Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnsonwas the 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson became president as he was vice president at the time of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, Johnson came to office as the Civil War concluded. The new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union. His plans did not give protection to the former slaves, and he came into conflict with the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionUS President
Date of Birth29 December 1808
CityRaleigh, NC
CountryUnited States of America
My right side is paralyzed. I need no doctor. I can overcome my own troubles.
If the rabble were lopped off at one end and the aristocrat at the other, all would be well with the country.
Let them impeach and be damned.
It is our sacred duty to transmit unimpaired to our posterity the blessings of liberty which were bequeathed to us by the founders of the Republic.
I have reached the summit of my ambition.
I feel incompetent to perform duties...which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.
Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it and inscribed for our motto: 'Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever,' and exclaim, 'Christ first, our country next!'
Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.
I have performed my duty to my God, my country, and my family. I have nothing to fear in approaching death. To me it is the mere shadow of God's protecting wing . . . Here I will rest in quiet and peace beyond the reach of calumny's poisoned shaft, the influence of envy and jealous enemies, where treason and traitors or State backsliders and hypocrites in church can have no peace.
Notwithstanding a mendacious press; notwithstanding a subsidized gang of hirelings who have not ceased to traduce me, I have discharged all my official duties and fulfilled my pledges. And I say here tonight that if my predecessor had lived, the vials of wrath would have poured out upon him.
There are some who lack confidence in the integrity and capacity of the people to govern themselves. To all who entertain such fears I will most respectfully say that I entertain none . . . If man is not capable, and is not to be trusted with the government of himself, is he to be trusted with the government of others . . . Who, then, will govern? The answer must be, Man for we have no angels in the shape of men, as yet, who are willing to take charge of our political affairs.
I hold it the duty of the executive to insist upon frugality in the expenditure, and a sparing economy is itself a great national source.
Duties have been mine; consequences are God's.
I am sworn to uphold the Constitution as Andy Johnson understands it and interprets it.