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Show . " Five-Minute Chats About Our Presidents By JAMES MORGAN I . ANDREW JOHNSON ?- -- " C 1808 December 23, Andrew Johnson born at Raleigh, N. C. 1826 Opened a tailor shop at Greenville, Tenn. 1S27 May 17, married Eliza McCardle. I 1S30-33 Mayor of Greenville, j 1835-39 Member of legislature. I 1841-3 Stats stnator. ; 1843-53 Congrfcssman. ! 1853-57 Governor of Tennessee. 1857-62 Senator. 1862-5 Military governor of Tennessee. 1864 Elected vice president 1865 April 15, took the oath as seventeenth president aged fifty-six. 1866 April, congress overrode his veto of the civil rights bill. I ALOUD rapping on his hotel door in Washington awakened the vice president, Andrew Johnson, to the startling news that the president had been mortally shot. Even before Johnson took the oath the next morning, morn-ing, strong men were laying plans, with unseemly haste, to have him reverse re-verse Lincoln's generous policy toward the conquered south. Power quickly cooled the vindictive passions kindled in Johnson by his long, hitter feud with the southern lenders, and he returned to Lincoln's policy of reconciliation. Wisely, no " "x x xx x fv" sx k-SX X"" x ' xN "Z " X v s ' X . X V Andrew Johnson. one was punished for treason. Happily, Hap-pily, vengeance for a great war was not wreaked on any individual. The radicals, who had secretly rejoiced re-joiced in Johnson's accession, turned upon him furiously. It was easy for them to excite the doubt of the north in tills southerner, and to estrange the Kepublicans from this Democrat. For the first time even the sobriety of a president was called Into question. ques-tion. Johnson's unfortunate condition Bt his inauguration as vice president had shocked Charles Sumner Into starting a whispered discussion of ids enforced resignation. When he became be-came president his intemperance In speech lent color to exaggerated reports re-ports of his intemperance in drink. For two years before Lincoln died, the radical lenders had been Insisting that congress, not the president, should fix the terms of peace for the southern south-ern states. They had angrily denounced de-nounced him as a despot, an autocrat and a usurper, because of his policy of reconstruction. And congress had persistently refused to admit the senators sen-ators and representatives from the states which he had reconstructed on his liberal plan. Apnrt from the Kepublican politicians politi-cians and a mere faction of extremists, extrem-ists, the north was In favor of Lincoln's Lin-coln's moderate policies. Hut wbeu It became a question between Johnson dnd the radicals, the radicals won over whelmingly in the congressional election elec-tion of J Slid. With a two-thirds majority In thr new house and senate, the Republican', overrode the president's vetoes, and congress took command of the govern- j menl. The reconstrueled stales were 1 outlawed. The south was divided Into r.iilitary provinces. The ballot win thrust into the unskillful hand of the I freedmen, notwithstanding it was slid fielded the negro in an oui of the north. At the same time 'i large class of Southern whites was disfranchised dis-franchised for disloyalty in the wa-which wa-which left several states to pass under the corrupt government of northern "cat pet buggers" and southern "scalawags," "scal-awags," who gained power by manipulating manipu-lating the ignorant blael: vole and who j held It by force of federal bayonets. As northern "fire caters" pressed to the front, on rue side of the Mason', and Dixon line, soull.ern "lire enters' toot the lead on "the other side. I'.y j night the Ku KP.ix Klan rode their mi-,., mi-,., linr-.es in a campaign of terrorism to frighten the blacks from using the ,,a!iot. p.tv and sectional politics, north imd south, stiil was the marplot of tin Inii.n. As It bad fostered disunion !., ,c the war, It was doing its worst i. j re- cnt reunion, now that the war j iver. THE GREAT IMPEACHMENT n "I 1867 March 2, congress passed the reconstruction act over President Johnson's veto. Also the tenure of office act. 186S Feb. 22, the House Impeached Im-peached Johnson. March 5 to May 26, the Impeachment trial before tha senate, and Johnson acquitted. 1S69 March 4, Johnson retired from the presidency. 1872 Defeated for congresa- man-at-large. 1875 March 12, senator from Tennessee. July 31, died in Carte,-county, Carte,-county, Tenn., aged sixty-six. sixty-six. I ANDKKW JOHNSON'S presidency began with a groat tragedy and came near ending in another. With a two-thirds majority in congress, his opponents overrode ins vetoes, seized control of reconstruction, stripped the president of authority to tisuiiss a postmaster or to get rid of an enemy even in ids own cabinet, and bound him hnnd and foot. Although the president faithfully executed ex-ecuted the reconstruction laws that had been passed over his vetoes, he asserted the right, which never uofore had been denied a president, to choose his own cabinet advisers. When he tried to dismiss Secretary Stanton, Stanton turned the war department into in-to a fort, and for weeks held It, night and day, sleeping and eating at his post. Emotion having supplanted reason, the house hastened to declare that "in the name of the house of representatives representa-tives and of the people of the United States we do impeach Andrew Johnson, John-son, president of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors." Although there were twelve 'ounts Mi the remarkable indictment, no crimes were specified and the misdemeanors that were alleged, consisted almost wholly of the president's attempts to remove Stanton without the consent of the senate. This most important trial in American Ameri-can history began on March fi, ISrtS, with the senate chamber crowded and Chief Justice Chase of the Supreme court in the chair. There was a general expectation that the senate would convict, no matter mat-ter how ilimsy the case, and crowds of eager partisans (locked to Washington Washing-ton to enjoy the spectacle of a White House eviction to see "Andy walk the plank." Senator Hon Wade of Ohio was confident to the last that lie would be called on, as president ot the senate, to take Johnson's place. His Inaugural Is said to have been written and his cabinet seiecteu, won General Butler of Massachusetts for secretary of state. As the roll of the sennte was called, amid a hushed suspense, the Kepublican Kepubli-can senators all voted for conviction, until the chief Justice asked, "Mr. Senator Fessenden, how say you? Is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, president pres-ident of the United Slates, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor as charged In this art icier1 "Not guilty," answered tho distinguished distin-guished senator from Maine, who had x ; ' ) s j -s, y , 4 ' IV" J ' y ' - ' "x I " it . . '. ' I '''' ilM' ii Mrs. Eliza McArdle Johnson. ben In Lincoln's cabinet. Tin- parly iiL'gthnent was broken and It was again br ikcn In another moment by Senator Crimes of Iowa, who had been si ricken wili paralysis under Ihe strain of tb trial, but who niiinaged to si niggle to his feet when his name wuh called. Trumbull of Illinois, an old friend of Lincoln, was another man of ability and distinction among the seven He-publb He-publb an senators who broke away and Joined the I lemocrals. Yel there were Ihirly-flvo votes for conviction against only nineteen for aoqulital. Just one less than Hie two-thirds necessary to convict. I'.y a single vote the uni'jue independence inde-pendence of the American presidency, which makes it the most eminent and powerful political otllee In the world, was saved. Had congress t rl u niphod, the first long step would have been taken Toward congressional government govern-ment on the pattern of Ihe parliamentary parliamen-tary governments of Huropo. (Copyright, 1920, by Jaiaei Mrjrican. ) ' |