It was April 1865, the Civil War was finally over, an exhausted, bloodied nation breathed

a deep sigh of relief, and suddenly, shockingly, President Abraham Lincoln was dead, felled

by an assassin's bullet while watching a play.

To take the reigns of power at this tumultuous moment, required a great man, a man of compassion,

discernment, and discipline.

Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's vice president, was not that man.

This is not to say he didn't have virtues, he did.

He just didn't have the scoff it took to meet the moment.

Born into abject poverty on December 29, 1808, Johnson was apprenticed, sold, would be

more accurate, to be a tailor at the age of ten.

Legally bound to serve until he was twenty-one, he ran away after five years.

He eventually settled in Greenville, in Tennessee, where he set up his own tailor shop, and

prospered.

In 1834, he was elected mayor of Greenville.

From there, he climbed steadily up the political ladder, the state legislature in 1835, the

U.S. Congress in 1843, governor in 1853, and the Senate in 1857.

He was still serving as U.S. senator from Tennessee in 1861, when the Civil War broke out.

Although Johnson was a Democrat and a slave owner himself, when Tennessee left the Union

to join the brick-awake Confederacy and defend legalized slavery, Johnson denounced his state

secession on the floor of the Senate.

I will not give up this government he thundered in December 1860, no, I intend to stand by it,

and I entreat every man throughout the nation who is a patriot to come forward that the Constitution

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