Andrew Johnson National Historic Site ⓘ

Andrew Johnson was a man of many contradictions. He was a Southerner, and yet he firmly believed in the Union. He believed in the Union, yet he believed that many political decisions should be left to the individual states. He was a slave owner who was a product of his time, but he was also at one time a man called a "Moses" for the freedom of slaves in Tennessee.

On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in states still in rebellion against the United States. Tennessee, although a seceded state, did not fall under the provisions of the proclamation. Tennessee was under Union control, and Andrew Johnson was serving as Military Governor.

"Before the rebellion, I was for sustaining the Government with slavery; now I am for sustaining the Government without slavery, without regard to a particular institution. Institutions must be subordinate, and the Government must be supreme. " October 13, 1864

While he was very much against the Southern aristocracy, Johnson revealed his sentiment on work ethic in the following statement. His primary concern was for the preservation of the Union, and he believed all else would fall in place afterwards.

"In my opinion, freedom will not make negroes any worse, and will result in their advancement. I am for an aristocracy of labor, of intelligent, stimulating, virtuous labor; of talent, of intellect, of merit; for the elevation of each and every man, white and black, according to his talent and industry." October 13, 1864

According to tradition, Military Governor Andrew Johnson freed his personal slaves on August 8, 1863 . By September 8, 1863, even the New York Times stated that " Gov. JOHNSON thus plants himself on the extreme Anti-Slavery ground -- "

As Military Governor, Andrew Johnson worked tirelessly to reestablish a Union government in Tennessee. He wrote Abraham Lincoln on January 17, 1865 to see if his inauguration as Vice-President could be delayed:

"The ordinance abolishing slavery will be adopted by the people on the 22nd of February. Legislature and the Governor will be elected on the 4th of March, and will meet on the first Monday in April, when the State will be organized, & resume all the functions of a state in the Union. I would prefer remaining where I am until that time, and then hand it all over to the people in their representative character.

I would rather have the pleasure and honor of turning over the State, organized, to the people properly Constituted, than be Vice President of the United States."

While President, Andrew Johnson struggled with Congress over the elements of Reconstruction. Many of his vetoes made in direct defiance of assistance for the freedmen, had their basis in his interpretation of Constitutional principles. In his veto of the Civil Rights Bill, for example, he stated that the act "... contains provisions which I can not approve consistently with my sense of duty to the whole people and my obligations to the Constitution of the United States ." Learn more...

The following is an excerpt from The Greeneville-Democrat-Sun , Wednesday, May 30, 1923 (p.1). The article contains information regarding Johnson's thoughts on Mary Surratt just three days before he died at his daughter's home near present day Elizabethton, then Carter's Station, TN. A Mr. McElwee of the American Steel Association accompanied Johnson on the train ride to Johnson City, and then on to Carter's Station in a carriage, during which time Johnson talked openly and freely of his time in office. Mr. McElwee later submitted a manuscript of the conversation to the state archives.

Note: The misspellings are part of the original article and have been left as printed. They will be identified by [sic].

'The execution of Mrs. Surrat [sic] was a crime of passion without justice or reason. She knew no more about the intentions of Booth and his associates than any other preson [sic] who chanced to know Booth or Asterot. They had simply boarded as others had done, at her boarding house. She was entitled to trial in open court and the record of that trial preserved, but her executioners knew the records would condemn them if they kept till passion had subsided and they were estroyed' [sic].

'No Sir, the records were immediately destroyed. They were not even kept until John was arrested and tried.'

'If I had interfered with the execution it would have meant my death and a riot that would have probably ended in war.'

'Was there any appeal made to you for mitigating the sentence as reported after the execution.'

'No appeal reached me. Her daughter forwarded one, but it was suppressed by Secretary Stanton. I heard of it afterward but never saw it. It was murder founded on perjury and executed to gratif pyassion [sic]. The chief witness afterwards confessed to his perjury.'"

The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to African Americans and nationalized civil rights.

Section 1 All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section2 Representatives shall be appointed among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of Electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, of the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3 No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such a disability.

Section 4 The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5 The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

1. There was such a small population in the area, Johnson felt Colorado would fare better as a territory without the added taxation of statehood.

2. Also due to the small population, Colorado would have only one representative to speak for the people in Congress. (New York, on the other hand, had thirty-one).

3. Johnson felt the citizens of Colorado were not prepared for, and not all wanted, statehood. Johnson wanted to hold a census or an election there first. This would ascertain the number of people in the area, as well as find out what their strongest desire was.

1. Johnson didn't agree with the Edmunds Amendment which said that Nebraska and Colorado had to give equal suffrage to blacks and whites as a statehood condition. Johnson felt this was unconstitutional because Congress couldn't regulate a state's franchise, and the people had not been allowed to vote on it.

NOTE: In addition, Johnson did not feel right about adding new states to the Union when the Confederate States had not yet been readmitted to the Union and were still unrepresented.

In 1842, Andrew Johnson was a TN State Senator. During this year he bought his first enslaved person. A Bill of Sale reveals that on November 29th, Andrew Johnson paid $541.00 for Sam, a youth "about thirteen years of age." On January 3, 1843, Johnson paid $500.00 to purchase Sam's half-sister, Dolly. She was "about nineteen." Fourteen years later, on May 6, 1857, Johnson paid $1015.00 for Henry, another youth "about thirteen years of age." With chilling insensitivity, all were warranted to be "sound, healthy, sensible, and a slave for life." In time, Sam would marry a woman named Margaret, and they had nine children, three born into slavery. Dolly had three children, all born into slavery with questionable parentage. Who were these people slated to live in involuntary servitude for the entirety of their existence? What became of them and their families following emancipation?

From early Andrew Johnson journal and ledger entries during the 1840s and into 1850, we know that Sam was hired out to several people around town for odd jobs, thus earning Andrew Johnson extra income or goods and services. Among other tasks, Sam assisted with plastering a house, pulling corn, cutting oats with scythe and cradle, and doing janitorial work by "attending the Court House." Sometime in the mid-1850s, Sam married a woman named Margaret. Their first child, a daughter named Dora, was born in 1858. Robert and Hattie would follow, in 1860 and 1862. All three were born into slavery. A January 1860 letter from Andrew Johnson's son, Charles, paints a vivid portrait of Sam: "...a few days since Mother sent him [Sam] word to cut wood at Pattersons, - he came up in the house and said, he would 'be damed' if he wanted to cut wood there; and if you wanted to sell him you could do so just as soon as he pleased, he did not care a dam,' You will see he is quite an independent gentleman and just to show his notions of himself and his rights, at another time he was asking Mother for his part of some money paid him for work[.] Mother remarked to him if he was as ready to pay others as he was to collect, he would do better; he replied that he did not get half enough no how; - that he ought to have all that he could make &c..." The letter reveals that Sam was later reimbursed in part for his work, and at this point he was able to keep these wages. It shows that Mrs. Johnson took care of some of the finances while her husband was absent. According to family lore, Andrew Johnson freed all his personal slaves on August 8, 1863. They all remained with him afterwards as paid servants.

When Andrew Johnson became president in 1865, journalists became interested in his history and hometown. A reporter from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper visited Greeneville and wrote that Sam was living in Johnson's old Tailor Shop.

"I have been appointed one of the Commissioner of the Freedmens Bureau, to raise money with which to purchase a suitable Lot on which to build a School House for the education of the Coloured children of Greeneville - and my object in troubling you upon, the subject is to ascertain if there would be any chance for me to purchase an acre Lot off of one of your Tracts that lies out West of Town close to the Reble Graveyard. If you will let us have the Lot and will send me word as to the price of it I will send you the money, and would like for you to send me a deed to it. I am getting along as well as usual and have not changed any in Politics still being for you as much as ever. I would like to see you all very much" (Papers of Andrew Johnson, v. 12, pg. 183).

Johnson's response to Sam's request was to have a representative "select the lot wanted have it surveyed, plat made, and a deed drawn up...and send the instrument to me. I will convey the land to them without charge..." (Papers of Andrew Johnson, v. 12, pg. 237). By 1869, as interest in Greeneville was renewed in advance of Johnson's return home, a Cincinnati Commercial correspondant knocked at the Tailor Shop door and Sam's wife Margaret invited him inside. "He lets me and my husband live in here now, and don't charge us any rent," she said.

In 1871, Sam Johnson seems to have instigated an early August 8th celebration in remembrance and recognition of their day of freedom. Both Sam and Andrew Johnson were in attendance. Sam was the officer of the day, and Andrew Johnson addressed the group. Sam's legacy continues, as August 8th is celebrated to this day in Tennessee and surrounding states as "Emancipation Day." In his later life, as seen in his photograph, "we are told that Sam's aristrocratic feelings were revealed when, as janitor of a local church, he regularly wore a silk hat and long-tailed coat" (Papers of Andrew Johnson, v.3, pg. 405).

According to E.C. Reeves, private secretary to Andrew Johnson from 1869-1875, "On the day of...[Andrew Johnson's] burial the people came from the hills and the valleys; from everywhere near and far, until Greenville was filled as never before, and the cortege was so dense the marshals were unable to control the human masses and make a passage for the hearse which was carrying the coffined body to its sepulchral home on the way to the apex of the knoll which was to be the final sleeping place of the deceased, pointed out by negro Sam, a former slave, as having been so designated by his master..." (Stryker, Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage, Appendix, pg. 836).

An August 2, 1947 article in the New Jersey Record tells of an auto trip of Mr. and Mrs. Fred R. Clark to Tennessee. "Mrs. Clark," the article stated, "is the daughter of the late Sam Johnson, ex-slave of President Johnson...She was the baby of several children; a brother and 8 sisters who have passed. Her father Mr. Samuel Johnson was a musician of note. He played a violin he made himself that could be heard for a mile around...The ground on which the...house stands was given to Mrs. Clark's father by President Johnson's son, and was built by Mr. Samuel Johnson."

A photograph of Dolly shows a woman with a gentle face holding Andrew Johnson's grandson on her lap. Andrew Johnson's granddaughter, Sarah Stover, wrote in her diary, "...my mind wanders back to the days when we children used to have a black mama as well as our own dear mama, but thank God the race is free. I think slavery is a sin..." Dolly's daughters Liz and Florence were born in 1846 and 1848; her son William was born ten years later. In between, there was said to have been a child that died. While no evidence of Liz and Florence's father has been found, Will's death certificate lists Johnson's son, Robert, as the father.

In 1854 Andrew Johnson wrote to Robert. At the conclusion of the letter he wrote, "I have bought a basket and some other little notions for your little brothe[r] and a little chair for Liz and Florence &c - " At this time Liz and Florence were aged six and eight. Andrew Johnson Jr. was two years old. William Johnson, Dolly's son, later recalled of Andrew Johnson. "When I was little, Mr. Andrew used to hold me on one knee and my sister on the other..." He also remembered that, "one day Mrs. Johnson called us all in and said we were free now. She said we were free to go, or we could stay if we wanted. We all stayed" (Nichols, Ernie's America, pg. 304). This likely happened August 8, 1863, the date that has been passed down as the date Johnson freed his personal slaves. Andrew, Eliza, several of their children, and several of the slaves were all living in Nashville, TN, while Johnson served as Military Governor. Johnson later stated in a speech that, during the war, his slaves had been confiscated, stolen, and escaped, and that they had all returned to him. Johnson's son-in-law, Judge Patterson, had overseen part of their passage to Nashville.

Henry Johnson accompanied the Johnson family to the White House. His obituary in the "Knoxville Miscellany" states: "Henry Johnson, a well known colored man, died this morning (December 5,1890) at his home (in Knoxville) on Mabry Street. He was in the service of President Andrew Johnson at the White House and for several years past was in the employ of the post office."

Andrew Johnson returned his veto of the Civil Rights Bill to Congress with his stated objections.

His first concern revolved around Federal decisions being made for the as-yet unrepresented Southern states:

" The right of Federal citizenship thus to be conferred on the several excepted races...is now for the first time proposed to be given by law...the grave question presents itself whether, when eleven of the thirty-six States are unrepresented in Congress at the present time, it is sound policy to make our entire colored population and all other excepted classes citizens of the United States ."

He was also concerned that Congress planned to bring certain criminal and civil cases under the jurisdiction of Federal instead of State laws. He wondered:

"The question here naturally arises, from what source Congress derives the power to transfer to Federal tribunals certain classes of cases embraced in this section...This section of the bill undoubtedly comprehends cases and authorizes the exercise of powers that are not, by the Constitution, within the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States. To transfer them to those courts would be an exercise of authority well calculated to excite distrust and alarm on the part of all the States, for the bill applies alike to all of them - as well to those that have not been engaged in the rebellion..."

The Bill allowed commissioners selected by the court to appoint people to execute warrants and other processes. He worried that " this extraordinary power is to be conferred upon agents irresponsible to the Government and to the people, to whose number the discretion of the commissioners is the only limit..."

" The white race and the black race of the South have hitherto lived together under the relations of master and slave - capital owning labor. Now, suddenly, that relation is changed, and as to ownership capital and labor are divorced. They stand now each master of itself. In this new relation, one being necessary to the other, there will be a new adjustment, which both are deeply interested in making harmonious. Each has equal power in settling the terms, and if left to the laws that regulate capital and labor it is confidently believed that they will satisfactorily work out the problem...

This bill frustrates that adjustment. It intervenes between capital and labor and attempts to settle questions of political economy through the agency of numerous officials whose interest it will be to foment discord between the two races... "

" I will cheerfully cooperate with Congress in any measure that may be necessary for the protection of the civil rights of the freedmen, as well as those of all other classes of persons throughout the United States, by judicial process, under equal and impartial laws, in conformity with the provisions of the Federal Constitution ."

Born into poverty in 1808, Andrew Johnson was the first President of the United States who had neither been a military hero nor studied law. In the aftermath of the hardships and antagonism endured during the Civil War, the country’s political, social and economic landscape changed, ushering in a new era where the face of the presidency was evolving as well. Known in his time both as the "courageous commoner" and an "accidental president," this former tailor's apprentice worked to rise from his poverty-stricken circumstances to our Nation’s highest office. On his journey to the Executive Mansion, this self-taught man held nearly every political office available - without attending a single day of school. Andrew Johnson's life is marked by passionate debate and controversy. Decisions he made during his presidency, based on his interpretation of the Constitution and his belief in the limits of the federal government, were often in direct opposition to Congressional measures legislated to enable the freedmen during the era of Reconstruction. Many of the decisions and policies argued during his Presidency still impact the country today. Topics such as civil rights, citizenship, and enfranchisement were taking their first breaths along with the "new birth of freedom" emerging with the emancipation of over four million slaves. On this page you will find a brief overview of Johnson's life, as well as a time-line and several topics that are trademarks of his complicated legacy. Discover more about your 17th President as you explore these links, several transcribed from Johnson's own words.

"'The execution of Mrs. Surrat [sic] was a crime of passion without justice or reason..." Andrew Johnson, 1875 Learn more...

Andrew Johnson stated " there is no such thing as reconstruction." Andrew Johnson and Congress were unable to agree on a plan for restoring the ravaged country following the Civil War. There was a marked difference between Congressional Reconstruction and Andrew Johnson's plan for Presidential Restoration. Learn more about the different manifestations of Reconstruction and what Andrew Johnson meant by this statement.

The structure of American society changed radically with the Civil War. Four million slaves were now free people. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the United States Constitution attempted to deal with this enormous change in the country.

Andrew Johnson vetoed more bills introduced by Congress than any other President before him.

Below you will find a partial list of Bills vetoed by Andrew Johnson. At first glance it is not easy to understand why Johnson vetoed much of what appeared to be such beneficial legislation. To understand Johnson's reasoning, click on the highlighted bills to discover the explanations Johnson supplied when he returned his vetoes to Congress.

Freedmen's Bureau Bill Civil Rights Bill Colorado Statehood Bill District of Columbia Franchise Law Nebraska Statehood Bill Tenure of Office Act First Military Reconstruction Act Second Military Reconstruction Act Third Military Reconstruction Act Judiciary Act Amendment Arkansas Statehood Bill Admission of Six Southern States Restrictions of Electoral Votes

Andrew Johnson was the first American president to be impeached. Learn more about impeachment here .

During Andrew Johnson's administration, the United States purchased Alaska, annexed Midway Island, and communicated with Europe by telegraph following the completion of a successful Transatlantic Cable. The British Novelist Charles Dickens and Queen Emma of the Sandwich Islands both paid visits to the White House. Andrew Johnson was also the first President to hold the Easter Egg Roll at the White House, and when he turned 60, he invited 300 children to the White House for his birthday party.