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

"I am unwilling, of my own volition, to walk outside of the Union which has been the result of a Constitution made by the patriots of the Revolution."

Andrew Johnson. (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

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...