Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee Unionist and Lincoln's running mate on a wartime unity ticket, became president after the assassination in 1865, at the dawn of Reconstruction.

He clashed fiercely with the Radical Republicans in Congress over how to rebuild the South and protect newly freed people, favoring lenient terms for former Confederates. When he defied the Tenure of Office Act, the House impeached him in 1868; the Senate acquitted him by a single vote. He left office deeply weakened, his conciliatory policies toward the South casting a long shadow over Reconstruction.

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