ANDREW JOHNSON

1808-1875

17th President (1865-1869), 16th Vice President (1865)

Biographical Data
Religious Views
Quotations
References, Links, & Further Reading

Education: no formal education

Occupation: tailor

Political Affiliation: Democrat

Organizational Affiliation(s): Mason

Religious Affiliation: none

Summary of Religious Views:

Johnson belonged to no church and was not much of a church-goer. Although he was quite tolerant of religion and religious belief, Johnson showed little personal interest in religion.

Views on Religion & Politics:

As a congressman, Johnson introduced a resolution that congress be opened with a prayer, the expense of which was to be paid through voluntary contributions from the members of the House. The resolution was ignored.

Quotations:

"Here religion, released from political connection with the civil government, refuses to subserve the craft of statesmen, and becomes in its independence the spiritual life of the people. Here toleration is extended to every opinion, in the quiet certainty that truth needs only a fair field to secure the victory." -- Annual Message, 4 December 1865

"I intend to stand by the Constitution, as the chief ark of our safety, as the palladium of our civil and religious liberty. Yes, let us cling to it as the mariner clings to the last plank when the night and the tempest close around him!" -- impromptu speech to his supporters, 22 February 1866

"I have performed my duty to my God, my country, and my family. I have nothing to fear in approaching death. To me it is the mere shadow of God's protecting wing . . . Here I will rest in quiet and peace beyond the reach of calumny's poisoned shaft, the influence of envy and jealous enemies, where treason and traitors or State backsliders and hypocrites in church can have no peace." -- written shortly before his death, July 1875

References, Links, & Further Reading: Books, Articles, Links

Books

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Works by Andrew Johnson

ed. by Leroy P. Graf and Ralph W. Haskins, The Papers of Andrew Johnson, 16 vols. to date, Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1967-
(With a biographical introduction by Frank Moore), Speeches of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, Little, Brown, 1866

Biographies

Trial of Andrew Johnson, president of the United States, before the Senate of the United States, on impeachment by the House of representatives for high crimes and misdemeanors, Government Printing Office, 1868
Michael Les Benedict, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson, W.W. Norton, 1973
David Warren Bowen, Andrew Johnson And the Negro, Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1989
Albert Castel, The Presidency of Andrew Johnson (American Presidency Series), Univ. Press of Kansas, 1979
David Miller DeWitt, The Impeachment And Trial Of Andrew Johnson, Seventeenth President Of The United States, Macmillan, 1903
Annette Gordon-Reed, Andrew Johnson, Times Books, 2011
Martin E. Mantel, Johnson, Grant, and the Politics of Reconstruction, Columbia Univ. Press, 1973
ed. by Richard B. McCaslin, Andrew Johnson: A Bibliography (Bibliographies of the Presidents of the United States), Greenwood Press, 1992
Eric L. McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1960
George Fort Milton, The Age of Hate: Andrew Johnson and the Radicals, Coward McCann, 1939
William H. Rehnquist, Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson, William Morrow, 1992
James E. Sefton, Andrew Johnson and the Uses of Constitutional Power, Little, Brown, 1980
David O. Stewart, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy, Simon & Schuster, 2009
Lloyd Paul Stryker, Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage, Macmillan, 1929; Andrew Johnson: A Study In Courage Part 1, Andrew Johnson: A Study In Courage Part 2
Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson : A Biography (Signature Series), W.W. Norton, 1989
Brenda Wineapple, The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation, Random House, 2019
Robert W. Winston, Andrew Johnson: Plebian and Patriot, Henry Holt, 1928

Articles

Albert Castel, "Andrew Johnson: His Historiographical Rise and Fall," Mid-America, 45, July 1963, pp. 175-84

Links

Works by Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson (American Presidency Project)

Biographical Sites

Andrew Johnson(POTUS)
Andrew Johnson (White House)
JOHNSON, Andrew, 1808-1875 (Biographical Directory of the US Congress)
Andrew Johnson (USA Presidents)
Andrew Johnson (American President)
Andrew Johnson's Inauguration (U.S. Senate)
Life Portrait of Andrew Johnson (C-SPAN)
Andrew Johnson (North Carolina Encyclopedia -- State Library of North Carolina)
The Politics of Andrew Johnson (History Matters)

Johnson's Impeachment

Andrew Johnson Impeachment Trial (1868) (Famous Trials)
The Impeachment Trial of President Andrew Johnson (Library of Congress)
Impeachment: Andrew Johnson (The History Place)
History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (Avalon Project -- Yale Law School)
The Trial of Andrew Johnson, 1868 (Eye Witness)

Religious Views

Andrew Johnson from The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents, by Franklin Steiner (Internet Infidels)