Episode 2: Andrew Johnson
A full transcript of this episode can be found here.
Show Notes
Overview:
Today’s episode is all about Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, a man whose presidency is synonymous with the missed opportunities of the post-Civil War era. Never elected, Johnson instead became president after Abraham Lincoln’s tragic assassination. Rather than continuing Lincoln’s agenda, Johnson instead undermined black citizenship, and attempted at every turn to thwart the Republican Party’s Reconstruction efforts in the South. He is today remembered as a bitter, angry, and failed president, and the first ever to be impeached by the House of Representatives. But he wasn’t always remembered so harshly. We will learn why today.
Here’s a quick refresher on Johnson. Born in deep poverty in North Carolina in 1808, he apprenticed as a tailor, settled in Tennessee, and won election to the House of Representatives in 1843. After five terms in the House, he served as Tennessee’s governor and then its senator in Washington, remaining the only Senator from a Confederate State to remain loyal to the Union after secession. Lincoln appointed him military governor of Tennessee as a reward, and then brought Johnson onto the Republican national ticket during the critical election of 1864, hoping inclusion of a Southerner, and a Democrat, might help him win a tough and troubled re-election campaign. No one imagined he’d be President a mere six weeks after Lincoln’s second inauguration.
It fell to Johnson to reunite the nation after the apocalyptic Civil War, but he couldn’t even make peace in Washington DC. Perpetually at odds with Congress, he opposed the 14th amendment made freed black Americans full citizens, supported and even pardoned former Confederate leaders, and undermined the Freedman’s Bureau created to help former enslaved individuals adjust to their new lives of freedom. Years of open political warfare led to his impeachment, which he survived by a single vote in the Senate—a vote historians now believed was bought. Rejected by both major political parties, he left office in 1868 a man reviled in the North he’d supported during the war, and beloved in the former Confederacy he’d fought against.
Why? Because of race, plain and simple.
To help understand his presidency and discuss Johnson’s legacy more broadly, we spoke to two esteemed scholars.
Guest 1: Jon Meacham
Jon Meacham is a renowned presidential historian, contributing writer to The New York Times Book Review, contributing editor at TIME, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.
Meacham’s latest books include His Truth is Marching On (2020); In the Hands of the People (2020); The Hope of Glory (2020); Impeachment (2019); Songs of America (2019); and The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels (2018);
His Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, published in November 2015, was a #1 New York Times bestseller and is available now in hardcover and paperback from Random House. He is currently at work on a biography of James and Dolley Madison.
Meacham’s book American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, was a New York Times bestseller. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2009, the book was cited as an “unlikely portrait of a not always admirable democrat, but a pivotal president, written with an agile prose that brings the Jackson saga to life.” His other New York Times bestsellers include Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, exploring the relationship between the two great leaders who piloted the free world to victory in World War II, and American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation.
Jon Meacham’s website.
Follow Jon Meacham on Twitter!
Guest 2: Professor Lesley Gordon
Dr. Lesley Gordon is the Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History. Her research interests include Southern history and the American Civil War. Gordon earned her BA with High Honors from the College of William and Mary, and her MA and PhD in American History from the University of Georgia. From 2010-2015, Dr. Gordon was editor of the academic journal Civil War History. She is currently at work on a book manuscript about battlefield cowardice and violence.
Dr. Gordon’s Publications:
A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut’s Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2014).
with Michael Fellman and Daniel E. Sutherland, This Terrible War : The Civil War and Its Aftermath, 3rd ed. (New York: Pearson, 2014).
General George E. Pickett in Life and Legend (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).
Inside the Confederate Nation: Essays in Honor of Emory M. Thomas, eds. Lesley J. Gordon and John C. Inscoe (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005).
Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and Their Wives, eds. Carol K. Bleser and Lesley J. Gordon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
Dr. Gordon’s faculty page.
Follow Dr. Gordon on Twitter!
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Further Readings
Books
Michael Fellman, Lesley Gordon, and Daniel Sutherland This Terrible War: The Civil War and Its Aftermath (Pearson, 2014)
Eric L. McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 1988)
Jon Meacham, Timothy Naftali, Peter Baker, and Jeffrey A. Engel, Impeachment: An American History (Modern Library, 2018)
David O. Stewart, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy (Simon & Schuster, 2009)
Primary Resources
Johnson's Vice Presidential Inaugural Address (Andrew Johnson, Ball State University Digital media Repository, 1865)
Reply of the Colored Delegation to the President (Frederick Douglass, Teaching American History, 1866)
The Freedman's Bureau Acts (United States Senate, 1865-1866)
Transcript, Meeting between President Andrew Johnson and a Delegation of African-Americans (The Civil War Research Engine at Dickson College, 1866)
14th and the 15th Amendments (National Archives, 1868-1870)
Other Resources
Andrew Johnson, The Impeached President Who Wanted A White Man's Government (Article, Travis Dorman, Knoxville News Sentinel, 2020)
Andrew Johnson: The Most-Criticized President Ever? (Article, National Constitution Center, Constitution Daily. 2019)
National Historic Sites: Andrew Johnson (National Parks Service)
President Andrew Johnson Museum at Tusculum University
Presidential Historian Jon Meacham Speaks at DNC 2020 (ABC News, 2020)
The Miller Center on Andrew Johnson (UVA, 2021)
In this episode, we spoke with historians Jon Meacham and Lesley Gordon about Andrew Johnson's contentious and consequential presidency. Our conversations with our guests highlighted the ways Johnson undermined Abraham Lincoln's plans for Reconstruction and revisited the steps that ultimately led to Johnson's impeachment.
We've provided an episode transcript, primary and secondary sources, and other materials for those who want to dive deeper into the story of Andrew Johnson and race.