Andrew Johnson Was a Fearless
Andrew Johnson was a fearless, brave, noble, and inspired person, blind to the
subtleties of human relations, deaf to the words of others, and convinced that he
and he alone knew the truth. One word to describe him, pigheaded, and certainty
not like some of our other contemporary political leaders. He was not born with a
silver spoon in his mouth, though more like a silver foot in his mouth. Johnson s
father died when he was four; there was no money left, so he was sent out as an
apprentice when he was nine. He never went to school, but taught himself to read
when he was seventeen. He became a tailor and ended up in Greeneville, Tennessee
when he was twenty two. In his 20 s he learned that he was good not only as a tailor,
but at... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
Surprisingly on April 14, 1856, Lincoln was shot at Ford s Theater, and died the next
morning on April 15th. In addition, Andrew Johnson became the President of the
United States all in the same day.
During his swearing in ceremony in March of 1865, Johnson was suffering from
typhoid fever and a hangover. Beforehand, to spruce himself up, he downed three
glasses of whiskey. When it was his turn to speak in the Senate chamber, he got up
in front of hundreds of important leaders in the country and proceeded to dance on
the podium with a lampshade on his head. I mean, he rambled, he muttered, he
swayed, he repeated himself, and at one point, he referred to the diplomats in front
of him as You with all your fine feathers and gewgaws. Finally, he held his lips to
the bible on which he had been sworn in, saying loud enough for everyone to hear, I
kiss this book in the face of my nation of the United States.
During office, he supported a policy of Reconstruction after the Civil War. The
Radical Republicans in Congress were furious at his leniency toward ex confederates
and his lack of concern for ex slaves, demonstrated by his veto of civil rights bills and
opposing the Fourteenth Amendment. To protect Radical Republicans in Johnson s
administration and minimize the strength of the president, Congress passed the
Tenure of Office Act in 1867, which prohibited the president from dismissing office
holders without the Senate s