Consistently ranked at the bottom of the list of Presidents, Andrew Johnson has largely come to be a figure ignored or ridiculed. Most Americans don’t know anything about him, except perhaps that he was drunk during his inaugural speech as a newly-elected Vice-President, then placed into the Presidency by Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, then nearly voted out of office. All of that is true, in addition to the fact that his Presidency has largely been considered to be ineffective or harmful to Reconstruction. He DID, there is no doubt, make some serious political blunders in attempting to chart a course for the nation’s future.
I could sit and defend Johnson on the basis of his attempts to reconstruct in the way that Lincoln had envisioned reconstruction. I could reiterate that he didn’t ask for the Presidency, but was placed there under the most difficult of situation, filling the largest of shoes. I could…but that’s not the focus of this blog. The focus of this blog is the man, Andrew Johnson, and what he did for our nation before the Presidency. It is for this that I think he deserves our attention on President’s Day.
Andrew Johnson was a tailor. He started life poor. His hard work and industry had secured him as a respectable figure in Eastern Tennessee. After a time, he grew to be influential. He had opinions and politics seemed to fit him well. As a non-lawyer, he had to work twice as hard to gain acceptance among the politicians. As a non-plantation owner, he had to strive to overcome the inherent power of the highest social classes in Tennessee. He was, in the terms of the day, a mechanic — one of the classes of people who work hard with their hands. As a mechanic, he understood the needs of the common man. He also understood the value of the common man to a culture that needed hard-working industriousness and an economy based on hard work. Basing an economy on the hard work of slaves would only improve the plight of the slaveholder. It would foster an aristocracy and ruin a democracy.
Like Lincoln, much of Johnson’s education was through self-reliant means. He read constantly, tried to improve his vocabulary, worked on his speech, and at the same time broadened his political knowledge. There was truly no area in Johnson’s life that was not successful due to the regular application of hard work. The results of his own hard work and observation was a growing philosophy based on the benefits of keeping the working class working.
Johnson bounced his ideas off of the tailors he had working for him as well as the people he was clothing. He discussed them with his wife and children, asking their opinions on matters of great importance. He moved his ideas out into the sphere of politics, speaking on the stumps of local towns and offering himself up for election to public office. He became politically strong and willfully single-minded. Johnson was a serious man. An idea well-formed became a concrete cause.
Much of Johnson’s political life was spent doggedly pushing for the acceptance of his Homestead Act, giving settlers land of their own, in exchange for their productive work and contribution to the economy. It finally passed in 1862. If he had done no other thing for our nation, this would make him one of our greatest politicians. Years of failing to have the Homestead Act passed couldn’t sway him from the thought that Americans with a small parcel of land would be happy and productive…or at least productive.
But as strongly as Johnson felt about helping the working class, he felt even more strongly about the need for a unified nation.
When Secession started, Eastern Tennessee and Western Tennessee were at odds in similar fashion to West Virginia counties and East Virginia counties. Eastern Tennessee had fewer large plantations, far fewer plantation owners and many more working-class whites. Johnson, in speeches he made all throughout the nation and in Tennessee, made a good case that Secession would simply make white men the slaves of the South, forcing them to fight for “rights” they didn’t need and wouldn’t use. He was adamant that a break in the Union was a travesty of unthinkable proportion. How could anyone see the logic in Secession? How could anyone envision the tombs of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Madison and so many of those who had established the Union, laying on Secessionist soil? Did the South think that the Northern states would just let them fade away? Johnson knew history. He knew that fellow Tennesseans, Andrew Jackson and James Polk wouldn’t have let Secessionist states out of the union without a fight. They had fought too hard to bring new territories into the Union! Johnson was also a realist in the same way that Lincoln was a realist — both understanding that the only two viable options were: 1. A Union with southern support or 2: A Union held together with war and Northern victory.
When Southern states began to secede, Andrew Johnson made the firm decision to stand by his nation instead of standing with the South. His role would be to attempt to keep Tennessee within the Union. This made him an outlaw to many, if not most of those in Tennessee and to all Confederates. He initially concluded that his best place of action was in Washington D.C, where he could be a vocal proponent of sending troops to shore up the Union cause in Eastern Tennessee. Lincoln, however, knew that Johnson’s best use would be back in Tennessee, attempting to steer both the military and political machines back toward the Union.
What followed for Johnson was a drama played out in scenes of innumerable risk. He risked his life. He risked his family. He lost his property. He both lost and gained a great deal of prestige. Through it all, he never backed down from his goal. After Nashville was back in the hands of the Union, President Lincoln sent Johnson to Tennessee’s capitol to attempt to re-establish governmental operations and maintain Union control. Johnson was named both Military Governor and General. He walked the streets among many of those whom considered him to be a traitor to their cause. He lived with continual death threats, and he attempted to keep a city and a state running while its possession was in constant flux. At times, he watched Union defenses from the top of the capitol building, knowing that at any moment he might be captured.
He lived (and this is not an exaggeration) closer to real danger for four years than any other public figure, including Abraham Lincoln. And he did it all for the sake of keeping the Union together.
So, on this President’s Day, let’s selectively remember just this portion of Andrew Johnson’s legacy. One man stood up for many. He was a patriot before he was a President, and for this he should be celebrated.
For further reading, see Andrew Johnson: Plebian and Patriot by Robert W. Winston and The Avenger Takes His Place: Andrew Johnson and the 45 Days that Changed a Nation by Howard Means.
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