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Andrew Johnson December 29, 1808 in Raleigh, North Carolina – July 31, 1875 in Carter County, Tennessee Political Party: Democrat (Pro-Union) Term: April 15, 1865 – March 3, 1869 Vice President: None Johnson stumbled upon the presidency in a time where slavery’s impact on the country was just starting to show. Congress was attempting to make sure that the blacks were accepted into the country and given rights as smoothly as possible, but there were many things that the southern states were doing to counteract that. One of those things was the Black Codes, which repressed the all of the newly earned rights of the blacks. They did not allow blacks to vote, it made sure there was a steady flow of black labor in the south, and it also made sure that blacks could not serve on juries. This north was appalled at these laws, and it made them question whether they actually won their war. These laws closely resembled slavery, and the north had just sacrificed many men to ensure that slavery was outlawed. However, these codes made it seem like there was no war in the first place, thus they looked to Johnson to fix it. Johnson did not do well under this pressure, and he almost assisted the south in anything they wanted. Congress repealed his vetoes many times because such a large majority believed in the laws they were passing, even though Johnson did not.
 * Thematic Context**

Another development of slavery’s impact was the Civil Rights Act, or the fourteenth amendment. Like many other legislatures in this period, it was passed over Johnson’s veto, and it was an obvious lash against the black codes. It gave all freeman citizenship, said that states would lose electoral votes if blacks were denied the ballot, and even made sure that Confederate leaders were not allowed to be in Congress. The pressured the presidency because it deeply upset the south because they did not like seeing the blacks almost have the same amount of rights as them. This act was one of the first steps to making slavery nonexistent and giving equality to the blacks. This made northerners happy because it finally made them feel like they had actually won the war and gotten a reward for the blacks.

Andrew Johnson came into the presidency during a time where the country was deeply conflicted with itself over the south’s admittance into the Union; they needed a strong leader to help guide the two groups together peacefully. Johnson was not the man to take on that job for many reasons, one of them being that he was a Democrat in a Republican government. He was not brought into the administration to run it; he was only there to get the votes from Democrats. Unfortunately, Lincoln’s assassination caused him to step into the job, but Congress did not change members. This meant that Johnson would disagree with many of the things that Congress wanted to get done, and it would be extremely difficult to put any positive input into his presidency. These problems were too much for Johnson to overcome, and for that reason, he deserves a D for his efforts as president.
 * Thesis**

Johnson was not inaugurated, so his goals were not broadcasted throughout the country on the first day of his presidency, but one of his goals was obviously to follow Lincoln’s policy of a way to bring the south back into the Union. He believed that the south had never really seceded from Union because the constitution did not allow it, and that means that he thought they should be able to get into the Union easily. This goal was not accomplished at all because Congress passed their Reconstruction Act and overrode Johnson’s veto. This means that Johnson did not at all accomplish his goal of being lenient with the south because Congress’s version was very harsh; it stated that no state would be admitted to the Union without including suffrage for blacks in their state constitutions. This was the worst part of the act to the states, and it was exactly what Johnson was trying to exclude from the prerequisites for the south. He also had the goal of making sure that the south was not punished too harshly for the secession. This goal was also not met because he did not have any power over Congress. It did not matter what Johnson’s opinion was because they just repealed the veto.
 * Goals**

Johnson’s relationship with Congress was absolutely terrible. He was just in the wrong position at the wrong time. He was a Democrat from the south, and he represented the south. However, Congress was largely Republican, and they held all the values from the north. This made it seem like a political Civil War with no blood spilling, and just like the actual Civil War, the north won. Congress had such a large Republican majority that it did not matter whether or not Johnson vetoed a bill because Congress could just overturn that veto and the law would be passed. For example, the Civil Rights Act was one of the first legislatures that Congress overturned the veto for. Even though Johnson did not like the Civil Rights Act and vetoed it for Constitutionality reasons, over two-thirds of Congress voted to overrule that veto, and that is what happened many times. This meant that Johnson did absolutely nothing in office; he was only there to occupy a room. The mutual dislike went so far that the House of Representatives actually successively voted to impeach Johnson from office. This meant that the Senate would then try Johnson in court and vote to decide if the impeachment would actually happen. The Senate did not have a majority vote for impeachment, so Johnson was acquitted. However, he was the first president ever to be tried for impeachment, and that itself speaks towards the horrendous relationship Congress and Johnson really had.
 * Relationship with Congress**

The one positive event that came from Johnson’s presidency was the acquisition of Alaska from Russia. However, while this did happen during Johnson’s term, it was not him who actually negotiated the terms with Russia. The Secretary of State, William Seward, was the one who negotiated the terms of the United States paying Russia $7.2 million for Alaska. Johnson did play a part in this though because he played a part by using the little influence he had to attempt to convince Congress to approve of this deal. Luckily, Congress did accept it and America was given a great economic asset in time. At that time, many people did not understand why we would want Alaska when it was just a lot of ice, so they said it was a mistake; this would prove to be wrong because of its natural resources. Another reason that Congress accepted was because Russia was one of the only world powers that was never against the United States, and Congress did not want to offend Russia by not making the deal. Whatever the reasons, acquiring Alaska was by far the only bright spot by Johnson’s administration.
 * Positive Event**

The worst part of Johnson’s presidency was easily the amount of vetoes he used. He exercised this power 29 times, which was a huge amount in the 1800s. Even Jackson, who was known for using that power, only used it twelve times. Johnson more than doubled that, but more than half of them did not even matter because Congress overrode 15 of them. However, just because Congress was able to get around the vetoes does not mean that it made things go smoother because he vetoed because that is not true. Things would have gotten done much faster if Johnson had not vetoed so many bills and only done that when it would have been bad for the country, not just when it did not follow his personal beliefs. Not only did this slow down Congress, but it put a lot of pressure on it to continually get over a two-thirds vote to override the veto. That is a large majority, and it is not always easy to get that many people to agree on one thing. This was bad because it was during a time where many things had to get passed in order to get Reconstruction going, and vetoes were not helping to get anything done. Overall, Johnson was more of a hindrance than a help when he vetoed all of the bills that he felt a hint of discontent with.
 * Negative Event**

Johnson had the unfortunate timing to come into the presidency when a more selfless person was needed in the presidency to please everyone, and not just what he liked. This led to him not getting anything done, and if nothing gets done, then there cannot be an influential decision to make. Usually an influential decision would come from passing a certain legislature, or set a certain precedent, and the only precedent Johnson set was to be a pain in the butt for Congress. With all this being said, Alaska did affect the economy of America by giving a plentiful supply of natural gas and oil to the country, but the credit for this is hard to give to Johnson because it was not his doing that got Alaska in America’s hands. However, this still happened during his presidency, so he can be credited with affecting future generations with a large export for America; other than that, little can be said for his influence on future administrations or generations. This is a sad fact, but a majority of Johnson’s time was spent vetoing and arguing with Congress, so he did not have time to make any influential decisions.
 * Influential Decision**

The country as a whole was not better after Johnson’s presidency than when it began, which was mainly because the country was in turmoil over the rights for blacks before he took office, and there were still many arguments over the same issue by the end of his presidency. Johnson was the single president that had the largest opportunity to silence that argument and fix the problem. Instead, he fought with Congress for power and lost miserably. Thus, the country’s best chance to solve the problem of discrimination against blacks was lost to Johnson’s ignorance. If that problem was taken care of, then the country would have been in a much better position at the end of the presidency. However, this did not happen, and the country was in the same struggle it was in when Johnson took over in the first place. For these reasons, Johnson and his administration deserve the grade of a D for their efforts in office.
 * Conclusion**

"Andrew Johnson | The White House." //The White House//. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. .
 * Bibliography**

"Andrew Johnson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." //Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia//. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. .

DeGregorio, William A.. //The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents//. New York: Dembner Books :, 2005. Print.