The legacy of Andrew Johnson haunts American politics and society today because it is a legacy - perhaps a reflection - of America far more so than it is of the tailor from Tennessee who became the 17thPresident of the United States. It is a legacy both of the inability or unwillingness of America to grapple with the issue of race and justice, and of an inherent weakness in our system of government when the executive and legislative branches refuse to cooperate. If the legacy of Andrew Johnson is over-simplified as one of failure, then what of America?
To be fair - and History seldom is - Johnson grew up in a semi-frontier society in the mountains of East Tennessee not so far removed from both the realities and tall tales of Davy Crockett as it is from ours today. Johnson was born December 29, 1808 to a poor family in Raleigh, North Carolina. His father died when he was three years old and Johnson became an apprentice tailor by age 10. Much like the more celebrated Lincoln, Johnson never had a formal education and had to teach himself to read and write. Later married to Eliza McCardle, he would raise five children.
In 1833 Johnson was elected mayor of Greeneville, Tennessee. He served in the House of Representatives from 1835-1837, in the Tennessee state senate from 1839-1843, in the House from 1843-1853, and as governor of Tennessee from 1853-1857.
Born and raised in semi-poverty, Johnson displayed bitter hostility to the planter elite in Tennessee and elsewhere in the South. Politically, his was the voice representing the mountaineers and the yeoman farmers - and in its way foreshadowing a bitter racism potentially far more virulent than the casual racism of those born and bred in the midst of slavery.
Senator Andrew Johnson (1857-1862) was serving in Washington when the state seceeded. He alone of Southern senators would remain in Washington during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln appointed Johnson Military Governor of Tennessee where he served from 1862 until his election as Vice-President of the United States. But just who and what was this man who would succeed Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency?
Historians have termed Andrew Johnson a "white supremacist". Fair? Hardly. His was a time and society where white supremacy - even in the North - was as commonly accepted as biscuit and gravy. Johnson was neither an abolitionist nor especially sympathetic to the slaves. Like many other mountaineers and non-slave-holding farmers, Johnson harbored a deep resentment of the planter class which extended to (perhaps may have been symbolized by) African-American slaves. Was he a racist? By today's standards, yes. By his - no.
Abraham Lincoln - the Great Emancipator - dreamed of solving the problem of race in America by removing as many African-Americans back to Africa as he could. U.S. Grant admitted that he, himself, was not even "anti-slavery" when the Civil War began.
Whatever else he was or wasn't, Andrew Johnson was a principled self-made man of integrity. Principles and politics tend to clash. Stubborn, rigid, determined, and intemperate, Johnson possessed qualities that might be admirable in any other man - but would prove disastrous in a President
Johnson came to power on Lincoln's coattails. This, and the shadow of Lincoln's assassination, would haunt whatever hopes he might have had of reconstructing the United States in the bitter postwar era. In fact, Johnson's reconstruction policy mirrored Lincoln's own. Yet Lincoln himself would have had to walk on water to navigate the political shoals of postwar America. And Lincoln had the personal, political, and diplomatic skills Johnson lacked.
Perhaps if Andrew Johnson had been able to compromise with the moderate wing of the Republican Party, the turmoil and impeachment might have been avoided. But Andrew Johnson could not or would not compromise.
In his December 6, 1865, message to Congress Johnson summarized his policy toward reconstruction. Ex-Confederates were not disfranchised, new state governments were not punished or denied political rights for the sins of the past state governments, and a return to the federal government was deemed sufficient for forgiveness. It was as if Andrew Johnson could put Humpty Dumpty back together again. But the shell had long since broken.
The animosity between Johnson and the Radical Republicans (Thaddeus Stevens, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, and others) was far more than a struggle over which branch of government would control Reconstruction. It dramatized a fatal flaw in our system of government: when the President and Congress are unable to work together, the system fails. Increasingly in recent years, hostility between President and Congress, has highlighted our inability to solve critical issues (health care, alternative fuels, etc.). During Andrew Johnson's Presidency, the nation was just emerging from a bloody civil war and the double-headed crisis facing it was reconstruction and race. That the United States failed should not be placed squarely on Andrew Johnson.
The Congressional elections of 1866 gave the Republican Party dominant power in both the House and Senate. The Republicans intended to use reconstruction to improve their political strength in the future. The return of pro-Democratic state governments in the South threatened their base of power.
In 1866 Johnson vetoed the Freedman's Bureau Act. He next vetoed the Civil Rights Act, driving moderate Republicans into the camp of the Radicals. Following the passage of the 14th Amendment, Johnson protested.
Perhaps from the beginning, Andrew Johnson was fighting a losing battle. His stubbornness and adherence to rigid interpretation of the Constitution in a time of flux guaranteed it. In 1868, Johnson was impeached when he removed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton for violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Although he would avoid removal from office by a single vote (35-19 when a two-thirds majority was required), Johnson would be effectively finished.
A self-made, principled man, Johnson would be remembered as the first U.S. President to be impeached . . .as a failure - not for his accomplishments in forcing the French out of Mexico, for all but completing the Transcontinental Railroad, for purchasing Alaska . . .but as a failure.
The legacy then is ours - no longer Andrew Johnson's. It is a legacy of denying or ignoring the appeals of race and justice; and a gnawing doubt that we ever will solve these or other crises when our executive and legislative branches refuse to cooperate.