Andrew Johnson
Born December 29, 1808
Raleigh, North Carolina
Died July 31, 1875
Greeneville, Tennessee
Seventeenth president of the United States
Became the first president to face
impeachment when Congress disagreed with his
Reconstruction policies
Andrew Johnson became president of the United States in April 1865, when Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; see entry) was assassinated. He took charge of the country just as the Civil War ended and presided over the difficult period in American history known as Reconstruction (1865–1877). A Southerner by birth, Johnson soon pardoned (officially forgave) Confederate officials and established lenient (easy) conditions for the Southern states to return to the Union. Many Northerners, and especially Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress, worried that Johnson's Reconstruction policies would allow Confederate leaders to return to power and continue to discriminate against blacks. Congress ended up putting its own policies into effect, while Johnson fought them every step of the way. In 1868, Congressional leaders impeached the president (brought him up on legal charges in an attempt to remove him from office), but Johnson kept his job by a single vote.
A Poor Southern Boy
Andrew Johnson was born on December 29, 1808, in a log cabin in the small town of Raleigh, North Carolina.
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