Andrew Johnson was the first president to take over for an assassinated president. He was not college-educated, and when he was younger, he trained as a tailor--the only president with that kind of skill.
Johnson's greatest contribution to history, however, was that he was the first president ever impeached. He violated the Tenure of Office Act, an act which stated that the president had to get permission from Congress to relieve a Cabinet member of his duties. Johnson fired the Radical Republican Edwin Stanton who was Lincoln's Secretary of War. The Radical Republican-led Congress, who thought that Johnson was too lenient on the Southern states after the Civil War, started impeachment proceedings and placed the president on trial. He was found not guilty, but the remainder of his presidency was unproductive. Johnson was the first of three Reconstruction presidents, the other two being Ulysses Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes.
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