Andrew Johnson: Impeached

01VOA Learning English presents America's Presidents.

02Today we are talking about Andrew Johnson.

03Johnson was vice president under Abraham Lincoln and became president in 1865 after Lincoln was killed.

04His name sounds like that of an earlier president, Andrew Jackson, and also like a later president, Lyndon Johnson.

05But Andrew Johnson served in the years just after the Civil War.

06You can remember Johnson this way.

07He was the first U.S.

08president to be impeached.

09Andrew Johnson grew up in a poor family in the southern state of North Carolina.

10As a child, Johnson had little formal education.

11Instead, he trained to be a tailor.

12When he was a young man, Johnson moved to Tennessee, another southern state.

13He opened a tailoring business where he made, repaired, and sold clothing.

14When he was 18 years old, he married.

15His wife, Eliza McCardle, was only 16.

16They went on to have five children together.

17Eliza McCardle Johnson did not come from a wealthy family either.

18But she was better educated than her husband, and she helped him develop his reading and writing skills.

19She also supported his gift for public speaking.

20Johnson's speeches were especially popular with workers in their community.

21They liked his criticism of the state's wealthy planters.

22The workers also liked his politics.

23At the time, Johnson supported measures that permitted slavery to expand across the country.

24He was clear in his speeches that he did not support equality between whites and African Americans, whether enslaved or free.

25In time, Johnson held many political offices.

26Mayor, Tennessee's governor, state legislator, and member of the U.S.

27House of Representatives.

28When the Civil War began, he was a member of the U.S.

29Senate.

30Although he was a Southerner, he did not believe the Southern states had a right to withdraw from the Union.

31When the other Southern senators resigned from the U.S.

32Congress, Johnson stayed.

33As a result, most Southerners considered him a traitor.

34But most Northerners considered him a hero.

35By 1864, the American Civil War was three years old.

36The conflict was becoming increasingly fierce and bloody.

37That year, the states that remained in the Union held their presidential election.

38The president, Abraham Lincoln, wanted to win re-election and continue directing the Union's war effort.

39But he was not sure that voters in the opposition Democratic Party would support him.

40So he turned to Andrew Johnson to be his choice for vice president.

41Johnson was a pro-slavery Democrat.

42Lincoln was an anti-slavery Republican.

43In the U.S.

44tradition, presidential candidates do not usually choose someone from a different party to serve as vice president.

45But in this case, Lincoln's Republicans did.

46They called the Lincoln-Johnson partnership the National Union Party.

47Political leaders hoped Johnson would appeal to Democrats who supported the war effort, to workers and to small farmers.

48The plan, along with several military successes for the Union, helped carry the National Union Party to victory.

49The swearing-in ceremony the following March, however, suggested some of the difficulties ahead.

50Johnson was sick.

51To feel better, he had a lot of alcoholic drinks the night before the ceremony.

52The next morning, he drank some more.

53When Johnson stood to give his speech, he appeared unsteady.

54He talked about his poor family and his simple beginnings.

55Then he spoke angrily about wealthy Southern planters who had withdrawn from the Union.

56He became increasingly confused.

57Other people in the crowd wrote later that they felt embarrassed by Johnson's behavior.

58And some Republicans began calling already for his resignation or even impeachment.

59Those critics could not have predicted that in a few weeks, Johnson would be the president.

60The National Union Party After Lincoln and Johnson were sworn in.

61In April, Lincoln was shot and killed.

62Johnson took office as the new president.

63The following month, the Civil War officially ended.

64The Confederate States of America was no more.

65And that December, a majority of states approved the 13th Amendment to the U.S.

66Constitution.

67That amendment ended slavery across the country.

68President Johnson, therefore, guided the process of reuniting the North and South and supervised the transition of many African Americans from slavery to freedom.

69That period in U.S.

70history is called Reconstruction.

71Members of Congress from the northern states had been thinking for a long time about how to carry out Reconstruction.

72The most extreme lawmakers, the radical Republicans, wanted to punish former Confederate officials and extend political and civil rights to African Americans.

73Johnson had different ideas.

74In the first months of his presidency, before Congress had met, Johnson pardoned many former Confederate officials.

75He also let Southerners rebuild their state governments as they wished.

76Those governments quickly passed laws called Black Codes.

77Black Codes restricted the freedom and rights of African Americans.

78They permitted white landowners to control African Americans' labor, much as they had when the workers were slaves.

79The laws were enforced by all-white police and militia.

80Radical Republicans in Congress, as well as African Americans, objected strongly to the Black Codes.

81When Congress finally did meet, Republican lawmakers voted for a measure to help and protect formerly enslaved people.

82But Johnson vetoed the measure.

83He said the bill would give the federal government too much power.

84Johnson's veto was one move in a political war between the president and many Republicans.

85In time, lawmakers got the upper hand.

86The Republican Congress soon took control of Reconstruction.

87Against Johnson's wishes, they succeeded in passing several major pieces of legislation.

88One was the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

89It recognized that everyone born in the United States, including African Americans, although not Native Americans, was a citizen.

90Another was the extension of the Freedmen's Bureau Act, the measure that Johnson had earlier vetoed.

91For two more years, the federal government was authorized to help people displaced by the Civil War.

92Finally, lawmakers passed a measure barring the president from dismissing any top officials without the approval of Congress.

93President Johnson ignored the measure.

94When he believed the Secretary of War did not treat him respectfully, the president ordered that man's dismissal.

95In answer, members of the U.S.

96House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson.

97In other words, they charged him with a crime.

98It was the first time in U.S.

99history that a president has been impeached.

100But impeached does not always mean removed from office.

101The case moves to the Senate.

102There, senators act as a jury.

103They decide whether the president is guilty.

104Two-thirds of the Senate must agree to convict the president.

105In the case of Andrew Johnson, 54 senators considered his case.

106For him to be removed from office, 20 would need to find him guilty.

107But only 19 did.

108His position was saved by a single vote.

109Although Johnson survived impeachment, he was not nominated as a candidate for president in the next election.

110Instead, he returned to his home in Tennessee, then competed for a seat back in Congress.

111On the third try, he succeeded.

112Johnson is the first, and only, so far, former president to serve as a senator.

113He did not stay in the position long, however.

114A few months after returning to Congress, Johnson died suddenly after suffering a stroke.

115He was 66 years old.

116Today, historians have mixed feelings about his presidency.

117Johnson's supporters approve of his limits on the federal government and belief in a firm separation of powers among Congress, the president, and Supreme Court.

118But most historians believe Johnson's reconstruction policies were extremely damaging.

119They did not help reunite the North and South.

120And they extended the suffering of African Americans and the country's history of racial oppression.

121I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.

122Johnson's a member of the United States.

123Johnson's a member of the United States.

124Johnson's a member of the United States.

125Johnson's a member of the United States.

126Johnson's a member of the United States.

127Johnson's a member of the United States.

128Johnson's a member of the United States.

129Johnson's a member of the United States.

130Johnson's a member of the United States.

131Johnson's a member of the United States.

132Johnson's a member of the United States.