Andrew Johnson (#17)

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) was the 17th President of the United States and one of the most reviled figures in American political history. A Tennessee Democrat who had remained loyal to the Union, he was placed on Lincoln's 1864 ticket as a gesture of national unity. When Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, Johnson inherited the most consequential political task in American history: the reconstruction of the defeated South.

Johnson's Reconstruction policy was a catastrophe of leniency toward the former Confederate leadership and indifference to the rights of four million newly freed Black Americans. He vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, restored land to former Confederate landowners, and allowed Southern states to pass 'Black Codes' that effectively re-enslaved Black workers. The Radical Republican Congress overrode his vetoes, passed the 14th Amendment over his objections, and in 1868 impeached him — the first presidential impeachment in American history — over his violation of the Tenure of Office Act. He survived removal from office by a single Senate vote. Historians consistently rank him among the worst presidents.