Andrew Johnson in 1865

Electoral Brawlage, #17

“Electoral Brawlage” examines the first inaugural address of each president in U.S. history, with some commentary and analysis. Check back on Mondays for more.

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Andrew Johnson is the third man (out of five so far) who served as president without ever winning an election.

We’ve covered John Tyler and Millard Fillmore; both were VPs who assumed the presidency after deaths in office. Johnson assumed the Oval Office after Lincoln was assassinated. Nearly a century later, another Johnson would assume office after Kennedy was assassinated. The fifth president to assume was Gerald Ford after Nixon’s resignation, but we’re not due to analyze that until August or September.

So who was Andrew Johnson?

Johnson has an interesting background. He was born dirt poor in North Carolina in 1808, never got an education, and instead was apprenticed as a tailor. When he learned enough to work the trade himself, he abandoned his engagements and went to Tennessee where he started his own operation. He didn’t learn to read until he was married and his wife taught him.

Johnson was extremely working-class. He eventually got involved in local politics under the Andrew Jackson wing of the Democrat party. He served as a mayor, a state rep, a state senator, and then a member of the House of Representatives. Then he was elected to the Senate out of Tennessee in 1857.

Here’s where it gets crazy: when Tennessee seceded, he was the only sitting senator—in the entire South—who remained Union-loyal. Naturally this garnered him some favorable status with the North, and when the army took control of the state near the end of the war, Lincoln made Johnson the temporary governor.

For both of Lincoln’s presidential runs, he picked pro-Union Democrats as his vice presidents to foster national unity; his first VP was Hannibal Hamlin, who left the Democrats to join the Republicans due to his anti-slavery stance. Hamlin, though, was a northerner from Maine. Johnson’s strong Southern ties were meant to be a unifying asset as the Civil War entered its closing years.

Also, side note, I’d never looked this up before writing this, but somehow Tommy Lee Jones is not directly descended from Andrew Johnson, despite looking exactly like him. I thought for a minute Jones was from Tennessee, because Al Gore is from Tennessee and he was college roommates with Jones or something.

Nope, turns out Tommy Lee Jones is from Texas, and there’s no known connection between him and Johnson. Or maybe Johnson is just an immortal time traveler.

De Facto Inaugural

With all that out of the way, here’s his speech.

It’s short, so take a minute and read it. What strikes me at about the halfway point is just how professional his speech is, especially for a guy who didn’t learn literacy until later in life. In a time of chaos and concern, he made a point of saying that he wasn’t laying out any national policies, he was just going to figure things out as they happened.

Since he had a long political career, he told people to look at his past for questions of how he’d govern in the future. Overall a pretty sensible take in response to such a devastating incident.

Johnson would go on to be the first president ever to be impeached, largely due to his resistance to Congress trying to punish the former Confederate States for their role in the war. He favored leniency and regularly used the limited powers of his office to veto Congress’ punishments.

Congress passed a specific act in 1867 that made it illegal for the president to fire cabinet members who had been approved by the Senate. On its face this is laughably bad and a naked violation of the separation of powers. Congress tried to impose its will on the Executive Branch by removing the president’s ability to staff his own cabinet.

The act, called Tenure of Office, was eventually repealed and declared unconstitutional in 1926—yet in the late 1860s, through the impeachment process, it was almost used to remove a sitting president for refusing an agenda of federal abuse against Southern States.

Anyways…presidential politics are crazy right now, but fret you not: they’ve been crazy for a long time.

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“Electoral Brawlage” examines the first inaugural address of each president in U.S. history, with some commentary and analysis. Check back on Mondays for more. Previous installments include: Washington (1789).

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For videos of these articles and more of my book reviews, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Thank you for reading.