Andrew Johnson was a statesman who served as the 17th president of the United States from 1865 to 1869.

Johnson was born in poverty in Raleigh, North Carolina and never attended school. He was apprenticed as a tailor and worked in several frontier towns before settling in Greeneville, Tennessee.

In 1827, at the age of 18, he married 16-year-old Eliza McCardle, the daughter of a local shoemaker. Though she suffered from tuberculosis, Eliza supported her husband's endeavors. She taught him mathematics skills and tutored him to improve his writing.

He served as alderman and mayor in Greeneville, Tennessee before being elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1835. After brief service in the Tennessee Senate, Johnson was elected to the House of Representatives in 1843, where he served five two-year terms. He became governor of Tennessee for four years, and was elected by the legislature to the U.S. Senate in 1857.

Johnson served as vice president for the first month and a half of Abraham Lincoln's 2nd term of office, then ascended to the presidency after Lincoln was shot and killed by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.

On the evening of March 3, 1865, Johnson drank heavily at a party in his honor. Hung over the following morning at the Capitol, he asked Vice President Hamlin for some whiskey, stating "I need all the strength for the occasion I can have." In the Senate Chamber, Johnson delivered a rambling address as Lincoln, the Congress, and dignitaries looked on. Almost incoherent at times, he finally meandered to a halt, whereupon Hamlin hastily swore him in as vice president. Lincoln, who had watched sadly during the debacle, then went to his own swearing-in outside the Capitol, and delivered his acclaimed Second Inaugural Address. Afterwards, Lincoln would state in response to criticism of Johnson's behavior, that "I have known Andy Johnson for many years. He made a bad slip the other day, but you need not be scared. Andy ain't a drunkard."

The choice of Democrat Andrew Johnson as Lincoln's running mate in 1864 was a politically calculated move by the Republican Party to ensure the electoral votes of the border states and send a message of national unity as the Civil War concluded.

Johnson favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union without protection for the former slaves. This led to conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1868. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote.

Johnson's deal to purchase Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million was initially mocked, but has since proven to be a monumental bargain for the nation.

Johnson opposed the Fourteenth Amendment which gave citizenship to former slaves. When the he delayed officially report ratifications of the Fourteenth Amendment by the new Southern legislatures, Congress passed a bill, over his veto, requiring him to do so within ten days of receipt. He still delayed as much as he could, but was required, in July 1868, to report the ratifications making the amendment part of the Constitution.