Andrew Johnson

Elected vice in 1864, Andrew Johnson succeeded the assassinated Abraham Lincoln from 1865 as the seventeenth president of the United States; Reconstruction in the south and the purchase of Alaska in 1867 marked his Administration, and an attempt to unseat Edwin Stanton, secretary of war, led Republican senators to bring his impeachment on purely political charges in 1868, but one vote acquitted him, who continued to 1869.

Johnson, a Democrat at the time, ran on the ticket of national Union. He came to office as the Civil War concluded. He newly favored quick restoration of the seceded. His plans gave no protection to the former slaves, and his conflict with the dominators of Congress culminated with the House of Representatives in the first American trial.