Andrew Johnson National Historic Site Panels That May Be Taken Down

Andrew Johnson was the president in the last weeks of the Civil War. After the Confederate armies had surrendered, he became the principal architect of Reconstruction. A North Carolinian by birth, he apprenticed with a tailor and moved out to Tennessee as a teenager. When he arrived in Tennessee he was a poor youth, but within a few years his tailoring work made him a member of the middle class. In his thirties he brought his first slave and he would come to own at least ten African Americans. In 1843 he was elected to the United States House of Representative, and in 1853 he was elected governor of Tennessee. He then was elected by the legislature as the state’s senator.

In 1861, all the Southern senators resigned their office, except for Andrew Johnson. He was a loyal Union man and he believed that the wealthy elites of the South had caused the secession crisis. In 1862, President Lincoln appointed Johnson as the military governor of the state. While Lincoln was never close to Johnson, he selected the Tennessee governor as his running mate 1864. Lincoln was assassinated a month after the team was inaugurated and Johnson became president.

As president, Johnson was a constant antagonist of African American rights. He vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1866, undermined the Freedmen’s Bureau, and tried to block the 14th Amendment from ratification.

The Andrew Johnson National Historic Site was established to preserve Johnson’s two homes, his tailor shop, and his grave. Following President Trump’s order that the National Park Service (NPS) “restore sanity” to the telling of our history, NPS has flagged literature at the site for review for removal. The first is the front cover of the NPS guide to the site. On the right side the brochure discusses Johnson as a slaveowner. The brochure does say that in 1863 Johnson freed his slaves and that he supported the 13th Amendment ending slavery, but other literature that identifies the owners of a house as being slave owners at other parks has also been flagged by the NPS.

The next suspect writing is a class description of Johnson. It points out that he was born poor but used his skill as a tailor to raise his standard of living. The section on him being a “Pro-Union Southern Democrat” when he said he supported a “white-man’s government” as well as discussing his turn away from slavery.

At the bottom of the brochure is a description of the slaves Johnson owned. Opposite this is a very brief treatment of Johnson’s impeachment.

This is part of a series looking at sites connected to the Civil War that are having their brochures and signage that is under review by the Interior Department. I posted about the newly disclosed set of documents assembled by the Interior Department of National Park signage that may be taken down under President Trump’s year-old Executive Order calling for “sanity” in interpreting American history. Over the next week I will present some of the documents about what signage is now considered questionable. Last month, signage at the President’s House in Philadelphia was removed and the panels taken down appeared on this list.

The photographs that I present were taken by the Interior Department because someone inside the department suspects that they are prohibited under Trump’s Executive Order. So far, there have only been a small number of removals while the review is taking place.