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

Works by Andrew Johnson

ed. by Leroy P. Graf and Ralph W. Haskins, Papers of Andrew Johnson, 15 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, Univ. Press of Kansas, 1979
ed. by Richard B. McCaslin, Andrew Johnson: A Bibliography, Greenwood Press, 1992
David Miller DeWitt, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson, Macmillan, 1903
Martin E. Mantel, Johnson, Grant and the Politics of Reconstruction, Columbia Univ. Press, 1973
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
Lloyd Paul Stryker, Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage, Macmillan, 1929
Hans L. Trefousse, Andrew Johnson: A Biography, W.W. Norton, 1989
Robert W. Winston, Andrew Johnson: Plebian and President, 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: Selected Works (Humanities Web)

Biographical Sites

Andrew Johnson [alternate site] (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 (1865) (Vice Presidents of the United States -- U.S. Senate)
Andrew Johnson (North Carolina Encyclopedia -- State Library of North Carolina)
The Politics of Andrew Johnson (History Matters)

Johnson's Impeachment

The Andrew Johnson Impeachment Trial (Famous American Trials)
Supplement to The Congressional Globe Containing the Proceedings of the Senate Sitting for the Trial of Andrew Johnson (Library of Congress)
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (from Harper's Weekly) [alternate site]
Impeachment: Andrew Johnson (The History Place)
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (Constitutional Rights Foundation)
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)

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