[ti:Andrew Johnson: Impeached]
[al:America's Presidents]
[ar:VOA]
[dt:2023-06-25]
[by:www.voase.cn]
[00:11.78]Today we are talking about Andrew Johnson. Johnson was vice president under Abraham Lincoln, and became president in 1865 after Lincoln was killed.
[00:26.79]His name sounds like that of an earlier president, Andrew Jackson, and also like a later president, Lyndon Johnson.
[00:37.33]But Andrew Johnson served in the years just after the Civil War. 
[00:43.77]You can remember Johnson this way: He was the first U.S. president to be impeached.
[01:01.25]Andrew Johnson grew up in a poor family in the southern state of North Carolina.
[01:07.54]As a child, Johnson had little formal education. 
[01:13.12]Instead, he trained to be a tailor.
[01:17.19]When he was a young man, Johnson moved to Tennessee, another southern state.
[01:23.66]He opened a tailoring business, where he made, repaired and sold clothing.
[01:30.34]When he was 18 years old, he married. His wife, Eliza McCardle, was only 16.
[01:38.33]They went on to have five children together.
[01:42.17]Eliza McCardle Johnson did not come from a wealthy family, either. 
[01:47.62]But she was better educated than her husband, and she helped him develop his reading and writing skills.
[01:55.24]She also supported his gift for public speaking. Johnson's speeches were especially popular with workers in their community. 
[02:05.97]They liked his criticism of the state's wealthy planters.
[02:11.27]The workers also liked his politics. 
[02:14.82]At the time, Johnson supported measures that permitted slavery to expand across the country.
[02:23.07]He was clear in his speeches that he did not support equality between whites and African-Americans, whether enslaved or free.
[02:35.21]In time, Johnson held many political offices: mayor, Tennessee's governor, state legislator, and member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
[02:47.71]When the Civil War began, he was a member of the U.S. Senate.
[02:53.61]Although he was a Southerner, he did not believe the Southern states had a right to withdraw from the Union. 
[03:00.77]When the other Southern senators resigned from the U.S. Congress, Johnson stayed.
[03:07.62]As a result, most Southerners considered him a traitor.
[03:12.99]But most Northerners considered him a hero.
[03:28.67]By 1864, the American Civil War was three years old. 
[03:34.57]The conflict was becoming increasingly fierce and bloody.
[03:40.19]That year, the states that remained in the Union held their presidential election.
[03:47.45]The president, Abraham Lincoln, wanted to win re-election and continue directing the Union's war effort. 
[03:56.68]But he was not sure that voters in the opposition Democratic Party would support him.
[04:03.74]So he turned to Andrew Johnson to be his choice for vice president.
[04:11.97]Johnson was a pro-slavery Democrat. 
[04:15.90]Lincoln was an anti-slavery Republican. 
[04:20.43]In the U.S. tradition, presidential candidates do not usually choose someone from a different party to serve as vice president.
[04:29.70]But in this case, Lincoln's Republicans did.
[04:34.21]They called the Lincoln-Johnson partnership the National Union Party.
[04:40.86]Political leaders hoped Johnson would appeal to Democrats who supported the war effort, to workers and to small farmers.
[04:50.26]The plan - along with several military successes for the Union - helped carry the National Union Party to victory.
[05:00.15]The swearing-in ceremony the following March, however, suggested some of the difficulties ahead.
[05:07.81]Johnson was sick.
[05:09.79]To feel better, he had a lot of alcoholic drinks the night before the ceremony. 
[05:16.46]The next morning, he drank some more.
[05:20.27]When Johnson stood to give his speech, he appeared unsteady. 
[05:25.73]He talked about his poor family and his simple beginnings. 
[05:30.39]Then he spoke angrily about wealthy Southern planters who had withdrawn from the Union. 
[05:36.52]He became increasingly confused.
[05:40.92]Other people in the crowd wrote later that they felt embarrassed by Johnson's behavior. 
[05:46.86]And some Republicans began calling already for his resignation - or even impeachment.
[05:54.12]Those critics could not have predicted that in a few weeks, Johnson would be the president.
[06:25.07]A few very important events happened in the weeks after Lincoln and Johnson were sworn-in.
[06:33.22]In April, Lincoln was shot and killed. Johnson took office as the new president.
[06:40.64]The following month, the Civil War officially ended. The Confederate States of America was no more.
[06:51.02]And that December, a majority of states approved the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 
[06:59.50]That amendment ended slavery across the country.
[07:04.71]President Johnson, therefore, guided the process of re-uniting the North and South, and supervised the transition of many African-Americans from slavery to freedom.
[07:19.92]That period in U.S. history is called Reconstruction.
[07:25.00]Members of Congress from the Northern states had been thinking for a long time about how to carry out Reconstruction. 
[07:35.10]The most extreme lawmakers, the Radical Republicans, wanted to punish former Confederate officials and extend political and civil rights to African-Americans.
[07:49.87]Johnson had different ideas. In the first months of his presidency, before Congress had met, Johnson pardoned many former Confederate officials.
[08:02.09]He also let Southerners rebuild their state governments as they wished. 
[08:08.19]Those governments quickly passed laws called Black Codes.
[08:13.84]Black Codes restricted the freedom and rights of African-Americans.
[08:19.81]They permitted white land owners to control African-Americans' labor, much as they had when the workers were slaves. 
[08:28.64]The laws were enforced by all-white police and militia.
[08:34.56]Radical Republicans in Congress - as well as African-Americans - objected strongly to the Black Codes.
[08:43.60]When Congress finally did meet, Republican lawmakers voted for a measure to help and protect formerly enslaved people.
[08:53.29]But Johnson vetoed the measure. He said the bill would give the federal government too much power.
[09:02.77]Johnson's veto was one move in a political war between the president and many Republicans.
[09:10.10]In time, lawmakers got the upper hand.
[09:14.65]The Republican Congress soon took control of Reconstruction. 
[09:19.47]Against Johnson's wishes, they succeeded in passing several major pieces of legislation.
[09:27.61]One was the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
[09:33.20]It recognized that everyone born in the United States - including African-Americans, although not Native Americans - was a citizen.
[09:43.25]Another was the extension of the Freedman's Bureau Act, the measure that Johnson had earlier vetoed. 
[09:51.24]For two more years, the federal government was authorized to help people displaced by the Civil War.
[09:59.56]Finally, lawmakers passed a measure barring the president from dismissing any top officials without the approval of Congress.
[10:10.04]President Johnson ignored the measure. When he believed the secretary of war did not treat him respectfully, the president ordered that man's dismissal.
[10:21.47]In answer, members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson.
[10:29.75]In other words, they charged him with a crime.
[10:33.04]It was the first time in U.S. history that a president has been impeached.
[10:39.63]​But "impeached" does not always mean removed from office.
[10:45.05]The case moves to the Senate. 
[10:47.56]There, senators act as a jury. They decide whether the president is guilty.
[10:53.82]Two-thirds of the Senate must agree to convict the president.
[10:58.81]In the case of Andrew Johnson, 54 senators considered his case. 
[11:05.29]For him to be removed from office, 36 would need to find him guilty.
[11:10.87]But only 35 did. His position was saved by a single vote.
[11:31.98]Although Johnson survived impeachment, he was not nominated as a candidate for president in the next election.
[11:40.21]Instead, he returned to his home in Tennessee, then competed for a seat back in Congress.
[11:48.21]On the third try, he succeeded. Johnson is the first and only - so far - former president to serve as a senator.
[11:57.71]He did not stay in the position long, however.
[12:01.97]A few months after returning to Congress, Johnson died suddenly after suffering a stroke.
[12:09.35]He was 66 years old.
[12:12.11]Today historians have mixed feelings about his presidency. 
[12:17.85]Johnson's supporters approve of his limits on the federal government and belief in a firm separation of powers among Congress, the president and Supreme Court.
[12:30.53]But most historians believe Johnson's Reconstruction policies were extremely damaging. 
[12:39.33]They did not help re-unite the North and South. 
[12:42.92]And they extended the suffering of African-Americans and the country's history of racial oppression.
[12:55.86]I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.