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James K. Polk

James Knox Polk (2 November 1795 - 15 June 1849) was the 11th president of the United States (1845–49). A Democrat, Polk served as the 13th speaker of the House of Representatives (1835–39)—the only president to have served as House speaker—and governor of Tennessee (1839–41). Polk was the surprise (dark horse) candidate for president in 1844, defeating Henry Clay of the rival Whig Party by promising to annex Texas. Polk was a leader of Jacksonian Democracy during the Second Party System. His nickname was "Young Hickory" because of his close association with "Old Hickory", Andrew Jackson.

Quotes

 * Well may the boldest fear and the wisest tremble when incurring responsibilities on which may depend our country's peace and prosperity, and in some degree the hopes and happiness of the whole human family.
 * Inaugural Address (4 March 1845).

 * By the theory of our Government majorities rule, but this right is not an arbitrary or unlimited one. It is a right to be exercised in subordination to the Constitution and in conformity to it. One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights. Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression.
 * Inaugural Address (4 March 1845) Wikiquote-logo.svg QOTD 2007·11·02 Sound file

 * Foreign powers do not seem to appreciate the true character of our Government.
 * Inaugural Address (4 March 1845).

 * The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.
 * Inaugural Address (4 March 1845).

 * Although in our country the Chief Magistrate must almost of necessity be chosen by a party and stand pledged to its principles and measures, yet in his official action he should not be the President of a part only, but of the whole people of the United States. While he executes the laws with an impartial hand, shrinks from no proper responsibility, and faithfully carries out in the executive department of the Government the principles and policy of those who have chosen him, he should not be unmindful that our fellow-citizens who have differed with him in opinion are entitled to the full and free exercise of their opinions and judgments, and that the rights of all are entitled to respect and regard.
 * Inaugural Address (4 March 1845).

 * It becomes us, in humility, to make our devout acknowledgments to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, for the inestimable civil and religious blessings with which we are favored.
 * First Annual Message to Congress (2 December 1845).

 * The passion for office among members of Congress is very great, if not absolutely disreputable, and greatly embarrasses the operations of the government. They create offices by their own votes and then seek to fill them themselves.
 * Diary entry (22 June 1846).

 * Thank God, under our Constitution there was no connection between church and state.
 * Diary entry (14 October 1846).

 * There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress, as well as others, than I had any conception [of], before I became President of the U.S.
 * Diary entry (16 December 1846).

 * With me it is emphatically true that the presidency is "no bed of roses."
 * Diary entry (4 September 1847).

 * Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good. The gratitude of the nation to the sovereign arbiter of all human events should be commensurate with the boundless blessings which we enjoy. Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world.
 * Fourth Annual Message to Congress (5 December 1848).

 * No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. If he entrusts the details and smaller matters to subordinates constant errors will occur. I prefer to supervise the whole operations of the government myself rather than entrust the public business to subordinates, and this makes my duties very great.
 * Diary entry (29 December 1848).

 * I am heartily rejoiced that my term is so near its close. I will soon cease to be a servant and will become a sovereign.
 * Diary entry (13 February 1849).

 * I love you Sarah. For all eternity, I love you.
 * Last words, spoken to his wife (15 June 1849); as quoted in Famous Last Words: The Ultimate Collection of Finales and Farewells (2004) by Laura Ward.

Quotes about Polk

 * For the next ten years the question of the admission of Texas as a state of the Union was a burning issue in American politics. As each new state demanded entry into the Union so the feeling for and against slavery ran higher. The great Abolitionist journalist, William Lloyd Garrison, called for a secession of the Northern states if the slave state of Texas was admitted to the Union. The Southerners, realising that Texan votes would give them a majority in the Senate if this vast territory was admitted as a number of separate states, clamoured for annexation. The capitalists of the East were committed, through the formation of land companies, to exploit Texas, and besides the issue of dubious stocks by these bodies vast quantities of paper notes and bonds of the new Texan Republic were floated in the United States. The speculation in these helped to split the political opposition of the Northern states to the annexation. Even more important was the conversion of many Northerners to belief in the “Manifest Destiny” of the United States. This meant that their destiny was to spread across the whole of the North American continent. The Democratic Party in the election of 1844 called for the occupation of Oregon as well as the annexation of Texas, thus holding out to the North the promise of Oregon as a counterweight to Southern Texas. The victory of the Democratic candidate, James K. Polk, was interpreted as a mandate for admitting Texas, and this was done by joint resolution of Congress in February 1845.
 * Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Volume IV: The Great Democracies (1958), p. 1111
 * It remained to persuade Mexico to recognise this state of affairs, and also to fix the boundaries of Texas. President Polk was determined to push them as far south as possible, and war was inevitable. It broke out in May 1846. Meanwhile a similar train of events was unfolding on the other side of the continent. All this time American penetration of the West had continued, often with grim experiences of starvation and winter snows. Nothing could stop the migration towards the Pacific. The lure of the rich China trade and the dream of controlling the Western Ocean brought the acquisition of California to the fore, and gave her even more importance in American eyes than Texas. In June 1846 the American settlers in California, instigated from Washington, raised the Bear Flag as their standard of revolt and declared their independence on the Texan model. Soon afterwards American forces arrived and the Stars and Stripes replaced the Bear.
 * Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Volume IV: The Great Democracies (1958), pp. 111-112

 * Polk was by nature an introvert but out of political necessity forced himself to mingle. He had few genuinely close friends. Still, he was generally well liked. A classic overachiever, he was very ambitious. Biographer Charles C. Sellers attributed his "feverish drive" to "early physical inferiority," "frustrations of his boyish ambitions," and "his mother's stern gospel of duty." To compensate for a lack of brilliance and charisma, he, according to sellers, "drove himself ruthlessly, exploiting the abilities and energies he did possess to an extent that few men can equal." Yet he kept a firm rein on his ambition, never letting it threaten his career.
 * William B. DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (1983), p. 153

 * President James K. Polk, who presided over the invasion of Mexico, saw its significance as an example of how a democracy could carry on and win a foreign war with as much "vigor" as authoritarian governments were able to do. He believed that an elected civilian government with its volunteer people's army was even more effective than European monarchies in the quest for empire. The victory over Mexico proved to the European powers, he felt, that the United States was their equal. Standing tall through military victory over a weak country: it was not Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush who thought up that idea. The tradition is as old as the United States itself.
 * Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (2014)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: James K. Polk


text:
Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850), also known as "Old Rough and Ready," was the twelfth president of the United States, serving from 1849 to 1850. Taylor was noted for his extensive military career, becoming the first president not previously elected to any other public office. He was the second president to die in office.

Quotes

 * In conclusion I congratulate you, my fellow-citizens, upon the high state of prosperity to which the goodness of Divine Providence has conducted our common country. Let us invoke a continuance of the same protecting care which has led us from small beginnings to the eminence we this day occupy.
 * Inaugural Address (March 5, 1849).

Attributed

 * (Regarding the Compromise of 1850) Relying on the assurances of distinguished southern statesmen that the North was "aggressive," and that the "compromises of the Constitution" were in danger, [Taylor] had written a letter to his son-in-law, Jefferson Davis, saying that he was ready to stand with the South in maintaining all the guarantees of the Constitution; but that since it had become his duty to look carefully into the merits of the controversy, he had satisfied himself that the exactions and purposes of the South were intolerant and revolutionary. He added that he regarded Davis as the chief conspirator in the scheme which [Robert] Toombs, [Thomas Lanier] Clingman, and [Alexander H.] Stephens had enunciated.
 * As recounted in Life of Thurlow Weed, including his autobiography and a memoir (1884). Volume II, page 177.

Quotes about Taylor

 * The American advance was rapidly gathering momentum. The Mexican army of the North was twice beaten by General Zachary Taylor, a future President. A force under General Winfield Scott was landed at Vera Cruz and marched on Mexico City. The capital fell to the Americans after a month of street fighting in September 1847. On this expedition a number of young officers distinguished themselves. They included Captain Robert E. Lee, Captain George B. McClellan, Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant, and Colonel Jefferson Davis. Mexico sued for peace, and by the treaty which followed she was obliged not only to recognise the annexation of Texas, but also to cede California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
 * Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Volume IV: The Great Democracies (1958), p. 112

 * Zachary Taylor stubbornly fought for his position, even if it meant a conflagration that could lead to civil war. Despite being a southerner, he was prepared to blockade major ports in the South if the southerners subverted the laws. If that didn't work, he would go a step further and send troops into New Mexico to repel an attack from Texas. Had he survived, he would have fought vehemently to oppose the Compromise of 1850 and he wold have fought vehemently to oppose the Compromise of 1850 and it is hard to imagine he would not have vetoed at least some portion of it, whether packaged as an omnibus bill or pushed as individual pieces of legislation, particularly the Fugitive Slave Act.
 * Jared Cohen, Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America (2019), p. 81
 * By all accounts, Taylor was genuinely warm, open, and plainspoken. He was said to be a bit shy before new acquaintances but warmed readily. He stammered occasionally and thought carefully before speaking. Far from being the unmannerly boor that his long years in the military and careless dress led many to expect, he was, according to biographer Holman Hamilton, "a gentleman, inherently gracious, even gallant where women were concerned, and an affable and agreeable host... true to the Virginia-Kentucky tradition of unstudied manliness."
 * William A. DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (1984), p. 175

title: Zachary Taylor


text:
Millard Fillmore

Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the thirteenth president of the United States, serving from 1850 until 1853, and the last member of the Whig Party to hold the nation's highest office. He succeeded from the vice presidency on the death of President Zachary Taylor, becoming the second U.S. president to gain the office in this manner. Fillmore was instrumental in the passing of the Compromise of 1850, a bargain that led to a brief truce in the battle over the expansion of slavery. After the Whig Party broke up, he joined the Know Nothing movement and unsuccessfully ran in the 1856 presidential election as the nominee of the American Party.

1840s

 * An honorable defeat is better than a dishonorable victory.
 * Speech (13 September 1844), Buffalo, New York, quoted in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser (14 September 1844). Fillmore won the Whig nomination for governor of New York, and in his acceptance speech he hoped his supporters would not resort to dirty tricks. The newspaper summary was: "He entreated them to enter the contest with zeal and enthusiasm; but as they valued the sacredness of their cause, and the stability of their principles, to resort to no unfair means: that an honorable defeat was better than a dishonorable victory." He ended up losing the election to Silas Wright.

 * May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not.
 * Letter to Henry Clay (11 November 1844), as quoted in Presidential Wit from Washington to Johnson (1966) edited by Bill Adler

1850s

 * God knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil, for which we are not responsible, and we must endure it, and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the constitution, till we can get rid of it without destroying the last hope of free government in the world.
 * Regarding enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), as quoted in Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President (1959), by Robert J. Rayback, p. 252 and p. 271

Third Annual Message to Congress (1852)

 * Third Annual Message to Congress (6 December 1852)

 * The whole country is full of enterprise. Our common schools are diffusing intelligence among the people and our industry is fast accumulating the comforts and luxuries of life. This is in part owing to our peculiar position, to our fertile soil and comparatively sparse population; but much of it is also owing to the popular institutions under which we live, to the freedom which every man feels to engage in any useful pursuit according to his taste or inclination, and to the entire confidence that his person and property will be protected by the laws. But whatever may be the cause of this unparalleled growth in population, intelligence, and wealth, one thing is clear — that the Government must keep pace with the progress of the people. It must participate in their spirit of enterprise, and while it exacts obedience to the laws and restrains all unauthorized invasions of the rights of neighboring states, it should foster and protect home industry and lend its powerful strength to the improvement of such means of intercommunication as are necessary to promote our internal commerce and strengthen the ties which bind us together as a people. It is not strange, however much it may be regretted, that such an exuberance of enterprise should cause some individuals to mistake change for progress and the invasion of the rights of others for national prowess and glory. The former are constantly agitating for some change in the organic law, or urging new and untried theories of human rights. The latter are ever ready to engage in any wild crusade against a neighboring people, regardless of the justice of the enterprise and without looking at the fatal consequences to ourselves and to the cause of popular government. Such expeditions, however, are often stimulated by mercenary individuals, who expect to share the plunder or profit of the enterprise without exposing themselves to danger, and are led on by some irresponsible foreigner, who abuses the hospitality of our own Government by seducing the young and ignorant to join in his scheme of personal ambition or revenge under the false and delusive pretense of extending the area of freedom. These reprehensible aggressions but retard the true progress of our nation and tarnish its fair fame. They should therefore receive the indignant frowns of every good citizen who sincerely loves his country and takes a pride in its prosperity and honor.

 * In less than ten years her Government was changed from a republic to an empire, and finally, after shedding rivers of blood, foreign powers restored her exiled dynasty and exhausted Europe sought peace and repose in the unquestioned ascendency of monarchical principles. Let us learn wisdom from her example. Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom. Our own free institutions were not the offspring of our Revolution. They existed before. They were planted in the free charters of self-government under which the English colonies grew up, and our Revolution only freed us from the dominion of a foreign power whose government was at variance with those institutions. But European nations have had no such training for self-government, and every effort to establish it by bloody revolutions has been, and must, without that preparation, continue to be a failure. Liberty, unregulated by law, degenerates into anarchy, which soon becomes the most horrid of all despotisms. Our policy is wisely to govern ourselves, and thereby to set such an example of national justice, prosperity, and true glory, as shall teach to all nations the blessings of self-government, and the unparalleled enterprise and success of a free people.
 * Referring to the French Revolution

Quotes about Fillmore

 * By almost universal agreement, the most vague and ineffectual of all Presidents was Millard Fillmore, who succeeded to the office in 1850 upon the death of Zachary Taylor, and spent the next three years demonstrating how the country would have been run if they had just propped Taylor up in a chair with cushions.
 * Bill Bryson, in I'm a Stranger Here Myself (US) / Notes From a Big Country (UK) (1998)

 * Fillmore fought for compromise, but took no principled position on any of his positions. Never expecting to be president, he was thrust into battle without a plan. After firing his cabinet, he was left without advisors just as he began his administration. He relied on Clay, Douglas, and others to orchestrate a compromise that would stem the threat of secession and even war. He took a backseat to their leadership and would have likely signed almost anything that passed both chambers of Congress.
 * Jared Cohen, Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America (2019), p. 81
 * Fillmore was a likeable fellow. He mixed readily. He was most persuasive in small groups; his stolid style did not play well before large audiences. He spoke slowly, deliberately, using simple expressions and short sentences. His speeches lacked the flourish typical of the great orators of the day. A practical, unemotional man, he relied on logic and common sense to make a point in argument. He appealed to the mind rather than to the heart. Although basically a pragmatist, he was capable of genuine idealism if the cause struck his sense of righteousness. "A spark of idealism smouldered in his mind," biographer Robert J. Rayback has written. "Because his whole training had been aimed toward making or improving his livelihood, nothing could ever ignite the spark that would place him in that class of complete idealists who steadfastly cling to their visions no matter how inimical their interests. But the trait was there, seldom dominating, yet always helping to shape his values."
 * William A. DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (1984), p. 187

title: Millard Fillmore


text:
Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804 – October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States (1853–57). Pierce was a northern Democrat who saw the abolitionist movement as a fundamental threat to the unity of the nation. His polarizing actions in championing and signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act failed to stem intersectional conflict, setting the stage for Southern secession.

Quotes

 * You have summoned me in my weakness. You must sustain me by your strength.
 * Inaugural Address (4 March 1853)

 * The storm of frenzy and faction must inevitably dash itself in vain against the unshaken rock of the Constitution. I shall never doubt it. I know that the Union is stronger a thousand times than all the wild and chimerical schemes of social change which are generated one after another in the unstable minds of visionary sophists and interested agitators. I rely confidently on the patriotism of the people, on the dignity and self-respect of the States, on the wisdom of Congress, and, above all, on the continued gracious favor of Almighty God to maintain against all enemies, whether at home or abroad, the sanctity of the Constitution and the integrity of the Union.
 * Third Annual Message (31 December 1855), as published in Official History of the United States by the Presidents (1900), Vol. 1, by the Federal Book Concern, p. 362

 * I do not believe that our friends at the South have any just idea of the state of feeling, hurrying at this moment to a pitch of intense exasperation, between those who respect their political obligations, and those who apparently have no impelling power but that which a fanatical position on the subject of domestic Slavery imparts. Without discussing the question of right — of abstract power to secede — I have never believed that actual disruption of the Union can occur without blood; and if, through the madness of Northern Abolitionists, that dire calamity must come, the fighting will not be along Mason's and Dixon's line merely.  It [will] be within our own borders, in our own streets, between the two classes of citizens to whom I have referred.
 * Letter to Jefferson Davis (6 January 1860)

 * I never justify, sustain, or in any way or to any extent uphold this cruel, heartless, aimless unnecessary war.
 * Letter to Jane Pierce (3 March 1863)

 * Do we not all know that the cause of our casualties is the vicious intermeddling of too many of the citizens of the Northern States with the constitutional rights of the Southern States, cooperating with the discontents of the people of those states? Do we not know that the disregard of the Constitution, and of the security that it affords to the rights of States and of individuals, has been the cause of the calamity which our country is called to undergo?  And now, war! war, in its direst shape — war, such as it makes the blood run cold to read of in the history of other nations and of other times — war, on a scale of a million of men in arms — war, horrid as that of barbaric ages, rages in several of the States of the Union, as its more immediate field, and casts the lurid shadow of its death and lamentation athwart the whole expanse, and into every nook and corner of our vast domain.  Nor is that all; for in those of the States which are exempt from the actual ravages of war, in which the roar of the cannon, and the rattle of the musketry, and the groans of the dying, are heard but as a faint echo of  terror from other lands, even here in the loyal States, the mailed hand of military usurpation strikes down the liberties of the people, and its foot tramples on a desecrated Constitution.
 * Address to the Citizens of Concord, New Hampshire (4 July 1863)

 * I speak of the war as fruitless; for it is clear that, prosecuted upon the basis of the proclamations of September 22d and September 24th, 1862, prosecuted, as I must understand these proclamations, to say nothing of the kindred blood which has followed, upon the theory of emancipation, devastation, subjugation, it cannot fail to be fruitless in every thing except the harvest of woe which it is ripening for what was once the peerless republic.
 * Address to the Citizens of Concord, New Hampshire (4 July 1863)

Quotes about Pierce

 * The real casualty of the Compromise of 1850 was the Whig Party, which would never again occupy the White House, although Abraham Lincoln was a former Whig. Fillmore, who had never sought, nor desired, the presidency, found himself as the only viable candidate to run on a Whig platform in 1852. No Whig could win the presidency without the support of the southern Whigs, and Fillmore, having supported the revised Fugitive Slave Act, had a southern credential to go with the largely pro-northern compromise. But Fillmore didn't want the nomination, despite having gotten the majority of delegates. He tried, instead, to push his delegates toward Daniel Webster, but they refused. With nowhere else to go, the delegates cast their ballots in favor of Winfield Scott, who secured the nomination for the Whig Party's final appearance in a national election. Thus Scott became the Whig nominee in 1852, who with William Seward's endorsement was guaranteed to lose all support from the southern Whigs. The party was dead and Franklin Pierce-an unremarkable pro-slavery Democrat-easily won the election in 1852. On January 6, just two months before taking office, Pierce's eleven-year-old son, Benjamin, was killed in a train accident. Thus, Fillmore's presidency began and ended in the White House draped in black mourning cloth. Pierce never recovered from this loss and neither did his wife, who would tragically be referred to as a White House ghost. He was a melancholy president, a sporadically functional alcoholic, who in his one high-profile decision signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which had the effect of pushing the country closer to civil war.
 * Jared Cohen, Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America (2019), p. 81

title: Franklin Pierce


text:
James Buchanan

James Buchanan, Jr. (23 April 1791 – 1 June 1868) was the 15th president of the United States (1857–61), serving immediately prior to the American Civil War. He represented Pennsylvania in the United States House of Representatives and later the Senate, then served as Minister to Russia under President Andrew Jackson. He was named Secretary of State under President James K. Polk, and is to date the last former Secretary of State to serve as President of the United States. After Buchanan turned down an offer to sit on the Supreme Court, President Franklin Pierce appointed him Ambassador to the United Kingdom, in which capacity he helped draft the Ostend Manifesto.

As president, he was often called a "doughface", a Northerner with Southern sympathies, who battled with Stephen A. Douglas for control of the Democratic Party. Buchanan's efforts to maintain peace between the North and the South alienated both sides, and the Southern states declared their secession in the prologue to the American Civil War. Widely hated as he left office, Buchanan was shunned in the Civil War-era United States and is widely regarded as the worst President in United States history.

Quotes

 * You have lost a child, a dear, dear child. I have lost the only earthly object of my affection.... I have now one request to make,... deny me not. Afford me the melancholy pleasure of seeing her body before internment.
 * Letter returned to him unopened, to the father of his former fiancée Ann Coleman, written after her death, rumored to have been suicide soon after her breaking of their engagement. (1819).

 * I am now ‘solitary and alone,’ having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.
 * Letter sent to a friend regarding his loneliness following his friend, William R. King, leaving for Paris. (1844). —

 * I shall not again be a candidate for the Presidency...I shall be 65 on the 23rd April next, and I had determined upon my line of life from the remnant of days with which a kind Providence might bless me, discarding every idea of the Presidency...I can now leave public life, I trust, with credit. Should I become President, the case may be very different, after I shall have worn myself out with the toil and anxiety of the office.
 * Responding to suggestions that he run for President in 1856, as quoted at wheatland.org.

 * All agree that under the Constitution slavery in the States is beyond the reach of any human power except that of the respective States themselves wherein it exists. May we not, then, hope that the long agitation on this subject is approaching its end, and that the geographical parties to which it has given birth, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, will speedily become extinct? Most happy will it be for the country when the public mind shall be diverted from this question to others of more pressing and practical importance. Throughout the whole progress of this agitation, which has scarcely known any intermission for more than twenty years, whilst it has been productive of no positive good to any human being it has been the prolific source of great evils to the master, to the slave, and to the whole country. It has alienated and estranged the people of the sister States from each other, and has even seriously endangered the very existence of the Union. Nor has the danger yet entirely ceased. Under our system there is a remedy for all mere political evils in the sound sense and sober judgment of the people. Time is a great corrective. Political subjects which but a few years ago excited and exasperated the public mind have passed away and are now nearly forgotten. But this question of domestic slavery is of far graver importance than any mere political question, because should the agitation continue it may eventually endanger the personal safety of a large portion of our countrymen where the institution exists. In that event no form of government, however admirable in itself and however productive of material benefits, can compensate for the loss of peace and domestic security around the family altar. Let every Union-loving man, therefore, exert his best influence to suppress this agitation, which since the recent legislation of Congress is without any legitimate object.
 * Inaugural address (4 March 1857).

 * I am the last President of the United States!
 * A statement he is reported to have made several times to others after the secession of South Carolina, or as early as after the election of Abraham Lincoln (1860). —

 * The course of events is so rapidly hastening forward that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union. I should feel myself recreant to my duty were I not to express an opinion on this important subject. The question fairly stated is, Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn from the Confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a State. After much serious reflection I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the Federal Government. It is manifest upon an inspection of the Constitution that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress, and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not "necessary and proper for carrying into execution" any one of these powers. So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the Convention which framed the Constitution.
 * Speech before Congress (3 December 1860).

 * It is said that serious apprehensions are to some extent entertained (in which I do not share) that the peace of this District may be disturbed before the 4th of March next. In any event, it will be my duty to preserve it, and this duty shall be performed. In conclusion it may be permitted to me to remark that I have often warned my countrymen of the dangers which now surround us. This may be the last time I shall refer to the subject officially. I feel that my duty has been faithfully, though it may be imperfectly, performed, and, whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that I at least meant well for my country.
 * Speech to Congress (8 January 1861).

 * Sir, if you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man indeed.
 * Said to Abraham Lincoln on the ride back from Lincoln's inauguration as president (4 March 1861); as quoted in James Buchanan (2004) by Jean H. Baker, Pg 140; This or slightly paraphrased variants or abbreviated versions have also been been reported as having been said before the inauguration: Sir, if you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning [home], you are a happy man indeed. If you are as happy entering the presidency as I am in leaving it, then you are truly a happy man.
 * As quoted in Presidential Leadership : Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (2004) edited by James Taranto and Leonard Leo.
 * Earlier variant: Some knave or fool got up a lie from the whole cloth and it was telegraphed over the country that I was about to purchase or had purchased a place somewhere else and would not return to Wheatland. If my successor should be as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland he will indeed be a happy man. I am just now in my own mind chalking out the course of my last message. In it, should Providence continue his blessing, I shall have nothing to record but uninterrupted success for my country. The trouble about the slavery question would all have been avoided, had the Country submitted to the decision of the Supreme Court delivered two or three days after my inaugural.
 * Letter to William Carpenter (13 September 1860); as published in Historical Papers and Addresses of the Lancaster County Historical Society.

 * Liberty must be allowed to work out its natural results; and these will, ere long, astonish the world.
 * As quoted in Presidential Leadership : Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (2004) edited by James Taranto and Leonard Leo.

 * What is right and what is practicable are two different things.
 * As quoted in Presidential Leadership : Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (2004) edited by James Taranto and Leonard Leo.

Quotes about Buchanan

 * That same year, a group of frustrated antislavery Whigs, Free Soiler and other antislavery political types joined forces to establish the Republican Party. They put up John C. Fremont, senator from California, as their first political nominee, and William Dayton, ex-Whig senator from New Jersey to join him on the ticket in 1856. The Republican duo put up a respectable fight, carrying eleven states—all from the North or Midwest—and 33 percent of the popular vote, but ultimately lost to James Buchanan, a Pennsylvania Democrat with an impressive pedigree that included secretary of state, ambassador to the UK and Russia, US senator, and member of the House of Representatives. Despite his extraordinary reputation and experienced resume, Buchanan struggled to deal with the fault lines that were breaking the country apart and became the eighth president in a row to serve one term or less. It would take another twenty-eight years for a Democrat to win the White House.
 * Jared Cohen, Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America (2019), p. 81

 * Mister Toombs was willing to dissolve the Union to save slavery, Mister Phillips, to save liberty; while Mister Seward, denounced and derided by both, declared that the deepest instinct of the American people was for union. Reserved rights. State rights, limited powers, the advantages of union and disunion, were the cucumbers from which we were busily engaged in distilling light, overlooking the fact of nationality in discussing the conditions of union. We were speculating upon costume. We gravely proved that the clothes were the clothes of a woman, or of a child, without seeing that whatever the clothes might be there was a full-grown man inside of them. "The Constitution is a contract between sovereign States", shouted Mister Toombs, "let Georgia tear it and separate". "The Constitution is a league with hell", calmly replied Mister Phillips, "let New York cut off New Orleans to rot alone". "Oh, dear! it"s a dreadful dilemma", whimpered President Buchanan. "States have no right to secede, and the United States have no right to coerce. Oh, dear me! it"s perfectly awful! I"m the most patriotic of men, but what shall I do? what shall I do?" Separate! Cut off! Secede! It was of a living body they spoke, which, pierced anywhere, quivered everywhere.
 * George William Curtis, "The Good Fight" (1865)

 * Violence reached the floor of the United States Senate, where Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina savagely beat Abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner with his cane. Southern sympathizers sent Brooks new canes. Members began carrying knives and pistols into the Chamber. Meanwhile, the Nation's Chief Executive, James Buchanan, did nothing.
 * David McCullough narrating The Civil War by Ken Burns

 * There is a wrong impression about one of the candidates. There is no such person running as James Buchanan. He is dead of lock-jaw. Nothing remains but a platform and a bloated mass of political putridity.
 * Thaddeus Stevens, as quoted in Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens

 * It has been suggested that the President intentionally left those forts in a bad condition, that South Carolina might seize them before his successor had time to take means for their safety. I cannot believe it; I will not believe it, for it would make Mr. Buchanan a more odious traitor than Benedict Arnold. Every drop of blood that shall be shed in the conflict would sit heavy on his soul forever.
 * Thaddeus Stevens, in Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens

 * I am selfish enough to hope you will not be able to procure an associate who will cause you to feel no regret at our separation. For myself, I shall feel lonely in the midst of Paris, for here I shall have no Friend with whom I shall commune as with my own thoughts.
 * William R. King, in a letter sent whilst he was Minister to France —

 * No one has a right to grade a president — even poor James Buchanan — who has not sat in his chair, examined the mail and information that came across his desk, and learned why he made his decisions.
 * John F. Kennedy —

 * Flabby James Buchanan, long an aspirant for the Democratic presidential nomination, now easily obtained it. The "Black Republicans," as their enemies called them, made a lively campaign. "Free soil, free speech, and Frémont" was the slogan, but slavery in the territories was the only real issue. Many Southern leaders warned the country that if Frémont were elected the South would secede; and when John M. Botts, an independent Virginia Whig, called this an idle threat, the Richmond Enquirer advised him to leave the state lest he "provoke the disgrace of lynching." A sectional showdown in 1856 was prevented by Buchanan's carrying every slave state except Maryland, together with Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Indiana, which gave him 174 electoral votes to Frémont's 114. But the "Pathfinder" polled an impressive popular vote, 1,340,000 to Buchanan's 1,838,000. Ominous figures, because all but 1,200 of Frémont's votes came from the non-slaveholding states.
 * Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People (1965). New York: Oxford University Press, p. 593

 * Poor, foolish Buchanan! He had hoped for a peaceful term of office, but the Dred Scott case unleashed the worst passions of pro- and anti-slavery when his administration was less than a week old.
 * Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People (1965). New York: Oxford University Press, p. 593

title: James Buchanan


text:
Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson (29 December 1808 – 31 July 1875) was the seventeenth president of the United States (1865–1869), succeeding to the presidency upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Democrat from the Southern states but had supported the Union in the American Civil War and had been nominated as the running mate in Abraham Lincoln's Republican campaign. He presided over the Reconstruction of the United States following the American Civil War and was the first president to be impeached, although he was subsequently acquitted by a single vote in the Senate. As President, he resisted efforts from the Republican Congress to remove white-supremacist supporters of the former Confederacy from state governments and to extend franchise and civil rights to African Americans. For this, historians usually rank him as one of the worst Presidents in U.S. history.

Quotes

 * Whenever you hear a man prating about the Constitution, spot him as a traitor.
 * Remark made by Johnson as military Governor of Tennessee, as quoted in A Review of the Political Conflict in America (1876) by Alexander Harris, A Review of the Political Conflict in America, p. 430.

 * There are no good laws but such as repeal other laws.
 * Statement (1835), as quoted in Andrew Johnson, Plebeian and Patriot (1928) by Robert Watson Winston.

 * There are some who lack confidence in the integrity and capacity of the people to govern themselves. To all who entertain such fears I will most respectfully say that I entertain none... If a man is not capable, and is not to be trusted with the government of himself, is he to be trusted with the government of others... Who, then, will govern? The answer must be, Man — for we have no angels in the shape of men, as yet, who are willing to take charge of our political affairs.
 * Statement (1853) as quoted in Andrew Johnson, Plebeian and Patriot (1928) by Robert Watson Winston.

 * No, gentlemen, if I am to be shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.
 * As military governor of Tennessee, asserting that he would walk alone, to friends who offered to escort him to the statehouse, after postings of a placard saying he should be "shot on sight." (c.1862); as quoted in Andrew Johnson, President of the United States: His Life and Speeches (1866) by Lillian Foster.

 * Mr. Jefferson meant the white race.
 * Regarding the statement in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal."
 * "Speech on Harper's Ferry Incident", 12 December 1859; as printed in The papers of Andrew Johnson, Vol. 3: 1858-1860 (1972), ed. LeRoy P. Graf and Ralph W. Haskins, p. 320.

 * I have lived among Negroes, all my life, and I am for this Government with slavery under the Constitution as it is. I am for the Government of my fathers with Negroes, I am for it without Negroes. Before I would see this Government destroyed, I would send every negro back to Africa, disintegrated and blotted out of space.
 * Speech in Indianapolis, Indiana (26 February 1863).

 * Colored men of Tennessee, humble and unworthy as I am, if no better shall be found I will indeed be your Moses and lead you through the Red Sea of war and bondage to a fairer future of liberty and peace. I speak now as one who feels the world his country and all who love equal rights his friends.
 * As quoted in "The Good Fight" (1865), by George William Curtis.

 * I am a-goin' for to tell you here to-day; yes, I'm a-goin for to tell you all, that I'm a plebian! I glory in it; I am a plebian! The people — yes, the people of the United States have made me what I am; and I am a-goin' for to tell you here to-day — yes, to-day, in this place — that the people are everything.
 * First address as Vice-President, widely reported as having been delivered while he was inebriated. (5 March 1865).

 * This is your country as well as anybody else's country. This country is founded upon the principle of equality. He that is meritorious and virtuous, intellectual and well informed, must stand highest, without regard to color.
 * To Union soldiers (1865), as quoted in Andrew Johnson: A Profile (1969), "Johnson and the Negro", by Lawanda Cox and John H. Cox; edited by Eric L. McKitrick, Hill & Wang, New York pp. 141.

 * If you could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who can read the Constitution of the United States in English and write their names and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars and pay taxes thereon, and would completely disarm the adversary. This you can do with perfect safety. And as a consequence, the radicals, who are wild upon negro franchise, will be completely foiled in their attempts to keep the Southern States from renewing their relations to the Union.
 * Letter to William L. Sharkey, governor of Mississippi (June 1865).

 * Notwithstanding a mendacious press; notwithstanding a subsidized gang of hirelings who have not ceased to traduce me, I have discharged all my official duties and fulfilled my pledges. And I say here tonight that if my predecessor had lived, the vials of wrath would have poured out upon him.
 * Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (3 September 1866).

 * Those damned sons of bitches thought they had me in a trap! I know that damned Douglass; he's just like any nigger, and he would sooner cut a white man's throat than not.
 * As quoted in Andrew Johnson: A Profile (1969), "Johnson and the Negro", by Lawanda Cox and John H. Cox; edited by Eric L. McKitrick, Hill & Wang, New York pp. 152-153.

 * I have had a son killed, a son-in-law die during the last battle of Nashville, another son has thrown himself away, a second son-in-law is in no better condition, I think I have had sorrow enough without having my bank account examined by a Committee of Congress.
 * Letter to his friend Colonel William G. Moore, complaining of Congressional investigations.... (1 May 1867).

 * Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests at least equally important and equally deserving the considerations of Congress.
 * Veto message to the House of Representatives (22 February 1869).

 * The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people.
 * As quoted in Andrew Johnson, Plebeian and Patriot (1928) by Robert Watson Winston

 * Your President is now the Tribune of the people, and, thank God, I am, and intend to assert the power which the people have placed in me... Tyranny and despotism can be exercised by many, more rigorously, more vigorously, and more severely, than by one.
 * As quoted in Presidential Government in the United States: The Unwritten Constitution (1947) by Caleb Perry Patterson.

 * If I should happen to die among the damn spirits that infest Greeneville, my last request before death would be for some friend I would bequeath the last dollar to some Negro to pay -- to take my dirty stinking carcass after death out on some mountain peak, and there leave it to be devoured by the vultures and wolves or make a fire sufficiently large to consume the smallest particle that it might pass off and smoke and ride upon the wind in triumph over the God-forsaken and hell-deserving, money-loving, hypocritical, backbiting, Sunday-praying scoundrels of the town of Greeneville.
 * U.S. Rep. Andrew Johnson, 1847. As quoted from The Washington Post Presidential Podcast Episode Transcript "Andrew Johnson Stitching up a torn country". Johnson would die of a stroke during 1875 while visiting his daughters at the riverside home of his daughter Mary, some 45 miles away, immediately upstream of Brumit Island and northeast of Elizabethton, Tennessee.

 * "This is a country for white men, and, by G—d, as long as I am president it shall be a government for white men." Johnson, quoted in The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation by Brenda Wineapple (p. xviii)

First Presidential address (1865)

 * First address to his cabinet (15 April 1865)

 * I must be permitted to say that I have been almost overwhelmed by the announcement of the sad event which has so recently occurred. I feel incompetent to perform duties so important and responsible as those which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.

 * The only assurance that I can now give of the future is reference to the past. The course which I have taken in the past in connection with this rebellion must be regarded as a guaranty of the future. My past public life, which has been long and laborious, has been founded, as I in good conscience believe, upon a great principle of right, which lies at the basis of all things. The best energies of my life have been spent in endeavoring to establish and perpetuate the principles of free government, and I believe that the Government in passing through its present perils will settle down upon principles consonant with popular rights more permanent and enduring than heretofore. I must be permitted to say, if I understand the feelings of my own heart, that I have long labored to ameliorate and elevate the condition of the great mass of the American people. Toil and an honest advocacy of the great principles of free government have been my lot. Duties have been mine; consequences are God's. This has been the foundation of my political creed, and I feel that in the end the Government will triumph and that these great principles will be permanently established.

First State of the Union Address (1865)

 * State of the Union Address (4 December 1865)

 * "The sovereignty of the States" is the language of the Confederacy, and not the language of the Constitution. The latter contains the emphatic words — This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

 * Certainly the Government of the United States is a limited government, and so is every State government a limited government. With us this idea of limitation spreads through every form of administration — general, State, and municipal — and rests on the great distinguishing principle of the recognition of the rights of man. The ancient republics absorbed the individual in the state — prescribed his religion and controlled his activity. The American system rests on the assertion of the equal right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to freedom of conscience, to the culture and exercise of all his faculties. As a consequence the State government is limited — as to the General Government in the interest of union, as to the individual citizen in the interest of freedom.

 * Our Government springs from and was made for the people — not the people for the Government. To them it owes allegiance; from them it must derive its courage, strength, and wisdom. But while the Government is thus bound to defer to the people, from whom it derives its existence, it should, from the very consideration of its origin, be strong in its power of resistance to the establishment of inequalities. Monopolies, perpetuities, and class legislation are contrary to the genius of free government, and ought not to be allowed. Here there is no room for favored classes or monopolies; the principle of our Government is that of equal laws and freedom of industry. Wherever monopoly attains a foothold, it is sure to be a source of danger, discord, and trouble. We shall but fulfill our duties as legislators by according "equal and exact justice to all men," special privileges to none.

 * The life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence of its citizens; but it is equally true that a good revenue system is the life of an organized government. I meet you at a time when the nation has voluntarily burdened itself with a debt unprecedented in our annals. Vast as is its amount, it fades away into nothing when compared with the countless blessings that will be conferred upon our country and upon man by the preservation of the nation's life. Now, on the first occasion of the meeting of Congress since the return of peace, it is of the utmost importance to inaugurate a just policy, which shall at once be put in motion, and which shall commend itself to those who come after us for its continuance. We must aim at nothing less than the complete effacement of the financial evils that necessarily followed a state of civil war.

 * I hold it the duty of the Executive to insist upon frugality in the expenditures, and a sparing economy is itself a great national resource.

Fourth State of the Union Address (1868)

 * State of the Union Address (9 December 1868)

 * It may be safely assumed as an axiom in the government of states that the greatest wrongs inflicted upon a people are caused by unjust and arbitrary legislation, or by the unrelenting decrees of despotic rulers, and that the timely revocation of injurious and oppressive measures is the greatest good that can be conferred upon a nation. The legislator or ruler who has the wisdom and magnanimity to retrace his steps when convinced of error will sooner or later be rewarded with the respect and gratitude of an intelligent and patriotic people. Our own history, although embracing a period less than a century, affords abundant proof that most, if not all, of our domestic troubles are directly traceable to violations of the organic law and excessive legislation.

 * The attempt to place the white population under the domination of persons of color in the South has impaired, if not destroyed, the kindly relations that had previously existed between them: and mutual distrust has engendered a feeling of animosity which leading in some instances to collision and bloodshed, has prevented that cooperation between the two races so essential to the success of industrial enterprise in the Southern States.

Misattributed

 * It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
 * More commonly misattributed to Andrew Jackson, the originator of this line is actually unknown.

Quotes about Johnson

 * Johnson stood at his desk. Said "No," had a thousand such applications every day; more papers than he could read. I told him he was mistaken. That he never had such an application in his life. You recognize, I said, Mr. Johnson, that Mrs. Stanton and that myself, for two years, have boldly told the Republican party they must give ballots to women as well as negroes, and by means of The Revolution we are bound to drive the party to logical conclusions, or break it into a thousand pieces as was the old Whig party, unless we get our rights. That brought him to his pocket book, and he signed his name Andrew Johnson, with a bold hand, as much to say, anything to get rid of this woman and break the radical party.
 * The Revolution article in Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words edited by Lynn Sherr (1995)

 * Andrew Johnson had been suspected by many people of being concerned in the plans of Booth against the life of Lincoln or at least cognizant of them. A committee of which I was the head, felt it their duty to make a secret investigation of that matter, and we did our duty in that regard most thoroughly. Speaking for myself I think I ought to say that there was no reliable evidence at all to convince a prudent and responsible man that there was any ground for the suspicions entertained against Johnson.
 * Benjamin Franklin Butler, Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin F. Butler (1892).

 * The inauguration went off very well except that the Vice President Elect was too drunk to perform his duties and disgraced himself and the Senate by making a drunken foolish speech. I was never so mortified in my life, had I been able to find a hole I would have dropped through it out of sight.
 * Senator Zachariah T. Chandler in a letter to his wife, quoted in the US Senate Biography

 * I know how subtle, elusive, apparently ineradicable, is the spirit of caste. But I remember that the English lords six centuries ago tore out the teeth of the Jew Isaac of York in the dungeon under the castle; and today he lives proudly in the castle, and the same lords come respectfully to his daughter's marriage, while the most brilliant Tory in the British Parliament proposes her health, and the Lord Chief Justice of England leads the hip-hip-hurrah at the wedding breakfast. Caste is very strong, but I remember that five years ago there were good men among us who said. If white hands can't win this fight let it be lost. I have seen the same men agreeing that black hands had even more at stake in it than we, giving them muskets, bidding them Godspeed in the Good Fight, and welcoming them with honor as they returned. Caste is very strong, but I remember that six years ago there was a Tennessee slave-holder, born in North Carolina, who had always acted with the slave interest, and was then earnestly endeavoring to elect John C. Breckenridge President of the United States. We have all seen that same man four years afterwards, while Tennessee quivered with civil war, standing beneath the autumn stars and saying, 'Colored men of Tennessee, humble and unworthy as I am, if no better shall be found I will indeed be your Moses and lead you through the Red Sea of war and bondage to a fairer future of liberty and peace. I speak now as one who feels the world his country and all who love equal rights his friends'. So said Andrew Johnson, God and his country listening. God and his country watching, Andrew Johnson will keep his word.
 * George William Curtis, as quoted in "The Good Fight" (1865).

 * On this inauguration day, while waiting for the opening of the ceremonies, I made a discovery in regard to the vice president — Andrew Johnson. There are moments in the lives of most men, when the doors of their souls are open, and unconsciously to themselves, their true characters may be read by the observant eye. It was at such an instant I caught a glimpse of the real nature of this man, which all subsequent developments proved true. I was standing in the crowd by the side of Mrs. Thomas J. Dorsey, when Mr. Lincoln touched Mr. Johnson, and pointed me out to him. The first expression which came to his face, and which I think was the true index of his heart, was one of bitter contempt and aversion. Seeing that I observed him, he tried to assume a more friendly appearance; but it was too late; it was useless to close the door when all within had been seen. His first glance was the frown of the man, the second was the bland and sickly smile of the demagogue. I turned to Mrs. Dorsey and said, 'Whatever Andrew Johnson may be, he certainly is no friend of our race.
 * Frederick Douglass, as quoted in Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), p. 355.

 * The day after I was born, Andrew Johnson was impeached. He deserved punishment as a traitor to the poor Southern whites and poorer freedmen. Yet during his life, no one denied him the right to defend himself.
 * The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century (1968)

 * This traditional view of Reconstruction has long since been abandoned by historians, although it retains a remarkable hold on popular understanding of the era. Today historians emphatically reject the racist underpinnings of the old interpretation, viewing the Reconstruction as a noble if flawed experiment, the first attempt to introduce a genuine inter-racial democracy in the United States. The tragedy was not that Reconstruction was attempted, but that it failed, leaving the problem of racial justice to future generations. In the modern view, blacks were active agents in shaping the era’s history, not simply the victims of manipulation by others. Andrew Johnson was a stubborn, racist politician, whose policies alienated not only Radicals, who never controlled Congress, but the vast majority of Republicans.
 * Eric Foner, as quoted in "If Lincoln Hadn’t Died" (2009), American Heritage.

 * Andrew Johnson lacked Lincoln's qualities of greatness. While Lincoln had been open-minded, willing to listen to criticism, attuned to the currents of northern public opinion, and able to get along with all elements of his party, Johnson was stubborn, deeply racist, and insensitive to the opinions of others. If anyone was responsible for the wreck of his presidency, it was Johnson himself. First, by establishing new governments in the South in which blacks had no voice whatsoever, and then refusing, when these governments sought to reduce freedpeople to a situation akin to slavery through the Black Codes, to heed the rising tide of northern concern. As congressional opposition mounted, Johnson refused to budge. As a result, Congress swept aside Johnson's Reconstruction plan, enacting a series of measures pivotal in the rightful enlargement of American citizenship and freedom: the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which accorded blacks equality before the law; the Fourteenth Amendment, which put the idea of equality unbounded by race into the Constitution; and the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868, which mandated the establishment of new governments in the South, enabling black men to vote for the first time in U.S. history. Despite the Constitution's injunction that the president enforce the laws, Johnson did everything in his power to obstruct the implementation of these measures. In 1868, fed up with his intransigence and incompetence, the House impeached Johnson; after a trial in the Senate, he came within one vote of conviction.
 * Eric Foner, as quoted in "If Lincoln Hadn’t Died" (2009), American Heritage.

 * A man unable to rise to the demands of one of the most challenging moments in our nation's history.
 * Eric Foner, as quoted in "If Lincoln Hadn’t Died" (2009), American Heritage.

 * Congress incorporated birthright citizenship and legal equality into the Constitution via the 14th Amendment. In recent decades, the courts have used this amendment to expand the legal rights of numerous groups, most recently, gay men and women. As the Republican editor George William Curtis wrote, the Fourteenth Amendment changed a Constitution 'for white men' to one 'for mankind'. It also marked a significant change in the federal balance of power, empowering the national government to protect the rights of citizens against violations by the states. In 1867 Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, again over Johnson’s veto. These set in motion the establishment of new governments in the South, empowered Southern black men to vote and temporarily barred several thousand leading Confederates from the ballot. Soon after, the 15th Amendment extended black male suffrage to the entire nation. The Reconstruction Acts inaugurated the period of Radical Reconstruction, when a politically mobilized black community, with its white allies, brought the Republican Party to power throughout the South. For the first time, African-Americans voted in large numbers and held public office at every level of government. It was a remarkable, unprecedented effort to build an interracial democracy on the ashes of slavery. Most offices remained in the hands of white Republicans. But the advent of African-Americans in positions of political power aroused bitter hostility from Reconstruction’s opponents.
 * Eric Foner, as quoted in "Why Reconstruction Matters" (28 March 2015), by E. Foner, The New York Times, New York.

 * Andrew Johnson wasn't a drunkard, he was just a bigot.
 * Drew Gibson, "Andrew Johnson Wasn’t a Drunkard…He Was Just a Bigot" (12 February 2014), Virally Suppressed – Muckraking For The Modern World.

 * From his quick and largely consequence free reinstatement of former Confederate leaders and endorsement of discriminatory Black Codes in many Southern states, to his vetoing of legislation that proposed civil rights increases and an extension for the Freedman’s Bureau, the old Tennessee War Democrat played the part of the white supremacist savior, effectively killing off any hope that the civil rights of blacks in this country would go beyond mere emancipation in the near future. The slaves had been nominally given their freedom, but Johnson was determined that they shouldn’t be given anything else. Under his watch, the rights and opportunities available to white men would not be extended to any other race and the ascendency of a new American hatred would begin. During his Third Address to Congress, Johnson arguably expounded more overt racially-charged ignorance than any President before or since, essentially outlining what would be the go-to talking points of the Post-Civil War and Jim Crow South for the next 100 years.
 * Drew Gibson, "Andrew Johnson Wasn’t a Drunkard…He Was Just a Bigot" (12 February 2014), Virally Suppressed – Muckraking For The Modern World.

 * In the span of three years, our country went from a President who urged his fellow Americans to have malice towards none and charity towards all to a President who demonizes one section of the population for the benefit of another and un-ironically warns of a future in which blacks treat whites with the same lack of compassion and respect that whites had always treated blacks. In Andrew Johnson’s words you can hear the contempt and revulsion for his fellow man burbling out in a sea of incoherent hatred. You can see his words spurring on the basest nature of the white southern plebians from which he sprang, settling in them a vicious enmity towards their black brothers and sisters that would cause them to ignore the grave injustices being perpetrated against them by their patrician white fellows. Most of all, you can feel that scar tissue that was built up after Gettysburg and Appomatox and Shiloh begin to slowly crack open, exposing those tender wounds of ours to infection and disease and rot. There would be no healing here.
 * Drew Gibson, "Andrew Johnson Wasn’t a Drunkard…He Was Just a Bigot" (12 February 2014), Virally Suppressed – Muckraking For The Modern World.

 * This Johnson is a queer man.
 * Abraham Lincoln, in a remark to his friend Shelby M. Cullom, after Johnson inquired whether his presence was required at the inauguration, as quoted in A Reporter's Lincoln by Walter B. Stevens, edited by Michael Burlingame

 * I have known Andy for many years... he made a bad slip the other day, but you need not be scared. Andy ain't a drunkard.
 * Abraham Lincoln, on Johnson's infamous speech on the day of his inauguration as Vice-President, as quoted in Hannibal Hamlin: Lincoln's First Vice President (1969) by H. Draper Hunt.

 * It has been a severe lesson for Andy, but I do not think he will do it again.
 * Abraham Lincoln, as quoted by Senate aide John Wien Forney, with whom Johnson had been drinking the night before his swearing in as Vice-President, in Anecdotes of Public Men (1873) by John W. Forney.

 * It was believed by many at the time that some of the [moderate] Republican Senators that voted for acquittal [of Andrew Johnson] did so chiefly on account of their antipathy to the man who would succeed to the presidency in the event of the conviction of the [sitting] president. This man was Senator Benjamin Wade, of Ohio, President pro tempore of the Senate who as the law then stood, would have succeeded to the presidency in the event of a vacancy in the office from any cause. Senator Wade was an able man … He was a strong party man. He had no patience with those who claimed to be [Radical] Republicans and yet refused to abide by the decision of the majority of the party organization [as did Grimes, Johnson, Lincoln, Pratt, and Trumbull] … the sort of active and aggressive man that would be likely to make for himself enemies of men in his own organization who were afraid of his great power and influence, and jealous of him as a political rival. That some of his senatorial Republican associates should feel that the best service they could render their country would be to do all in their power to prevent such a man from being elevated to the Presidency … for while they knew he was an able man, they also knew that, according to his convictions of party duty and party obligations, he firmly believed he who served his party best served his country best…that he would have given the country an able administration is concurrent opinion of those who knew him best.
 * John Roy Lynch, as quoted in The Facts of Reconstruction (1913), New York: The Neale Publishing Co., retrieved 2008-07-03.

 * In contrast to the contemporary Black Americans, the Black Americans, in that era, were in solid support of the Republican Party. This was the party that fought the Northern and Southern Democrats to pass the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Although President Andrew Johnson tried to bamboozle Frederick Douglass to the Democrat side by making false or empty promises, he did not succeed. Douglass was no fool and was not going to let Johnson use him to gain the support of the Negroes in his effort to be 'elected' president. Frederick Douglass and other prominent Blacks threw their support to Ulysses S. Grant for president.
 * Connie A. Miller, Sr., Frederick Douglass: American Hero (2008), p. 276.

 * It was pretended at the time and it has since been asserted by historians and publicists that Mr. Johnson's Reconstruction policy was only a continuation of that of Mr. Lincoln. This is true only in a superficial sense, but not in reality. Mr. Lincoln had indeed put forth reconstruction plans which contemplated an early restoration of some of the rebel states. But he had done this while the Civil War was still going on, and for the evident purpose of encouraging loyal movements in those States and of weakening the Confederate State government there. Had he lived, he would have as ardently wished to stop bloodshed and to reunite as he ever did. But is it to be supposed for a moment that, seeing the late master class in the South intent upon subjecting the freedmen again to a system very much akin to slavery, Lincoln would have consented to abandon those freemen to the mercies of that master class?
 * Carl Schurz in Reminiscences (1906).

 * Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, viewed the Radical Republican project as an insult to the white men to whom the United States truly belonged.
 * Adam Serwer, The Cruelty is the Point (2021)

 * Still convinced that most of the country was on his side, Johnson sank into paranoia, grandeur, and self-pity. In his "Swing Around the Circle" tour, Johnson gave angry speeches before raucous crowds, comparing himself to Lincoln, calling for some Radical Republicans to be hanged as traitors, and blaming the New Orleans riot on those who had called for black suffrage in the first place, saying, "Every drop of blood that was shed is upon their skirts and they are responsible." He blocked the measures that Congress took up to protect the rights of the emancipated, describing them as racist against white people. He told black leaders that he was their "Moses," even as he denied their aspirations to full citizenship. Johnson had reason to believe, in a country that had only just abolished slavery, that the Radicals' attempt to create a multiracial democracy would be rejected by the electorate. What he did not expect was that in his incompetence, courseness, and vanity, he would end up discrediting his own racist crusade and would press the North into pursuing a program of racial justice that it had wanted to avoid.
 * Adam Serwer, The Cruelty is the Point (2021)

 * Just as the white North in the late 1860s turned against Andrew Johnson because his commitment to white supremacy threatened to render the bloody sacrifices of the Civil War meaningless, millions of Americans were able to connect Trump's callousness and bigotry to his inability to govern.
 * Adam Serwer, The Cruelty is the Point (2021)

 * like Andrew Johnson, Trump bet his political fortunes on his assumption that the majority of white Americans shared his fears and beliefs about black Americans. Like Johnson, Trump did not anticipate how his own behavior, and the behavior he enabled and encouraged, would discredit the cause he backed. He did not anticipate that the activists might succeed in convincing so many white Americans to see the protests as righteous and justified, that so many white Americans would understand police violence as an extension of his own cruelty, that the pandemic would open their eyes to deep-seated racial inequities.
 * Adam Serwer, The Cruelty is the Point (2021)
 * Never was a great malefactor so gently treated as Andrew Johnson. The people have been unwilling to blot the records of their country by mingling his crimes with their shame—shame for endurance for so long a time of his great crimes and misdemeanors. The committee have omitted entirely his wicked abuse of the patronage of the Government, his corruption of the voters of the nation by seducing them with the offers of office, and intimidating them by threats of expulsion, all for the purpose of making them abandon their honest principles and adopt the bastard policy which he had just conceived, a crime more heinous than that which brought many ancient agitators to the block. To this he was prompted by the same motive which made the angels fall. Soon after the death of Mr. Lincoln and the surrender of the so-called confederate army and possessions, the whole government of the territory, persons and property of the territory claimed and conquered from the so-called confederate States of America devolved upon the Congress of the United States, according to the most familiar and well-adjudicated principles of national and municipal law, leaving nothing for the President to do but execute the laws of Congress and govern them by military authority until Congress should otherwise direct. Yet Andrew Johnson, assuming to establish an empire for his own control and depriving Congress of its just prerogative did erect North Carolina and the other conquered territories into States and nations, giving them governments of his own creation and appointing over them rulers unknown to the laws of the United States, and who could not by any such laws hold any office therein. He fixed the qualifications of electors, directed who should hold office, and especially directed them to send representatives to both branches of Congress, ordering Congress to admit them when they should arrive. When Congress refused and asserted its sovereign prerogative to govern those territories, except during their military occupation, by their own inherent power, he treated their pretensions as idle and refused to obey them. When Congress subsequently passed acts dated, March 2, 1867, and their supplements, to reconstruct those governments under republican forms by the votes of the people, he pronounced them unconstitutional, and after they had become laws he advised the people not to obey them, thus seeking to defeat instead of to execute the laws of Congress. All this was done after Congress had declared these outlying States as possessing no governments which Congress could recognize, and that Congress alone had the power and control over them. This monstrous usurpation, worse than sedition and little short of treason, he adhered to, by declaring in his last annual message and at other times that there was no Congress, and that all their acts were unconstitutional. These, being much more fundamental offenses, and, in my judgment, much more worthy of punishment, because more fatal to the nation, the committee have omitted in their articles of impeachment, because they were determined to deal gently with the President.
 * Thaddeus Stevens, Landmark Debates in Congress: From the Declaration of Independence to the War in Iraq. Washington: CQ Press, 2009, pp. 175-84.
 * Encouraged by this impunity, the President proceeded to new acts of lawless violence and disregard of the express enactments of Congress. It is those acts, trivial by comparison, but grave in their positive character, for which the committee has chosen to call him to answer, knowing that there is enough among them, if half were omitted, to answer the great object and purpose of impeachment. That proceeding can reach only to the removal from office, and anything beyond what will effect that purpose, being unnecessary, may be looked upon as wanton cruelty. Hence the tender mercies of this committee have rested only on the most trifling crimes and misdemeanors which they could select from the official life of Andrew Johnson.
 * Thaddeus Stevens, Landmark Debates in Congress: From the Declaration of Independence to the War in Iraq. Washington: CQ Press, 2009, pp. 175-84.

 * This is one of the last great battles with slavery. Driven from the legislative chambers, driven from the field of war, this monstrous power has found a refuge in the executive mansion, where, in utter disregard of the Constitution and laws, it seeks to exercise its ancient, far-reaching sway. All this is very plain. Nobody can question it. Andrew Johnson is the impersonation of the tyrannical slave power. In him it lives again.
 * Senator Charles Sumner during Johnson's impeachment trial (May 1868).

 * Whatever may have been the opinion of the President at one time as to "good faith requiring the security of the freemen in their liberty and their property," it is now manifest from the character of his objections to this bill that he will approve no measures that will accomplish the object.
 * Senator Lyman Trumbull, author of the Thirteenth Amendment responding to Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Bill (March 1866).

 * No man in Tennessee has done more than Andrew Johnson to create, to perpetuate and embitter in the minds of the Southern people, that feeling of jealousy and hostility against the free States, which has at length culminated in rebellion and civil war. Up to 1860, he had been for 20 years among the most bigoted and intolerant of the advocates of slavery and Southernism.
 * The Nashville Press (February 1863).

 * The history this man leaves is a rare one. His career was remarkable, even in this country; it would have been quite impossible in any other. It presents the spectacle of a man who never went to school a day in his life rising from a humble beginning as a tailor's apprentice through a long succession of posts of civil responsibility to the highest office in the land, and evincing his continued hold upon the popular heart by a subsequent election to the Senate in the teeth of a bitter personal and political opposition.... Whatever else may be said of him, his integrity and courage have been seldom questioned though often proved. He was by nature and temperament squarely disposed toward justice and the right, and was a determined warrior for his convictions. He erred from limitation of grasp and perception, perhaps, or through sore perplexity in trying times, but never weakly or consciously. He was always headstrong and 'sure he was right' even in his errors.
 * Obituary in The New York Times (1 August 1875).

 * the order [Special Field Order No. 15] was reversed by the next president, the white supremacist, former enslaver and Confederate sympathiser Andrew Johnson. Johnson, who wrote “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men" ordered that the land should be returned to its former owners: the men who had declared war on the United States.
 * Working Class History (2020)

 * During the Civil War, one of the nation's leading abolitionists was Republican Senator Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, who would later serve as vice president during President Grant's second term. In December 1861, Mr. Wilson introduced a bill to abolish slavery in the District. The measure met with parliamentary obstacles from the adamantly pro-slavery Democratic Party, whom Republicans in those days referred to as the 'Slave-ocrats'. Most Democrats in Congress having resigned in order to join the Confederate rebellion, Wilson's measure sailed through the Senate. The abolitionist senator responsible for outmaneuvering Democrat opposition was Ben Wade, the Ohio Republican who six years later would have assumed the presidency had the bitterly racist Democratic President, Andrew Johnson, been convicted during his impeachment trial. In the House of Representatives, Democrats delayed passage with a series of stalling tactics. Finally, the majority leader, Thaddeus Stevens, bulldozed over Democrat opposition by calling the House into a committee of the whole. He stopped all other business in the House until Democrats relented and allowed a vote on the bill. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, is best known for his 'forty acres and a mule' proposal. Overall, 99 percent of Republicans in Congress voted to free the slaves in the District of Columbia, and 83 percent of Democrats voted to keep them in chains.
 * Michael Zak, as quoted in "Who killed slavery?" (17 April 2006), by M. Zak, The Washington Times.

 * This is how the Mexican Empire will perish, a creation based on the assumption of a southern triumph and which today finds itself singularly compromised by the opposite result. Even with a president less democratic than Mr. Johnson, the United States would never have tolerated the establishment at its gates of an absolute monarchy under the rule of a foreign dynasty. The misfortunes of the civil war did not allow them to oppose it when the facts were unfolding. Perhaps in order to avoid a war with France they will not attack the new order of things directly, but certainly they would do nothing to support it, and the disbandment of their armies will provide them with all the desirable means to overthrow it indirectly.
 * The Mexican adventure of Maximilian and Charlotte through Belgian eyes. The Mexican Empire in the Newspaper Press (1864-1867). (Wim Bouw), The New Throne, Catholic Opposition The attitude of the United States was seen as crucial in Belgian opinion. And the reports about this became more hostile, no one doubted that the United States supported Juarez. Which would be one of the major reasons for Maximilian's fall. L’ Indépendance Belge, 18 mei 1865.

title: Andrew Johnson