Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Johnson, Andrew

Andrew Johnson ascended to the U.S. presidency after the assassination of ABRAHAM LINCOLN. He was the seventeenth president and the first to undergo an IMPEACHMENT trial.

Johnson was born December 29, 1808, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Little is known of his early life. His ancestry is usually traced only to the family of his father, Jacob Johnson, who raised his family in Raleigh and served as the city's constable and sexton, was a porter to the state bank, and was a respected captain in the militia of North Carolina. He was viewed as a hero after saving two men from drowning in a pond outside Raleigh. He died of health

complications only a year later, leaving the Johnson family in poverty.

From the age of ten to the age of 17, Johnson worked as an apprentice to a...