After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson was succeeded as the seventeenth president of the United States in 1865 under the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that the president is removed, killed, or resigned.
Andrew Johnson, born on December 29, 1808 in North Carolina, came from a poor family, never went to school for a day, worked as an apprentice, tailor apprenticeship, began to read with the help of two friends, Litchcord and Cole, sat on the cold bench for two years, and escaped from the tailor's shop with his brother. Wandered to Lawrence, South Carolina as a temporary tailor. Two years later, the brothers returned to their hometown. At this time, the original tailor shop owner insisted that they complete the six-year apprenticeship according to the contract, and the Johnson brothers refused to agree, but the original apprenticeship contract was still legally valid, others could not hire them, they naturally could not find a job in the local area, and the family had to decide to move to another country.
In August 1826, he came to Greenville, Tennessee, where Johnson rented a log cabin to open a tailor shop and officially became a tailor. He was confident in his tailoring skills, and unlike previous presidents, his suits were all made by himself. In May 1827, at the age of eighteen, he married Eliza McCarder, and his wife, Eliza McCarder, who taught him to read and write, never had a formal education in school in his life, and all his knowledge came from outside the school. Later, when his wife discovered that Andrew Johnson was interested in politics, she helped him read reports on political situations and political affairs as well as important speeches by famous people, encouraging him to participate in political debates and give speeches.
In 1828, Andrew Johnson was elected to the Greenville City Senate. He then began his political career: in 1834 he was elected mayor of Greenville, elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1835, elected to the state's Senate in 1841, elected to congress in 1843, returned to Tennessee in 1853 as governor, and was elected to Congress in 1857. During Johnson's tenure as a senator, the Civil War broke out in the United States. After the end of 1860, several southern states, including South Carolina, broke away from the Union and established the "Confederacy of the South." Southern lawmakers left Congress, and Johnson was the only Southerner left the Senate. In his Senate speech, he strongly opposed the secession of the South from the Union and advocated the preservation of the Federal Constitution. Therefore, although his life and safety were threatened, his performance was praised by the North and won Lincoln's trust.
In March 1862, federal troops occupied Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, and he was appointed military governor of Tennessee, earning the rank of brigadier general of the United States Volunteer Army. In June 1864, Andrew Johnson was nominated as Abraham Lincoln's running mate. In 1865, when he succeeded to the presidency, he made it clear that he would carry out Lincoln's original plan to ease relations with the South, and at this time, the slave owners of the Southern plantations stepped up restoration activities, and the policy of measures to rebuild the South was at odds with the Republican members of Congress, and Andrew Johnson's contradictions with Congress intensified, and eventually he became the first president in American history to be impeached.
The rebuilding of the United States after the Civil War failed to restore normal order as soon as possible, and the white supremacist Andrew Johnson was criticized and his presidency was swept away. The American people have always had a low opinion of him, and Andrew Johnson has been among the worst presidents in American history in the voting all years. Even so, the first president who had not been a lawyer or a soldier in his early years was the only retired president to be re-elected to the Senate. It is worth mentioning that during his term of office, the passage of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the purchase of Alaska had a far-reaching impact on the United States.