Andrew Johnson took office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. A Democrat from Tennessee, Johnson was the Vice President nominee in 1864 because the Republicans wanted to show that their party was for all loyal men, even southerners.
When he became president, the Civil War had just ended and Johnson faced the challenge of mending a broken nation. Johnson favored leniency for the South. He handed out many pardons to member of the Confederacy, pushed to restore civilian control in the Southern states and shied away from implementing voting rights for blacks. From the beginnin…
