Andrew Johnson, the 17th President, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, December 29, 1808. At the age of ten years, he was apprenticed to a tailor, in his native town, with whom he remained seven years. He never attended school; but, by his own exertions, he learned to read while he was yet an apprentice.
A few years later, his wife instructed him in arithmetic and writing. In 1826 he emigrated to Tennessee, and settled in Greenville, as a tailor. At twenty years of age, he was elected an Alderman of that town; was reelected in the two following years and from 1830 to 1834, he held the office of Mayor.
In 1835 he entered political life as a Democratic Member of the State Legislature; was re-elected in 1839; and during the Presidential canvass of 1840, was an effective speaker in favor of the Democratic candidate. In 1841 he was elected a Member of the State Senate; and, from 1843 to 1853, held a seat in the Congress of the United States. In 1853 he was elected Governor of Tennessee, which office he held until 1857, when he was elected by the Legislature a United States Senator.
At the outbreak of the Rebellion, he pronounced strongly in favor of the Union, and denounced, in severe language, those who favored secession.
When the conflict commenced, he was appointed Brigadier-General of Volunteers. In 1862 he was appointed, by President Lincoln, Military Governor of Tennessee, which position he held until his election as Vice President of the United States, in 1864.
He was inaugurated March 4, 1865, at which time he delivered his ever-to-be-remembered inaugural address which caused so much comment at the time, especially in England.
On the ever-memorable 14th of April, of the same year, the assassin's bullet deprived the nation of the lamented President Lincoln, and put Mr. Johnson in his chair, which he has since occupied. Rebellion having been conquered, the work of restoration and reconstruction became the problem to be solved. Having a policy of his own, entirely different from that of a large majority of the Members of Congress, which ho was determined to carry out, his administration has been an eventful one.
There having been a change in the fundamental condition of the seceding States, caused by rebellion and the emancipation of the slaves, Congress deemed it expedient to pass Reconstruction laws, which he vetoed; but they were again passed, over his veto. His neglecting to execute those laws according to their letter and spirit, together with alleged violation of the Tenure of Office Law, &e., caused the House of Representatives to bring articles of impeachment against him, in February, 1868, which they presented to the Senate. That body resolved itself into a "High Court of Impeachment;" and, after a protracted trial, the votes of the Court were taken in May, 1868, on three of the eleven articles, which resulted in thirty-five for conviction, and nineteen against. As two-thirds were required to convict, ho was acquitted on those, and the vote on the remainder was indefinitely postponed
(Source: Biographies of 250 Distinguished National Men by Horatio Bateman. Published 1871)

ANDREW JOHNSON; While we are forced to confess that wealth and high social position are often important factors in the political advancement of individuals, even in this land of republican equality, they 1 are not of course always essential. Obscurity of birth is popularly supposed to be no bar to such advancement, although a reasonably good education is usually looked for in those who desire to become servants of the people; but it too often happens that men of neither birth, breeding nor fair intellectual development are placed in positions of trust. If, as is sometimes the case, these persons are also morally deficient, the result can only be bad, and the fact that such things are possible, constitutes one of the most dangerous weaknesses in our form of government. When, however, the lack of culture and education is offset by natural executive ability and honesty of purpose, such men have made highly efficient public officers. They have not often risen to any very considerable height, being usually contented with some municipal office, or have occasionally attained to a seat in Congress. Exceptions to this rule have not been rare, but perhaps the most remarkable of them all is to be found in the career of Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth President of the United States.
He was born in Raleigh, N. C. December 29, 1808. The pedigree hunters have in his case been completely baffled, and it has only been ascertained that his father was a good natured, shiftless individual, who held the position of Constable, and was fortunate enough to secure a favorable epitaph from a newspaper editor whom he had saved from drowning. Andrew was four years old when his father died, and at the age of ten he was bound apprentice to a tailor for the term of seven years, as was then customary. That he learned his trade thoroughly, and became a good workman, is, of course, entirely to his credit, and in no manner detracts aught from the dignity of any position which he subsequently filled. He continued at his bench for many years after he had become actively engaged in politics, and indeed, made a complete suit of clothes, in a workmanlike manner, as late as 1853, when he was Governor of the State of Tennessee, in return for a shovel and pair of tongs which were made for him by a judge who had begun life as a blacksmith, the object of both gentlemen being to show that they were not ashamed of having learned honorable trades. Mr. Johnson was, perhaps, even too much disposed to take pride in alluding to his early employment. He did not quite complete his apprenticeship, but ran away from his master in 1824. He never attended any college, academy, or school in his life, but while learning his trade, he also learned to read from some books which came in his way, with the assistance, perhaps, of some fellow-workman.
When he left Raleigh, he made his way to Laurens Court House in South Carolina, and there obtained employment as a journeyman tailor. He earned good wages, and having laid by a moderate sum of money he returned to Raleigh at the end of two years, and taking his mother with him, emigrated westward into Tennessee. At Greenville in that State, he opened a small shop, and soon afterward married. If he signed the marriage register he must have done so by making his mark, as he was at this time unable to write his name. His wife, the daughter of a shoemaker, was somewhat more accomplished than himself, and in course of time taught him to write and cipher. Both were ignorant of the rules of grammar, and always remained so. After prospecting a little further, he returned to Greenville, and there fixed his abode permanently. He was quite successful in business and before long began to invest in real estate. He became highly popular with the young men of the town, and also with the working people, who were captivated by his plain and homely eloquence and his utter lack of ostentation. Before he was of age he was elected Alderman, and in 1830 he became mayor of the town. This office he held for three years, and he had the further audacity to procure his election as one of the Trustees of the Academy, being by no means, however, the first illiterate man who has thought himself competent to fill such a position.
Andrew Johnson was at this time of his life, clearly "one of the boys," and at no subsequent period did he ever entirely divest himself of that natural coarseness of manner which these associations greatly aggravated. At the same time he gained a reputation for honesty which was undoubtedly well merited, and for firmness which too often degenerated into obstinacy. Among his worst failings were profanity and intemperance, his fits of intoxication becoming more and more frequent toward the close of his life. At the first election under the new Tennessee Constitution of 1834, he presented himself as a candidate for the State Legislature. The aristocratic leaders of the Tennessee democracy were disgusted with his presumption, but the politician and his large following were too powerful to be ignored, and he received the election. Owing to his opposition to certain measures of internal improvement which happened to be popular, he was defeated in 1837, but at the ensuing election of 1839, public opinion having undergone a change, he was again chosen a member of the Legislature.
During the National Campaign of 1836, he supported Hugh L. White of Tennessee, one of the four candidates among whom the Whig electoral vote was, in that year, divided; but four years later he supported Van Buren, the regular Democratic nominee, and was himself chosen a presidential elector. In 1841 he was elected to the State Senate.
In 1843 Mr. Johnson entered Congress, of which he remained a member for ten years. On most points he was in accord with the Southern Democratic leaders; with regard to Negro slavery, which they regarded as the sine qua non of the prosperity of their section, he was quite indifferent. He was a slave owner and a slave trader, and naturally his vote was cast in favor of all the measures which were concocted for fostering and extending slavery, but at the same time he emphatically denounced the disloyal utterances of Southern members, and on one important question he was in direct opposition to the majority of them. Next to his unwavering devotion to the Union, his most honorable claim to distinction was his earnest labor in behalf of the National Homestead law which brought him into antagonism with the landed slaveholding aristocracy. At the close of his fifth congressional term in 1853, Andrew Johnson was elected Governor of Tennessee.
Governor Johnson's administration, which lasted four years, was an able one, though unmarked by any events of special interest. In 1857 he was elected to the United States Senate, and in December of that year, this "poor white" tailor took his seat in that dignified body. As the other Southern members became more and more outspoken in their treason, he firmly maintained his ground in opposition to them. In May, 1858, he made a masterly speech in behalf of the Homestead Bill which was not, however, passed by both houses until 1860, and then only to be vetoed by President Buchanan, greatly to the indignation of the Tennessee senator. The bill became a law in 1862. Mr. Johnson's name was proposed in the Democratic convention of 1860, as a candidate for President, but it was withdrawn after the thirty-eighth ballot. In the ensuing election he supported Mr. Breckinridge, but when, in consequence of Mr. Lincoln's election, the great majority of the Southern Senators and Representatives in Congress withdrew, Andrew Johnson remained true to his country and retained his seat. For this he was denounced by the rebel authorities, and burned in effigy, his Negroes were confiscated, and his invalid wife driven from her home. Both in Congress and out of it, he spoke noble words in defense of the Union, and his arguments had great weight in keeping the Border States from following their Southern sisters in their course of folly.
On the 5th of March, 1862, Senator Johnson was appointed by President Lincoln, Military Governor of Tennessee with the rank of brigadier-general. A week later he arrived at Nashville, which had recently been occupied by the Federal troops, and assumed control of the State Government. He removed the mayor, and other disloyal officials, silenced the clergy, who were almost all rebel sympathizers, and took vigorous measures to prepare the way for Tennessee's restoration to her place in the Union. In 1864 he received the Republican nomination for Vice-President, as a compliment to that wing of the old Democratic Party to which he belonged, and which had heartily cooperated in suppressing the Rebellion; and, with Mr. Lincoln, he was elected by a large majority. He was inaugurated Vice-President of the United States on the 4th of March, 1865, his address and his personal condition on that occasion being in the highest degree discreditable. As is well known, he had held his office just six weeks, when, by the assassination of President Lincoln, the Chief Magistracy of the Nation devolved upon him.
Though thus suddenly called upon to assume such high responsibility, he proved himself qualified to deal with the embarrassing difficulties with which he was confronted. The question of supreme importance was the restoration of order and good government in the revolted States which had been forced back to their allegiance. Mr. Johnson was disposed to deal generously with the late enemies of his country while taking due precaution to maintain the authority of the National Government. The policy pursued by him was for some time entirely satisfactory to the people, both North and South, except only to some irreconcilable extremists in each section; but, upon the assembling of Congress in December, some dissatisfaction began to be manifested in that body, which was disposed to be somewhat more severe toward the eleven u unreconstructed" States. Yet in January, 1866, a resolution of confidence in the President passed the House by a large majority. Unfortunately, Mr. Johnson took violent offence at the Congressional opposition to his "policy," and publicly expressed his resentment against certain members, by name, in a very indecorous manner. From this time onward the breach between the legislative and the executive branches of the Government rapidly widened, producing deplorable results.
President Johnson exercised the veto power very freely, but in many cases the measures so rejected by him became laws by a two-thirds vote of the two Houses. In July, 1866, three members of his Cabinet resigned on account of their disapproval of the calling of a Convention at Philadelphia to endorse his reconstruction policy. This Convention, which met in August, was offset by another, held a month later, and composed of, opponents of the President, who was himself at the time making that famous journey to Chicago popularly known as "swinging round the circle," in which the country witnessed the doubly mortifying spectacle of a President indulging in coarse vituperation against the majority in Congress, and of the people, at many points, receiving their Chief Magistrate with jeers and insult. In the closing session of the Thirty-Ninth Congress acts were passed, over vetoes of course, whereby the power of the President to remove from office was materially curtailed, and military governments were established in ten of the lately revolted States — Tennessee having been fully restored. Mr. Johnson, very unwisely, to say the least, repeatedly violated the spirit, if not the letter of these acts, and attempted, with partial success, to defeat the objects aimed at by Congress in their passage. This conduct was so displeasing to the majority in both Houses, that it was proposed, if possible, to remove the President from office by the constitutional method of impeachment.
A resolution for this purpose was defeated in the House of Representatives in December, 1867, but the subsequent action of the President in attempting to remove from office the Secretary of War, without the necessary advice and consent of the Senate, proved to be the last straw in his offending, and after the requisite preliminaries he was formally impeached before the Senate by a committee of the House of Representatives on the 4th of March, 1868. On the following day the Senate was organized as a Court, presided over by the Chief Justice, Salmon P. Chase, as prescribed in the Constitution, and thus, for the first and only time in the history of our country was a President of the United States brought to trial for "high crimes and misdemeanors." This famous trial began on the 30th of March, 1868, and continued until the 26th of May. Eleven counts or articles of impeachment were preferred, only three of which were finally acted upon, and in each case thirty-five Senators voted "Guilty" and nineteen "Not Guilty." The necessary two thirds not having pronounced him guilty, the President was consequently acquitted. During the remainder of his administration Mr. Johnson continued his opposition to Congress, and as far as lay in his power, restored to a full enjoyment of all their former privileges those persons who had been in arms against the Government.
He sullenly refused to take any part in the inaugural ceremonies of his successor, General Grant. One State, Nebraska, was admitted during his administration, and the territory of Alaska was purchased from Russia.
Andrew Johnson, after retiring from the presidency, issued an address to the people in defense of his conduct while in office, and strongly condemnatory of his opponents. He returned to his home at Greenville, but not to rest, for he soon plunged anew into the turmoil of politics. He was a candidate for the United States Senatorship in 1870, and for Representative in Congress in 1872, and on each occasion he met with defeat, but in January, 1875, he was elected to the Senate. He lived only a short time to enjoy his new honors. On the 28th of July, 1875, he was stricken with paralysis while visiting a married daughter in Carter County, Tenn., and he died on the 31st, having been an active politician for forty-seven years.
[Source: Biographical Sketches of Preeminent Americans, Volume 3; By Frederick G. Harrison; Publ. 1893; Transcribed and submitted by Andrea Stawski Pack.]