Andrew Johnson runs a close second to James Buchanan for worst President.

The problem with Johnson is that his hatred of the Southern Plantocracy was confused with Union sympathies.

Born on December 29, 1808, in Raleigh, North Carolina, his father died when he was around three leaving his family in poverty.

Andrew had no education, but taught himself to read and write. Sold as an apprentice to a tailor, at 16 he ran away with his brother to Greeneville, Tennessee, where he found work as a tailor.

He married Eliza McCardle when he was 18 and she taught him arithmetic up to basic algebra and tutored him to improve his reading and writing skills.

At twenty one, he organized a workingman’s political party and was elected alderman in 1829. He became mayor in 1833.

Politically, he was attracted to Andrew Jackson’s states’ rights Democratic Party and became a spokesman for the yeomen farmers and mountaineers against the planter elite that held political control.

After five terms in the House he was elected governor of Tennessee, serving from 1853 to 1857, then as a Democrat to the United States Senate, serving from October 8, 1857 to March 4, 1862.

At the time of secession of the Confederacy, Johnson was the only Senator from the seceded states to continue participation in Congress.

His explanation for this decision was “Damn the negroes, I am fighting those traitorous aristocrats, their masters.”

Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of occupied Tennessee in March 1862. His “unwavering commitment to the Union” was a significant factor in his choice as vice-president by Lincoln.

Johnson vigorously suppressed the Confederates and later spoke out for black suffrage, arguing,

“The better class of them will go to work and sustain themselves, and that class ought to be allowed to vote, on the ground that a loyal negro is more worthy than a disloyal white man.”

According to tradition and local lore, on August 8, 1863, Johnson freed his personal slaves.

On April 14th, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The morning after, Johnson was sworn in as President. He was the first to succeed to the U.S. Presidency upon assassination of a President and the third V.P. to become a president upon the death of the incumbent.

He advocated punishment for the Plantocracy and pardons for those “whom they have misled and deceived…to maintain their control of Southern state governments, Southern lands, and black people,”

To W.H. Holden, the man he appointed governor of North Carolina: “I intend to confiscate the lands of these rich men whom I have excluded from pardon by my proclamation, and divide the proceeds thereof among the families of the wool hat boys, the Confederate soldiers, whom these men forced into battle to protect their property in slaves.”

Johnson allowed the Southern states to hold elections resulting in prominent ex-Confederates being elected to the U.S. Congress. Congress, however, did not seat them.

All of the Johnson-appointed governments in the South passed Black Codes that gave freedmen second class status.

Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, leader of the moderate Republicans, took affront at the Black Codes, and proposed the first Civil Rights bill.

In a letter to Governor Thomas C. Fletcher of Missouri, Johnson wrote, “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men.“

The Democratic Party, proclaiming itself the party of white men, North and South, aligned with Johnson.

The Republicans in Congress overrode his veto (the Senate by the vote of 33:15, the House by 182:41) and the Civil Rights Bill became law.

Johnson also unsuccessfully sought to block ratification of the Fourteenth amendment.

There were two attempts to remove Johnson from office. The first occurred in 1867, the second in 1868.

The second was due to a violation the Tenure of Office Act, a law enacted by Congress in March 1867 over Johnson’s veto which specifically designed to protect Edwin Stanton. Johnson had claimed it was unconstitutional.

(In Myers v. United States in 1926, the Supreme Court ruled that the law was indeed unconstitutional.)

As the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority for conviction in impeachment trials, Johnson was acquitted; the 35-19 vote was one less than the majority required.

Johnson’s last significant act was granting unconditional amnesty to all Confederates on Christmas Day, 1868. This was after the election of U.S. Grant to succeed him.

As to ‘pluses’ Johnson did force the French out of Mexico, Secretary of State Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million; “Seward’s Folly”

Other than that, Johnson’s presidency remains an example of how mistaking motives can lead to such a terribly wrong appointment.