In this week’s episode of the Presidential podcast, Ms. Cunningham and her guests examined the life and legacy of yet another of the presidents often at the bottom of the presidential rankings – Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. Johnson is the third(ish)[1] and, to date, last president born in my home state of North Carolina. The podcast hit the highlights of Johnson’s career and story, but there are a few other points I’d like to bring up and expand upon.
Considering his background, it is not surprising that Andrew Johnson was consistently a strong proponent of the Homestead Act. Around the middle of the 19th century, the government owned huge tracts of land that had been acquired by territorial purchases over the last few decades. The government sold some land to settlers, but there was a great deal of purchase being done by speculators who sought to make a profit off of the land much in the way as had been done with the Midwest and old southwest (modern day MS, AL, and GA). Johnson and other supporters of the Homestead Act felt that, by opening the land up to more individual settlers at little to no cost, it would assist in alleviating problems of economic inequality in the nation and more firmly secure US control over the west.[2] While a popular issue in Johnson’s congressional district made up primarily of small-scale Appalachian farmers, homesteading was not popular in the South as a whole as they felt that Northerners would benefit from settling the more viable land in available free territory north of the Missouri Compromise line which would cause increased competition for the South both in the marketplace and in representation in the federal government, thus leading to the abolition of slavery.[3] After the Southern congressional delegations were out of the way due to secession, Congress passed the Homestead Act in 1862 which opened up land to many loyal Unionists including African-Americans, women, and immigrants.[4] By that time, though, Johnson had already been appointed and taken office as military governor of Tennessee.[5]
For all of his imperfections, it should be remembered that Andrew Johnson did take a great risk in remaining in support of the Union. While his home in east Tennessee had a strong pro-Union contention as it “had no political commitments to slavery,” it was also an area that the Confederacy had strong reason to seek control of due to the Cumberland Gap and the potential threat that control of the Gap by the Union posed to their strength.[6] Thus, Johnson’s friends and family were caught in the crossfire of the conflict, and Johnson himself was shot at numerous times as he passed through the Cumberland Gap on the way to Washington, DC in 1861. At the time that he left, he had no way of knowing whether he would see his home again and, indeed, did not return to Greeneville for eight years.[7] His associates were arrested, his family was harassed, his home and property were seized and put to use for the Confederate cause, but still he pressed forward for the Union and advocated in Washington on behalf of the Unionists of east Tennessee.[8] Upon assuming the military governorship, Johnson was faced with more hardship as Union forces struggled to gain a foothold in Tennessee. As noted by his biographer Robert W Winston, “From September 15 to November 14, 1862, Nashville [the Union capitol] was in a state of complete siege – cut off from the outside world. It was then Andrew Johnson grew to a hero’s stature. The capitol building at Nashville, then called Fort Johnson, was fortified, and in the cupola the Governor and his staff often slept without removing their clothing…On November 5, 1862, a concerted attack on the city was made…As the Confederates approached the city Johnson and his staff ascended the cupola of the capitol and watched the battle line, surging and wavering to and fro. Presently the Union troops gave way and fell back towards the city…From his place, in the dome of the capitol, the lion-hearted Johnson thundered out, ‘I am no military man but any one who talks of surrender I will shoot.’”[9] While Johnson’s unwavering determination served him, the state of Tennessee, and the Union cause well during the War, this same quality would prove to be recharacterized as pig-headedness following the War when he succeeded Lincoln as President.
One early part of his presidency that was not discussed on the podcast was the Johnson administration’s response to the Lincoln assassination. Johnson himself was an intended target in the assassination, but George Atzerodt, the conspirator assigned to carry out the task, decided not to go through with it.[10] This decision, however, would not save Atzerodt from being executed along with three other co-conspirators. Johnson would issue the orders outlining the trial procedures, a military tribunal, and, in around two months’ time, would sign the execution orders recommended by the military commission.[11] Johnson would go on to be criticized, both during his time as president and by future historians, for the execution of Mary Surratt and the imprisonment of Dr. Samuel Mudd as being unjust.[12] However, his determination was to act speedily as was constitutional – the Sixth Amendment guarantees “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused…the right to a speedy trial.”[13] If nothing else, Johnson was a strict adherent to the Constitution as he saw it, which quickly brought him into conflict with Radical Republicans.
Unlike Lincoln, Johnson was not able to overcome and transcend the legacy of his past. Instead, he clung to ideas that the rest of the nation were beginning to move forward from, and because of his uncompromising nature, he would hear of nothing else. His biographer Hans Trefousse notes that “the seventeenth president unquestionably undermined the Reconstruction process and left a legacy of racism” and that “his limited world outlook, so typical of early nineteenth-century America, was no longer adequate” for the circumstances of an industrializing America.[14] Following his presidency, Johnson went on to become to-date the only ex-president to be elected as US Senator following his term in office, with his home state of Tennessee returning him to the office that he had held to represent their interests even when his state had turned its back on the Union. Johnson, upon learning of the result, asserted that “Well, well, well, I’d rather have this information than to learn that I had been elected President of the United States. Thank God for the vindication.”[15] However, he was not to hold the office long – he only served during a special session where he delivered an address critical of a resolution in support of his presidential successor Grant’s Reconstruction policy in Louisiana – before passing away on July 31st, 1875.[16] William Seward, Secretary of State under Lincoln and Johnson, referred to Johnson at the end of his term as “the great statesman of Tennessee.”[17] For better or worse, Johnson tried to serve his nation as he best saw fit, though he could not neither understand the new direction it was going in nor all of its citizens, newly freed and otherwise. The world would move on past the presidency of the last chief executive to date from the Volunteer State.
As always, if you’d like to read more on Johnson, I’ve listed some resources below. I’m hoping to post on Grant towards the end of the week, and we should finally be back on the regular posting schedule. Thanks for reading!
- Castel, Albert E. The Presidency of Andrew Johnson. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1979.
- Stewart, David O. Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009.
- Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography. Newtown, CT: American Political Biography Press, 2009 [1989].
- Winston, Robert W. Andrew Johnson: Plebeian and Patriot. New York: Henry Holt & Co, 1928.
- The Papers of Andrew Johnson (University of Tennessee) – http://utpress.org/papers-of-andrew-johnson/
- Andrew Johnson National Historic Site (National Parks Service) – https://www.nps.gov/anjo/index.htm
- Mordecai Historic Park (includes Andrew Johnson Birthplace; City of Raleigh) – https://www.raleighnc.gov/parks/content/ParksRec/Articles/Parks/Mordecai.html
[1] Due to competing family stories about where Jackson’s mother was when she gave birth and as folks in the Waxhaws often drifted across the border between North Carolina and South Carolina, it is not known if Andrew Jackson was born in NC or SC. Jackson himself felt that he was born in SC, but his museum is in NC. (Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Empire, 1767-1821. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. P. 4-5) There is no question, however, that James K Polk and Andrew Johnson were born in NC.
[2] Winston 51; Trefousse 76-78, 80, 119-122
[3] Trefousse also notes that Southerners were concern that the Homestead Act “might reduce the national revenue from land sales, necessitating renewed protective tariffs for raising needed government funds. (63, 119); Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union: A House Dividing, 1852-1857. New York and London: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947. P. 334-335; McPherson, James M. Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2001. p. 120
[4] The Homestead Act was enacted on 20 May 1862, and McPherson notes that “Before the war’s end, nearly 20,000 farmers had taken up three million acres under the law, which eventually accounted for the settlement and ownership of more than eighty million acres.” (404)
[5] Trefousse 152-153
[6] Williams, John Alexander. Appalachia: A History. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. P. 152-154; Trefousse 143
[7] Winston 198-199; Trefousse 142-143
[8] Trefousse 145-147, 150-151
[9] Winston 236
[10] Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. P. 738; Winston 279
[11] Trefousse 211-212; Winston 279-291; on an interesting sidenote, as noted by Winston, Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, who would be the Democratic nominee for president in 1880, and Lew Wallace, author of Ben-Hur and future Pres. Benjamin Harrison’s campaign biographer, were involved in the military trial. (282)
[12] McPherson 520; Winston 286-291
[13] National Archive. “Bill of Rights.” The Charters of Freedom. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html#6. Last Accessed: 9 May 2016.
[14] Trefousse 378-379
[15] Trefousse 372
[16] Trefousse 373, 377; Winston 500-507
[17] National Intelligencer, 29 Mar 1869, as quoted in Stahr, Walter. Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012. p. 531, 657
Jerry Landry 
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