRoy P. Graf, Ralph W. Haskins, and Paul H. Bergeron. 11 vols. to date. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1967- .

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present