Primary Sources: U.S. Presidents

Provides access to primary and secondary information on the trial as well as a list of other materials that may be of interest.

"The papers of vice president, senator, and representative Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), who became the seventeenth president of the Unites States in 1865 after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, consist of 40,000 items (63,710 images), most of which were digitized from 55 reels of previously produced microfilm. Spanning the years 1783-1947, with the bulk dating 1865-1869, the collection contains correspondence, memoranda, diaries, messages and speeches, courts-martial and amnesty records, financial records, lists, newspaper clippings, printed matter, scrapbooks, photographs, and other papers relating chiefly to Johnson’s presidency. Subjects include the Civil War, National Union Party, Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and assassination, Reconstruction, and Johnson’s presidential administration and impeachment. The collection also documents Johnson’s service as military governor of Tennessee (1862-1865) and his business affairs, including his tailor shop in Greeneville, Tennessee. Shorthand diaries kept by Johnson’s secretary, William G. Moore, are included in the collection and accompanied by typed transcriptions."

By Andrew JohnsonAvailable in: American Historical Documents, 1000-1904. The Harvard Classicsfrom Bartleby.com

"On May 29, 1865, President Johnson issued a proclamation of amnesty and pardon for the citizens of those Confederate states that had not been restored under Lincoln’s Reconstruction policy."

CNU ONLY

"The act forbade the president to remove any officeholder, including cabinet members, who had been appointed with Senate consent. It was the president’s alleged violation of this act by trying to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that led to impeachment proceedings in 1868. "