Andrew Johnson Research Paper

The amendment granted the right to vote to all males twenty-one and older. Johnson opposed the amendment on the grounds it did not apply to Southerners who were without any representation in Congress. Tennessee was the only Southern state to ratify the amendment. The others, encouraged in part by Johnson, refused. Moderate voters in the North began leaning toward the Radicals. The Radicals swept the elections of November 1866, resulting in a two-thirds anti-Johnson majority in both the House and Senate. With this majority, three consecutive vetoes by Johnson were overridden by Congress in 1867, thus passing the Military Reconstruction Act, Command of the Army Act, and Tenure of Office Act against his wishes, (Les Benedict 18).

To the Radical Republicans, Johnson's plan seemed no better than Lincoln's because it failed to address the needs of former slaves in three prominent areas: land, voting rights, and protection under the law. Confederates states, however, readily committed to the conditions put forth in the Presidential Reconstruction plan, and were readmitted to the Union. A few years later, the Reconstruction Act of 1867 was passed, which did not recognize the governments formed under Lincoln and Johnson's plans. Through the Reconstruction Act, Tennessee was the only former Confederate State recognized as having been readmitted to the Union because it had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. In order for the rest of the former Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union through the Reconstruction Act, each state had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, also. The Republicans introduced the Fifteenth Amendment after the election of 1868 because they feared that Pro-Confederate Southern whites might try to place limits on black suffrage. In order to prevent this, the Fifteenth Amendment states that no one can be kept from voting because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Through the different plans that were proposed by the three different Presidents in office during the Reconstruction period, the Thirteenth,

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), was a highly talented and celebrated African American writer. He was a poet, songwriter, novelist, literary critic, and essayist. Along with his wide-ranging literary accomplishments, Johnson also served as a school principal, professor of literature at Fisk University, attorney, a diplomatic consul for the United States in Venezuelaand Nicaragua, and secretary for the NAACP from 1920-1930. He is considered one of the founders of the Harlem Renaissance and the first "modern" African American.

Something that President Johnson did to start the period of Reconstruction was to pardon all Confederates soldiers if they plead loyalty and alliance to the Union. No one was held accountable for what happened, one man was murder. Also he demanded that the states in the south abolish slavery and change their constitution in order to be accepted into the United States. Those were Andrew Johnson terms for Reconstructions. Not very efficient because it leaves all these defeated soldiers, filled with anger and violence in the streets. Then Congress tried to pass the Civil Rights bill and the 14th amendment which

Johnson issued thirteen though sand five hundred Presidential pardons to those he earlier hoped to keep out. There were many ex-Confederates who were elected to Congress. Also the state legislatures in the south demoted blacks to a second class status, and this was known as the Black Codes. These codes states blacks were not allowed to vote, be on juries, testify against whites, could not interracially marry, and it was most unfair in Mississippi and South Carolina. Johnson like Lincoln wanted to restore the Union in as little time as possible.

First, he pushed for the Thirteenth Amendment, which actually ended slavery in the United States, and perhaps more importantly, he continued the war to its conclusion and demanded that the end of slavery and the return of the southern states to the Union be conditions for

Congress passes the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which divided the South into districts and required Southern states to approve the 14th Amendment to grant blacks citizenship, before rejoining the Union. Later, congress gives African Americans the right to vote by ratifying the 15th Amendment. The Reconstruction established the South’s first state-funded public school systems, created a just taxation legislation, and passed laws against discrimination and economic development programs. The approach of Congress was different than Johnson’s plan, because they worked to improve the lives of African Americans by passing laws in their favor, and expanding their rights. Congress did not care what the South wanted, and expected the South to abide by their rules. On the other hand, Johnson wanted to preserve the nation, and did not want to do anything to anger the South. Moreover, he was a strong believer in states rights, and the idea that the federal government had no right to enforce restrictive laws on the entire country.

Andrew Jackson was thought to be conceived on March 15, 1767 close to Waxhaw, SC. His dad was Irish; he had passed away not long after his birth. Jackson 's mother proceeded in the genuine frontier style of the day and raised Andrew and his three siblings in the backwood of early America settlements. At the age of 9, Jackson and his sibling were caught after the Battle of Hanging Rock and sent to

Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in the Carolina’s. His parents, Andrew and Elizabeth Hutchinson Jackson, were Irish immigrants that had immigrated right before Jackson was born. Just weeks before Jackson was born his father died suddenly with an unknown cause of death. Jackson had a very troubling childhood, as a teenager Jackson’s older brother was killed in battle and at the age of 13 him and his brother were captured by the British where there, Jackson would have received his permanent scar on his hand and face from not following orders from the Redcoats. While being captured both him and his brother had received smallpox but his brother would not recover and at the death of

By establishing governments in the South reliable to the Union and with the determination to separate whites from the Confederacy, Lincoln arranged a pardon to Confederates whom acknowledged the elimination of slavery; however he didn’t propose anything towards unrestricted blacks. Lincoln couldn’t live to be in charge of the Reconstruction – due to being assassinated in the presidential box at Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C – but his ideas evolved to bring forth the limitation to black suffrage in the postwar South. President Abraham appointed intellectual beings and those who shadowed their cause, as soldiers, as the only commendable

He was raised by his mother in which was a widower. She raised him on a settlement near the North and South Carolina border. He had a large family of Irish immigrant farmers. His mother wanted him to become a minister but he went in a completely different direction at a young age. Young Andrew began to cuss, fight, and even pull pranks on different people in the town.

     Andrew Johnson, the 17th president, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina on December 29th, 1808. At the young age of three years old, Andrew’s father. Jacob Johnson passed away while drowning in an attempt to save the life of Editor Henderson from the Raleigh Gazette in 1812. Andrew’s mother, Mary Johnson, worked hard as a seamstress and washerwoman in order to support Andrew and his three brothers, and her; but she was unable to afford to send them to school. From the age of 14 until 16 he worked as an apprentice to a tailor but talked to his mother and stepfather about moving and starting a new life. He then opened a tailor shop in Greenville, Tennessee, married Eliza McCardle on May 17, 1827 and

Andrew was elected town alderman for Greeneville, Tennessee in 1829 . A couple years later, a new constitution was going to be passed. The constitution was proposed to the public for voting, and Andrew spoke widely for its adoption: the successful campaign provided him with statewide exposure. On January 4, his fellow aldermen elected him mayor of Greeneville. In 1835, after winning a debate, he took a seat in the Tennessee House of Representative legislature. Ever since then, he had never lost a race and held that seat for 30 years but he changed his side to a democrat and soon became a strong upholder of the Democratic Party. Andrew saw election to Congress as the next step in his career. He won the election and became a congressman. Andrew

During his election campaign and throughout the early years of the Civil War, Lincoln vehemently denied the rumour that he would mount an attack on slavery. At the outbreak of fighting, he pledged to 'restore the Union, but accept slavery where it existed ', with Congress supporting his position via the Crittendon-Johnson Resolutions. However, during 1862 Lincoln was persuaded for a number of reasons that Negro emancipation as a war measure was both essential and sound. Public opinion seemed to be going that way, Negro slaves were helping the Southern war effort, and a string of defeats had left Northern morale low. A new moral boost to the cause might give weary Union soldiers added impetus in the fight. Furthermore, if the Union fought against slavery, Britain and France could not help the other side, since their 'peculiar institution ' was largely abhorred in both European nations. Having eased the American public into the idea, through speeches that hinted at emancipation, Lincoln finally signed the Proclamation on January 1st 1863, releasing all slaves behind rebel lines. Critics argued that the proclamation went little further than the Second Confiscation Act and it conveniently failed to release prisoners behind Union lines. Nevertheless, Henry Adams summed up public reaction to the Proclamation as an 'almost convulsive reaction in our favour '.

After the Civil War, there were two major paths of reconstruction–presidential reconstruction and radical reconstruction. Presidential reconstruction was headed by President Andrew Johnson, who believed that the southern states had never given up their rights to govern themselves, and failed to institute any sort of voting requirements. Aside from having to take an oath of allegiance to the Union and pay off war debt, the South was free to do what they like. This leniency led to the instillation of Black Codes and the continuation of wrongful treatment of African Americans. This caused the Republicans in Congress to take control of Reconstruction in the South after Johnson’s