About Greeneville and President
Andrew Johnson
EcoQuest's corporate headquarters
city is Greeneville, a successful small town in Eastern Tennessee (an
hour east of Knoxville, an hour west of Bristol) and the home of
President Andrew Johnson who succeeded Abraham Lincoln after Lincoln's
assassination (Johnson was born in North Carolina and moved
to Greeneville as a teenager). Here is some biographical information
on Greeneville's most famous historical figure.
Andrew
Johnson (1808-1875) inherited the wartime dispute
between Lincoln and Congress over how to treat the South after the Civil
War. Congress opposed Johnson's views and enacted many laws over his vetoes.
The division widened and finally the US House of Representatives voted to
impeach him. The Senate failed by one vote to remove him from office.
Throughout his life, Johnson
aroused strong support or fierce dislike. Some historians view him as an
unfit leader who was too generous to the Southerners after the war. Others
portray him as a leader who accurately saw that harsh treatment of the
Southern States would increase divisions in the Union. Johnson's acquittal
in the impeachment trial preserved the independence of the presidency.
Johnson was a man of the frontier
whose early political hero had been President Andrew Jackson, also a
Tennesseean. A tailor by profession, Johnson lacked formal schooling. His
wife taught him to write and do arithmetic. He had the touchy pride of a
self-made man.
Johnson lacked Lincoln's skill in
getting people to work together, but he was honest, brave, and intelligent.
During his political days in Tennessee there were rumors
that he would be shot at a certain public meeting. As he faced a large, unfriendly
audience, he fingered his pistol (Imagine! -- a governor
wearing a pistol to a speech) and began, "Fellow citizens, I have
been informed that part of the business to be transacted on the present
occasion is the assassination of the individual who now has the honor of
addressing you. I respectfully propose that this be the first business in
order. If any man has come here tonight for the purpose indicated, I do not
say let him speak, but let him shoot." Silence fell. Then Johnson began his
speech.
Johnson was a US
congressman, a governor, and a US senator. A lawyer at the impeachment trial
described him thusly: "He is a man of few ideas, but they are right and
true, and he could suffer death sooner than yield up or violate one of
them."
During Johnson's term as
president there were some noteworthy achievements. The United States purchased Alaska.
Southerners worked to repair their ruined towns and farms and to reorganize
their economy without slavery. America saw its first oil pipeline, the first
refrigerated rail car, and the first practical typewriter.