Vinny+Presidential+Wiki-AJ

= **President Andrew Johnson ** = Born: December 29, 1808 Died: July 31, 1875 (66 Years of Age) Term in Office: April 15, 1865 – March 4, 1869 Political Party I: Democratic Party Political Party II: National Union Party (from 1864-1868) Vice President: None Grade: D- President Andrew Johnson was not who the typical American would picture as a well-organized and respected president in the first century of the United States’ independence, and they have good reasons why. For one, President Johnson was not voted into office, and became the first president to be so. Proceeding President Lincoln would be a tough task for anyone, but for a War Democrat whose main purpose was to attract votes for Lincoln, it was even more difficult because he did not fit the bill for the Republican Congress that Lincoln left behind. Johnson’s behaviors and actions crudely shaped the American Identity because as time trickled on after the Civil War, Americans found it difficult to go back to their old lifestyles of the pre-war era. As the country stepped into its future, its identity was altered. White-supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) arose and civil service reform became a prominent topic among Americans from all corners of the country. All of a sudden, from the beginning to the end of the civil war, civilization changed as if glancing into a parallel universe. With reconstruction, two new Amendments, the Civil Rights Act, and the first Presidential impeachment, the Identity of America was developed into a photo printed on a broken glass plate.
 * American Identity **

Andrew Johnson, the “wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time,” was the polar opposite of what the country required in its time of healing. Some scholars and historians claim that Andrew Johnson was the worst president in American history (one survey taken since 1948 has shown Johnson to actually be the third worst president in American history). Without the attention required from his Congress, and without the respect from the American citizens, Andrew Johnson was doomed to failure from the beginning of his short-lived presidency, which is why Andrew Johnson deserves a D- for his performance as President. Andrew Johnson’s goals were not specifically revealed to the country because he was never inaugurated and therefore never gave an inaugural speech outlining his goals as president. However, is seemed to America that Johnson’s goals were similar, if not the same, as Lincoln’s when it came to reconstruction. Although the Democrats during the post-war era were mostly opposed to unity, Johnson went against his party and supported re-admittance into the Union for the southern states. Johnson also supported Lincoln’s swift “10% Plan” which allowed the seceded states to once again annex into the Union with a 10% pledge of allegiance to the country. Against the will of the President, any of the Laws and Acts that Johnson vetoed, Congress overruled anyway. This back-and-forth describes how Johnson’s relationship with Congress was: terrible. The largely Republican Congress felt that, with the annexation of the Southern States, they would lose many of the powers they grew to love when the Democrats seceded from the Union. This fear, along with Lincoln’s assassination, leaving them without a Republican President, caused Congress (that was still mainly Republicans) to overrule Johnson’s veto to a handful of Bills and Acts like the Second Freedman’s Bureau Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Tenure of Office Act, and the Command of the Army Act. Unfortunately, Andrew Johnson could never find a foothold in the Legislative Branch. When he toured the country with Stephen Douglas in lieu of the 1866 Congressional election to persuade Americans to vote for candidates with a soft spot for the South, he ended up reeling in more votes for the radical Republican party. As his term as president began to wane, Congress became so disgruntled with Johnson that they set him up with the Tenure of Office Act. This act required the President to have Senate consent before firing or laying off any officials of government, so when Johnson fired his Secretary of War without the consent of the Senate, Congress impeached Johnson on terms of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Throughout his entire Presidency, Johnson was stoned with the harsh powers of the system of Checks and Balances. For the duration of his presidency, Andrew Johnson’s untimely placement in the Executive Branch impacted his credibility. However, Johnson oversaw many monumental steps towards total human suffrage within the time frame of his presidency. Several incredible and positive things that Johnson’s presidency brought to the Union were the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments which were ratified within three years of each other. Both the Thirteenth and the Fourteenth Amendments brought to light the fact that slavery was illegal and black males had every right that a white man had. With many other positive government intervention in things like the Civil Rights Act and the purchase of Alaska, Johnson’s presidency turned out to be not as bad as it seemed on the outside. As with every up, there has to be a down. With President Johnson, this was no understatement. The first bad thing to harm Johnson in his presidency was Abraham Lincoln’s death. Without Lincoln, Johnson was first in line to become President and from there, there was no turning back. Many of the prejudiced and supremacist acts took place during his presidency and it was difficult to maintain the peace and well-being of the country because only a minority of the Americans respected and liked Johnson. Sure, the Black Codes of 1865 may have seemed like a good idea to Johnson at the time, but there was no positive outcome of the laws to keep blacks in order. With sharecropping and intimidation alike, white supremacists held power over the newly-freed blacks and held a grudge against the government. Johnson, absorbing most of the force from the new feudalist society of free men, did nothing to stop the prejudiced behaviors. Many social and governmental issues arose during Johnson’s presidency, and for his incompetence or unwillingness to tend to the problem, Johnson’s negatives turned into maelstroms of disastrous damage which were heralded as the reason for Johnson’s unpopularity among the countrymen. Johnson’s decisions greatly impacted the whole country, and that includes his succeeding president, Ulysses Grant. Johnson took leaps and bounds towards reconstruction, further empowering his reign over the swaying American identity and the permanent step in the direction of “Unity.” Along with many precedents set while he was in office, Johnson’s sheer idiocy revolutionized the meaning of a bad President. For one, he was the first non-elected, non-inaugurated President which immediately cast a shadow over what light he shone as he rose to power and it let the country realize that the assassination of Lincoln was no small matter, no matter what beliefs somebody held. For every President delineating from the seventeenth President of America, it was simple to step into office without much haste and without a figurative bounty on their heads. After the poor political powers Johnson had were found useless at best, the country now had a new idea of what a bad President was and how lucky they were to find a new man to run the country. Quite unfortunately, the country was not better off after Andrew Johnson’s term had expired. For one, no matter how hard Congress tried, slavery seemed to be a boomerang topic, always returning for more play. The only improvements solidified during Johnson’s Presidency were the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments along with the Civil Rights Act in which Johnson technically never took part. So while some may argue that Johnson was an important milestone in the reconstruction era, they would be mistaken because the people of the Democratic Republic essentially ruled over Johnson, and so to the demise of order. With that said, Johnson, who deserves a D-, may have been one of the worst Presidents that the United States of America has ever seen.
 * Presidential Evaluation **

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Bailey, Thomas A., David M. Kennedy, and Lizabeth Cohen. The American Pageant: A History of the Republic. 12 ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. Print.

"Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikimedia, n.d. Web. 2 Nov. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States>.