American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 17.1 Andrew Johnson

Episode Date: June 29, 2019

There was once a man born to humble beginning who managed to rise up and lead a nation through its most troubled times. His name was Lincoln. Johnson was born to humble beginnings also. About the same time as Lincoln. So he'll be as good. Yeah?

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Andrew Johnson Part 1. Hello and welcome to American Presidents. So tell us, rank him. I am Jamie. And I'm Rob, ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Trump. And this is episode 17.1, Andrew Johnson. Ooh, so this is Lincoln's successor. Yes.

So I'm guessing he'd be the vice president at the time. Yeah, yeah. So I generally don't know anything about him. I barely, I don't recognise the name that well. So he's not someone vice president at the time? Yeah, yeah. So I don't know anything about it. I barely, I don't recognise the name that well, so he's not someone that stands in my head. No. After Lincoln, because I imagine Lincoln is a bit of a, creates a long shadow.

He does, he does. But things are looking up. Yeah. So I would suggest the only way is up. Well, we'll see, shall we? Yeah, let's see. Okay, you ready? I think so.

Start on a tree. What kind of tree? What season? That might help. Ooh, ooh. Is it an elm? We're quite far south, so seasons don't really have much of a... So, palm tree.

Got it. Maybe not, but yeah, why not? Palm tree. So, palm tree. You're quite close, so you're just looking at the bark of the palm tree. Coconut swings into view. Yes. And flames are reflecting on the tree.

Reflecting? Or can you just see the orange light glowing on the tree? Yeah, hence reflecting. I mean, not sharp reflections, not clear reflections. Yeah, okay. But it is the light reflecting off the tree. Yeah, no, no. I'm scientifically right, aren't I?

Yeah, you are. You can see the orange. You can see the orange. You can see the orange. It's flickering, flickering light. That's what I'm trying to say. Okay. Yeah, you hear shouting. No.

It's in me. No, no, not that. Think pitchforks and torches. Oh. Yeah, there we go. Get the monster into the windmill! That kind of thing. That kind of thing, yeah.

You hear things like, kill him! And traitor! Oh, good. Yeah. Positive presidency there. It's not boding well, is it? All of a sudden you see a rope being flung over one of the branches. It's one of those unusual palm trees that has lots of sprawling branches.

I'm with you. Yeah, it looks suspiciously like an oak tree with just a coconut hanging from it. Anyway, the rope is swung over and the camera's pulling out at this point and it reveals the mob. You see them. They are full on mobbing. Yeah. And they're dragging a man in his 50s towards the tree. Oh.

Oh yeah. What kind of man? A 50s towards the tree. Oh. Oh, yeah. What kind of man? A man in a fine suit. Oh. Everything's looking... It's looking bad for this man in a suit. I think on a scale of 1 to 10, he's probably on about a 2. Yeah, he's not having a good day.

No. But then suddenly, a sound rings out. Wait! Everyone freezes. Turns. And there's just an old man standing there. The old man opens his mouth holds up a finger and then smashed to black. Andrew

Johnson. Part 1. Ooh. You've grabbed my interest. Oh yeah. You love doing these don't you? Oh yeah I do. It's the only reason why I'm doing the podcast. Where did we start doing these? Straight away, I think. Episode one.

Maybe not as developed as this. I really don't think we did. Really? I think they took a while. Anyway, if we didn't do them at the start, we'll have to go back and add them at some point. Right, okay. So, I mean, who's the man?

Who's the old man? What type of tree was it, really? Yeah. Yeah, there were so many questions. So many. So many. Were they coconuts? Yeah, exactly. Or just horses.

Who knows? Right, okay. We'll find out, because we are starting today in North Carolina in late December 1808. We're starting with Polly and Jacob. Polly and Jacob Johnson. And they've just had a child called Andrew.

Andrew Johnson. And what's the link a child called Andrew. Andrew Johnson. And what's the link between him and the president then? You'll see. It develops. Okay. It's a slow burner, this one. Right, they lived in a log cabin, like a real one, in the capital of North Carolina, Raleigh.

He was their third child. Polly and Jacob already had William, who was four, and little Elizabeth, who may have been two, but she might already be dead by this point. Elizabeth doesn't last long. Child mortality, sad thing back then. Well, it's still a sad thing now, obviously. No, we're harder parts now.

Yes. Anyway, despite living in the state capital, don't think bustling city here. Well, yeah, in 1808, that's quite early on, isn't it? Oh, wow, yeah, that is early on, isn't it? It's not only early on. It's also in the south. And the south didn't really do cities.

More hamlets. Well, this was more of a place where the buildings happened to be closer together than usual. With a population of about 1,000. It had a few administrative buildings, a wooden courthouse, and a couple of hotels built along sensible rectangular streets. But apart from that, it was just a small town, really. A posh shanty. Yeah, well, it wasn't that posh.

For a shanty town, it would be posh. It's got roads. Yeah, okay, fair enough. Right, Jacob and Polly, both illiterate, had little to do with the politics that took place in their town, and they lived in abject poverty. We're talking hand-to-mouth here, scraping by to feed the two boys.

It's possible that Polly and Jacob met when they both worked in one of the hotels. Polly cleaned and repaired the linens, and Jacob attended to the horses. He was an ostler. He was an ostler, yes. As time went by, Polly gained some employment

as a laundress outside the hotel and Jacob did odd jobs here and there until he managed to land a job as a porter for the State Bank of North Carolina. So a porter's the one that is like a doorman. Yeah, pretty much. Takes people in. There's the desk.

Bugger off. Depends how polite or rude the bank is, really. That's true. Jacob, what's little known about him, seems to have either been very lucky, very ambitious, perhaps a mixture of both, because he was from here able to become captain of the town watch.

Probably got a sparkly badge. Nice. Quick, sir, read the evidence. I can't. Yeah. You didn't need to read evidence back then. That's true. Not only was he captain of the Town Watch, he was also the city balleringer.

Oh. That's a prestigious job. That's the kind of job that I read and went, oh, really? And then went to type up my notes and went, what? What's that? Would it be like the clock bell, church bell, emergency bell?

Yeah. Division bell. Maybe. Or just any bell. If anything involved a bell, it had to be on hand. I'm guessing it was the church bell, but nowhere. I tried to look this up, and I couldn't find out exactly what type of bell. Could it be similar to a town crier

I just think that as well they have a bell but then that would have just been town crier or maybe he rings the bell and someone else cries for the town crier yeah

ding ding ding woo hoo hoo yes I'm just going to say anything to do with a bell he had to be there someone's bike someone would

ride past and he'd just lean out ding ding yeah so there you go Jacob he's in charge of all the bells He had to be there. Someone's bike. Someone would ride past and he'd just lean out. Ding. Yeah. So, there you go. Jacob, he's in charge of all the bells. Bell bottom trousers. Yes.

Yeah. Blue bells. Oh, yeah. And there's nothing else. No. Get your mind out the gutter. He likes to play with the end of the bell. No, Jamie.

No. No. No. No. We're better than that. We are. We're not. No. No. No. No. We're better than that. We are. We're not. Anyway, so, as we've been trying to say for what feels like ten minutes now,

Jacob was in charge of the bells in the city. And he was also captain of the town watch and he worked as a porter in the bank. So just doing bits here and there, trying to provide for his family. Yeah. However, if Jacob had luck, it was about to run out. Because when Andrew was only three years old... He died. No. Oh.

Jacob was down at the pier that ran out onto the nearby lake. Looking out into the water, he was horrified to see a small boat capsize. The small fishing boat had three men in it. One was the editor of the city's newspaper, and the other were friends of his. They fell in, and they started to drown, being dragged under by their big, swishy clothing. Oh, dear. Without hesitation, Jacob jumped into the lake, swam and swam and swam, and rescued all three men. Wow.

There they were, spluttering on the side of the shore, all thanks to Jacob. Thank you very much. He was a hero. But this weakened him slightly. We don't really have much details but what we do know is that he fell ill shortly afterwards and then one day when ringing the bell he suddenly died.

Oh. Probably a heart attack. Or maybe the bell fell on him. We just don't know. Mass yes so you're right he did die but not straight away no what's that that's a better in the u.s isn't there liberty bell got massive cracking he was in charge of that yeah yeah that's why it's got a crack in it wrong place though that's in phil't matter The obituary in the newspaper Was as you can probably imagine Glowing

Because he just saved the life Of the editor of the newspaper Yes In fact I quote it here Among all whom he was known And esteemed None lament him Oh

Oh sorry there's more Oh That's where it stopped And then you had to turn the page For the second part. The continuing part, turn to page six. Sorry, I should probably read that as it should be said. So, among all whom he was known and esteemed,

none lament him except perhaps his own relatives, more than the publisher of this newspaper, for he owes his life on a particular occasion to the kindness and humanity of Johnson. That's nice. So this is showing that Andrew Johnson's got good genes. Yeah. Kind, you know, willing to put himself out there.

Yeah. A winner. Yeah, exactly. Jacob may have been a hero, but that did little for Polly. Having a dead husband who was a hero did not put food on the table. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they were already really struggling and that was his wages gone.

Right, children out to work! We'll get to that. Yeah, she's left with her two boys and sure enough they start to starve. We're talking like full on poverty. Really struggling. It was not long before talk of Jacob

turned into gossip about Polly. Everyone was talking about Jacob, and you know how these things go. Talking about Jacob. Wasn't he married to that Polly? Well, let's talk about Polly for a bit. Because now that little Andrew was starting to grow, some started to talk about how he looked nothing like his father. Oh, dear.

But instead, he looked suspiciously like a prominent lawyer in the town who Polly sometimes did work for as a seamstress. Oh dear. But instead he looked suspiciously like a prominent lawyer in the town who Polly sometimes did work for as a seamstress. Oh. Yeah. Now, in a society where it was common for slave-owning men to father children with slaves that they had forced themselves upon, it was also fairly common for rich

prominent employers to do the same with poor female employees. It unfortunately was just a thing that happened fairly regularly. So this rumour was readily believed. We have no idea whether it's the case. We simply haven't, we just don't know. There's no way to know as well. No, but we do know that the rumour was around.

And we do know that this cannot have been pleasant for poor Polly, who's struggling to keep her children alive. Her husband's just died, and everyone starts muttering about her. Because either she'll be really noisy, like, that's not true! What the hell? He has his father's eyes! Or she's going, stop dragging that up, it was a horrible time in my life. Yeah, yeah. Go away.

It's just, it's a nasty time for the family. Yeah. We're quite lucky in the time that we live. We really are. Anyway, it's not long before Polly remarried to a man named Turner Doughtry. But Turner, unfortunately, was just as impoverished as she was.

So he certainly wasn't able to come along and suddenly help the situation. See, this is why you don't marry for love. Yes. You marry for the cold hard cash. Yep, that's why I married the Duchess. Yes. Yes, it is. Anyway, meanwhile, Andrew was living his life as children usually do, which is just assuming that his life is what life is like. Yeah. However, as he grew, he did start to notice some things. Some people got to live in big houses and those people that got

to live in big houses weren't very nice. One day, he and his friends were playing and they ran across the front of one of these big houses. A coachman was sent after them with a whip and accused the boys of stealing fruit. The story's true. Little Andrew got whipped in the street because of this.

Huh. Yeah. Not nice. I didn't steal fruit as a tomato. A tomato's a fruit, you brat! You uneducated fool! Yeah. However, despite the growing realisation that he was poor, he also would have been taught, as a white child growing up in the South,

it doesn't matter how bad things seem, you will always be better than the black people. So Andrew would have seen both free and enslaved black men, women, and children. And soon he thoroughly believed that he was better than all of them simply by default. Yeah, unfortunately that's a thing that would have happened. That's what you think life is, then that's what you think it is. You don't get racist children until you teach them to be racist, unfortunately. Yeah.

However, having a sense of supremacy due to skin colour also did not put food on the table. And Polly, seeing no alternative, decided to sell her children into an apprenticeship scheme. Probably a good thing to do, really, because they're going to get work. They'll be trained to do work anyway, not to start with. You can see why Polly made this decision. Yeah. Really? Because they're going to get work. They'll be trained to do work anyway, not to start with. You can see why Polly made this decision. Yeah. It was watch your children starve to death or put them somewhere where they'll be fed and they learn the trade. Gives them a chance.

Yeah, it makes sense. But this was unpaid apprenticeship for 11 years. Okay. Yeah. It doesn't take 11 years to learn a trade. No. This is another example of slave labour, but you know what I mean? It's not slave labour,

especially since you have genuine slave labour going on, but you're not too far off the fact that you are forcing... Exploitation. Yeah, definitely. There's no way that Andrew and his brother would have been in a badder situation as the slaves. No.

But they certainly did not have the freedom that they would expect they should have as white people. So they felt very hard done by. The fact that there were people right next to them that were harder done by, they didn't see it that way. Screw that. Yeah. Anyway, to begin with, William was apprenticed first, so older brother. He was apprenticed to the man that Jacob had saved that. Yeah. Anyway, to begin with, William was apprenticed first, so older brother. He was apprenticed to the man that Jacob had

saved in the lake. So not the newspaper editor, but one of the others. So, obviously, a sense of guilt there. Yeah, okay, I'll take him the child. However, that didn't last too long, and soon, William was transferred to a tailor shop. By this point, Andrew was old enough to go with him,

so at ten years old, Andrew was bound to a tailor shop. By this point, Andrew was old enough to go with him, so at 10 years old, Andrew was bound to the tailor James Salby until the age of 21. Wow. Yeah. Like I say, this system was controversial at the time, not just looking back. Many argued that such long apprenticeships were

clearly a way for business just to get cheap labour. Oh yeah. Still, considering that Polly was struggling to feed the boys, having them fed and giving them the rudimentaries of education while learning a trade did seem better than anything she could do herself. Well, yeah, they may have died. Yeah, exactly. So off you go. Now, the shop was close enough to home that Andrew did not board at the shop,

which meant that his board money could be given to Polly, which was a nice bonus. Andrew also had the basics of reading taught to him by an employer in the shop, but little progress was made in this area. He could read, but not brilliantly. Most of his days were spent with the basics of being a tailor. So at 10 years old, he was cleaning up,

he was carrying things, he was holding things. Yeah. He was finding the needles in the haystacks, which they kept dropping in the haystacks. Oh, it'd be so annoying. I know. He says, oh, I've dropped a needle. Can you go and find it for me?

Yeah. Why are you near a pile of hay with a needle? But more than anything else, Andrew was exposed to a side of society he had only ever really glimpsed before, because all sorts of people would come into the shop and talk about politics and current affairs. It is most likely over this period that Andrew started to form his political opinions that would stick with him.

Mostly, he was angry. Here he was, scraping out a life, watching his poor mother, sick with worry, and these rich planter-class men and women would swan around doing very little and living the high life. How is this fair? The planter-class were taking from swan around doing very little and living the high life. How is this fair? The planter class were taking from the poor whites and exploiting them. Even as a child, he could see this. Yeah. So he was sure that the problems he and his family had suffered all their lives

was all down to the planter class. But he doesn't stop there. Because the planter class were to blame, but so were another class of people. Who else is involved in the whole plantation thing? Oh. Yeah. Wonderful. Yes.

Yeah, apparently he was sure that the other class of people responsible for keeping poor white people down was in fact the slaves themselves. Yes, sir, we are definitely keeping you down. Yeah. By working for free, they priced are definitely keeping you down. Yeah. By working for free, they priced white men out of jobs. Yeah. So, in Andrew's mind, it was the entire

slave economy that was keeping poor white people from achieving things. Positive in a way, which means he wants to get rid of it. Yes and no, as we'll see. Oh, dear. Yeah. As we'll see, he grows up to despise the planter class, but he's also incredibly racist.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So, yeah. Sounds marvellous. Yeah, so he's growing up. He's turning into a teenager. He's still having to live hand to mouth. He's forced to work in a job that he hates for no pay for 12 hours a day.

He's not having a good time. No. Now, he wouldn't have formed these opinions that I've been talking about overnight, obviously. But over the years of working in the tailor shop, he starts to think this way. Not that all the talk in the shop angered him. Some inspired him as well. One day, a man came in with a book. And this was a book full of American speeches.

Okay. Yeah. It's a man called Dr. William Hill. He used to come in regularly. William Hill? Is that the name of a betting place? Yes, it is. Excellent. Yeah, he did bets on the side. Dr. Hill would come in and the shop was quite

a social place to hang out as well as getting clothes. And he'd come in and he'd just read some of the speeches occasionally. Oh no, William's coming quick, come on! Send the children out. Well, little Andrew loved this. He was really inspired by some of these speeches. And Dr Hill, realising the boy cutting the cloth,

was very interested in this collection. I mean, literally, he's the only one listening. Everyone else is suddenly very busy. So, he gave his book of speeches to Andrew as a gift. Oh, dear. You can't read. Oh, he's got the rudimentaries. Okay, he's getting there.

Yeah. In fact, it's theorized that this book, in fact, taught him to read more than his teacher because he so wanted to read this book that he kind of really started focusing on his studies. Wow. Yeah. He was determined to understand all of it. And apparently he kept this book that he kind of really started focusing on his studies. Wow. Yeah. He was determined to understand all of it and apparently he kept this book for his entire life.

Yeah. I'd like to think in his breast pocket, hoping that one day someone would shoot at him and it would save his life and he'd have an amazing story to tell. That would be phenomenal. Yeah. Did it happen? I'd love to say yes. But what are the chances of that happening in real life?

Pretty slim. Yeah. Anyway, as you can probably guess, Johnson was not the best apprentice. He was far too angry and bored to simply just get on with his work. He soon fell into a group of likewise disenfranchised boys, and he got up to mischief. Oh, dear. Yeah.

He started turning cattle over. I'd like to think he rearranged cows but i didn't read that he did that um what was other things freezing the bell was some things that people got up to wasn't it i remember saying that i can't remember who was that madison yeah moving furniture yeah i never figured out what freezing the bell was but his his dad was in charge of the bells he probably respect the bells too much maybe he thawed the bells. Who knows? I don't know what he did apart from this one thing because one day he, his brother and some other boys threw several objects at a house. Again, I tried to find out the objects. I'm guessing things like eggs, maybe pebbles,

maybe one of those cows. Need a big arm. You would need a big arm, but who knows? They threw stuff generally at the house. The woman in the house was not happy and chased them off but she spotted who it was. It was those Johnson boys. Stop throwing the bloody cows

on my roof! Exactly. It's a pain getting them down. Yeah. Yeah. They're mooing all night can't sleep a wink.

So she went further and she started to sue the boys for damages. Especially once the cow fell through. Yeah. It's getting serious. It's a bit like when you got a slow leak yeah you just see another poke yeah you know you know you've got

to sort the cow out have i got enough time this weekend put a book underneath so then the cow just comes from completely and you're kicking yourself. You knew it was going to happen at some point and you didn't sort the cow out. So anyway, she's suing for damages. Andrew did the only thing he could think of. Run away? He ran away. James Salby was not happy to find that Andrew and his brother had run away and placed an advert for their return offering $10.

That's a fair amount at that time. So if you turned yourself in, $10, please. Interestingly, he offered the $10 for the return of the two boys, or just Andrew. Ooh. Which must have really hurt William's feelings. Yeah. I'm guessing this because Andrew was younger,

so had much longer on his apprenticeship left. Yeah, it's more of an investment. It doesn't really matter because the boys were gone. Yeah. Travelling by foot, they travelled all the way to Carthage. Wow. That's quite far. That's quite a walk.

Quite a few Carthages. This isn't the same Carthage that I've mentioned in this series before, and it's obviously not the Carthage I mentioned in the Roman series. But yeah, it's yet another Carthage. They stayed there for a bit, and then Andrew headed off to Lawrence, crossing into South Carolina.

Now as much as Andrew hated his apprenticeship, it's what saved his life really. Because he was able to find employment as a tailor and spent the next two years in Lawrence. He managed to prove to himself that he could survive on his own. He'd only been in the apprenticeship for four years and he was already...

All he needed was four years, see? Yeah, he's already able to actually make money being a tailor. So, there you go, he's settling down. He's going to make his own life. And at 17, he met Mary Wood and proposed. That's very fast.

Oh yeah, he's wasting no time. Hey Mary, do you want to get married? She said no. I'm literally just seeing you. Oh, yeah. He's wasting no time. Hey, Mary. Do you want to get married? She said, no. I literally just seen you. Yeah. Seriously, who are you? Well, that was pretty much the family's reaction anyway. Who is this boy that repairs clothes who's suddenly turned up in the village?

He wants to marry you. No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. Mary, you're staying in the cabin for a month two months never going out again yeah into the

room of shame just a room with the word shame written on it yeah

as you're walking shame shame shame and just shameful things in

there yes like albums that you still quite like that you're really embarrassed

by I mean yeah yeah anyway she went in that room. Andrew was also very embarrassed

because he fled the town. Run away. I'd like to think whimpering slightly. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, he left Lauren's looking for his next move. But by this point, he kind of missed home. He'd been away for a couple of years. And he soon started to realise

that being a fugitive from an apprenticeship could cause awkward questions. People could say things like, what, you want to marry my daughter? So what have you been doing with your life so far? Things like that. Run away from home, I see. Right.

Get out. Yeah, so time to go back and face the music, he thinks. However, once he gets back to Raleigh, he finds that Salby has moved shop. Yay. Great, he thinks. Brilliant. However, the town remember him. It's only been a couple of years and no one would employ him.

And trustworthy. Yeah, exactly. So, he figures, no, I need to sort this out. He tracks Salby down and he offers to buy his contract out over time. Okay. Salby refused, saying he would only take payment up front. If you can't pay

up front, then you're coming back to work for me. Because I don't trust you. You keep running away. Well, Andrew obviously didn't have that kind of money, so he did the only thing he knew how. Run away. He ran away again. Yes. This time he heads west into Tennessee.

He hitched a lift with a planter class gentleman who was setting off to make his fortune. He must have loved that. Oh, yeah. Johnson soon found himself in a train of wagons with slaves and tools and household goods just ricketing along the road. So, stealing a lot of jobs, are you?

Imagine the poor slaves in that wagon having to listen to his moaning the entire way. I'm so bad for it. I can't even get a job. It's all your fault. Yeah. Just eyes looking up, just angry. Yeah.

What? They're just looking at each other, just shaking their heads. Anyway, they soon reach Knoxville. Andrew spends the next couple of years generally travelling around wherever he could go. Never really settling. For a while he was in Alabama. Then he went back to Tennessee, always making money through his tailoring trade, which improved quite a bit when he found a tailor when he was in Alabama who taught him how to make suits.

So, yeah, it was something he hadn't been taught yet, but now making suits is kind of an important part of being a tailor. So what did he make before? Did he only make a certain specific item of clothing, do you think? I'm guessing before he was repairing things and making simple things like... Handkerchiefs. Yeah. Cut this into squares.

Yes. Done! He was really good at handkerchiefs and creating monograms, as long as your name was Ingrid Ingridson. Yes. Because he was really good at eyes. Yes. And he could do straight lines. Yeah. Yeah. But no, you can do suits now. Oh, good. That's good. But then he

received word from his mother. Your father's dead. Yes, I know, but it was years ago. No, it wasn't that. There was nothing in Raleigh anymore for her husband and her, so they decided to make their move west also, where some relatives were, and also Andrew's older brother William now was. So any chance you could pop back and help us is essentially what was said. So Andrew heads back to help his mother move.

All they had, according to the story passed down, to help them move was one blind donkey and a wagon with two wheels. What if it's a car, so you don't need two wheels because it gets picked up by the donkey? I'd like to think that it's the two left wheels. Which was a shame.

That's why Andrew had to go back. He had to hold the axle on the other side and shout at the donkey left and right. Yeah, it's not what you want when you're heading across country, just a donkey that cannot see.

Just keeps crashing into the same tree again and again. I went to a donkey sanctuary. Oh, did you? Was there a blind one? No. There's one that looked like Alan Cummings, though. Right, okay. That's similar. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, it was a long and hard journey. Shouting left and right at a donkey. Left, no, my mama! Oh, he's in the ditch again. He's got his hoof stuck. Oh, he's blown a hoof. At one point, when they were camping,

a mountain lion suddenly ran into their camp and knocked their dinner into the fire. They're vicious. Yeah. Definitely knocking their dinner over. That's vicious. Yeah. Probably called them a name as they went past as well.

Do you just do what normal cats do? Just jump off and just like flicks off the edge? Yeah. Just trying to play. Yeah. Benefit of having a blind donkey, though. Probably didn't care. Nope.

No. Took it in stride. Said screams. What? What's going on? Yeah. Benefit of having a blind donkey though. Probably didn't care. Nope. No. Took it in stride. Said screams like, oh, what? What's going on? Yeah. The lion freaked them out a bit as you can imagine. It would, wouldn't it? We're going to be eaten by lions.

Oh, there's a black bear. Wow, are you reading my notes? Oh, no. I was thinking of the revenant. Yeah, no, because then the bears start. Yeah, no, in all seriousness, they start seeing evidence of bears, so they decide to speed up a bit. Wonderful. Oh, there's a grizzly.

Run! Yeah, it's not good. It was a dangerous journey. Slow and arduous. Anyway, they decide to settle in the first town they come across. This'll do. Yeah, you know that was a sort of three in the morning decision one night after the lion and the bear. It's like, you know what, it doesn't matter where, first place we settle.

I don't care if it's a hut next to a puddle, we're stopping. Weird it's only ten minutes out of Raleigh. Yeah. You can still see Raleigh very clearly over the hill. 10 minutes out of Raleigh. Yeah. You can still see Raleigh very clearly over the hill. Anyway, they do come across a settlement called Greenville.

Greenville, Tennessee. To begin with, they camped outside the town, and Andrew went into the settlement to find some work. The tailor there apparently was a very old man who was a bit slow. Wonderful, thought Andrew. I can definitely get some work here then. I can speed you up. Yeah, that's that.

Your tailor's really old. It'd be terrible if something happened to him. There's no suggestion Andrew kills off the tailor, by the way. That's my own speculation. Yeah, no, he manages to find work, and soon enough he was able to put his mother and his stepfather up in a tavern, which is nice. Yeah, the arrival of the Johnsons was noticed by the town.

In particular, by a young lady named Eliza McArdle. Ooh, who are these people being chased by lions and bears? Yes. They've been stalking them for hours. Well, this was a young 16-year-old girl who noticed Andrew striding down the street. Ooh. Off to get a job. And she turned to a friend and said, there goes the man I'm going to marry.

She knows what she wants. She wants him. Oh, yes. That's what she wants. He can cut my hanky. That's what she said. However, Andrew had come to help his mother. He wasn't planning on staying.

He was a bit of a rambling man by this point. He's a vagabond. He's a rover. He's a wanderer. He goes where his hat tells him. That's not the saying, is it? That's just hearing voices. It is.

Yeah. Head towards the mountains. Yeah, exactly. No, so what is it? He sleeps where he hangs his hat. Is that it? Yeah. Yeah, something like that.

Anyway, he does something with his hat, and it means he wanders around a lot. So anyway, what I'm trying to say is he doesn't stay in the place too long. Yeah. He moves on. But before he moves on, Eliza and Andrew talk, and they start to get to know each other a little bit. But Andrew's on his way.

So off he goes. Waxes stick over his shoulder. Everything he owns in his hanky. He's off to make his fortune. This time he heads to Rutledge, and again he works as a tailor. But while there, whilst he was sewing his handkerchiefs, he just kept getting an image in his head. Eliza. An image of a young lady who quite clearly fancied him.

Not wearing much. I wouldn't like to speculate. It's late at night. He's got a room to himself. I'm not saying what he does, but... Someone's got a little handkerchief. He's making handkerchiefs, Jamie. Mind out the gutter. Right. Anyway, I mean, yeah, he wanted to be his own man. He wanted to strike out on his own. He didn't really want to live where his mother was, but then... There was Eliza. There was a young lady who fancied him, so I mean he soon moved back to Greenville.

Hanky's in hand. Hopefully disposed of those before meeting Eliza, because he then asked Eliza to marry him. Which she said yes. Oh. As soon as you put those in the bin. So wave them around. So at 19, Andrew and Eliza marry.

Oh. In 1827. That's what he needed. Yes, he did. The man who married them was Mordecai Lincoln. Mordecai? Yes. That's a great name.

Yeah. Mordecai Lincoln was the cousin of a young man named Abraham who was currently wielding an axe a few hundred miles away. Weird small world stuff there. Why are you telling me that? I don't know. I just thought you might want to know. I don't care about his cousin.

Mordecai, though. Tell me more. He had a great name. Yeah. There's a wrestler called Mordecai in 2000-something. 2004, I think. Was he the cousin of an axe welder? Possibly. Ah, there's a wrestler called Mordecai in 2000-something. 2004, I think. Was he the cousin of an axe welder? Possibly. Ah, interesting. Small world.

I know the wrestler's cousin became president, though. Barack Obama. Yes! Nice, okay. Right. Anyway, we know very little about Eliza, going back to the story. Some credit her with improving her husband's education. To her. To her. To her, to her, to her.

No, the. Yeah, a bit like that. Improving his reading skills and teaching him how to write. Now, we also know that she was quite sickly, apparently. She didn't like to travel much, or at least she doesn't travel much. Okay. As we'll see, that might be more Andrew's decision later on,

but we'll come to that. Right. Anyway, perhaps it is this reason that she takes very much a background in Andrew's story. It's hard to read into what their relationship was like. We just don't have many details. Perhaps they were perfectly content with each other. Perhaps they soon tired of each other.

We just have no idea. What we do know is that now that Andrew's decided to settle somewhere, he managed to make a good go at beginning a tailoring business. That seems to be a thing he really wants to do, isn't it? It's a skill he has. Oh, yes. Yeah. Now, it's not long before he's able to hire other people to help him out.

He's actually doing quite well here. And then he invests some of that money into real estate, which does quite well. He starts actually getting some money in. Not just we can eat now, as in we've got a spare bit of cash. Let's buy another house. Yeah. So things are starting to look quite good,

and over the next six years, he and Eliza have four children. Wow. Martha, Charles, Mary, and Robert. So he's now got money, he's got some time, he's got security, he's got a family. Everything's looking good time, he's got security, he's got a family, everything's looking good. And he's also got a new thirst for reading, because he can do it now. And he finds that he loves books, he becomes obsessed with them.

He spends all his spare time reading. So just like the shop that he worked in as a boy, his shop soon becomes a place where men would hang out and discuss politics. Ah, this is where the book bites, right? Oh yes. The discussions often turned into debates that were so enjoyed by some that it was decided to start debating formally. Ooh.

Yeah. He was, in fact, a master debater, as we have already discovered. Yeah. Johnson and a friend, a plasterer, decided to debate the political issues of the day in public. They were debating in public. Yes, they were.

Yeah, instead of just in the shop, like in the back room, let's go out. We've got a judge and an audience and ourselves. I like it that way. Yeah, filth this week. Yeah, Andrew had not been reading and re-reading his American Speeches book for half his life for nothing. He knew what a good speech was. So, he was going to stand up and debate one of his friends in public,

and he was going to do it well. He was determined. So, on the day that they debated, it went on for hours. So, it was on a Saturday. Oh, dear. Yeah. This is where you need time limits. Yeah.

Well, there was kind of, because when it hit midnight, they had to call it off because it was Sunday. Oh, yeah. And it didn't seem right to be debating on a Sunday. No. Don't debate on a holy day. No, God is watching. But, I mean, it had gone on for quite some time. Everyone had enjoyed themselves, particularly Andrew.

But, I mean, it had gone on for quite some time. Everyone had enjoyed themselves, particularly Andrew. But what people noticed, that Andrew may not have been the most artful of orators. No. But he did have a way of moving the crowd, with a combination of cutting remarks to his opponents that the crowd loved. Idiot!

A touch of sarcasm. Oh, that's brilliant, yeah, well done. And anecdotes. Well, that's brilliant. Yeah, well done. And anecdotes. Well, my father said to me, nothing because he's dead. Yeah. And at times, simply being louder than the other person. Yeah, using a combination of those things. I can see like a maniac.

Well, Andrew soon discovered that he had a talent aside from making clothes. Turns out he was pretty good at this. Oh yes. A formal debating society was soon created. In part, it was due to this and his standing in the community that Johnson soon was elected Mayor of Greenville. Oh wow.

In 1834. He also joined the militia at this time, although didn't really do much. So we don't know much about him being the mayor, but we do know he was charged with battery and assault. That's a good start. That's some good mayoring, that is. Now, the details have been lost for this,

so we don't really know why he was charged with this. What we do know is that he was charged with the crime by a man named Thomas Maclay, and Johnson didn't turn up for the court case. And then the charges were dropped. Wow. So, read into that what you will. Yeah. Meanwhile, however, Johnson was starting to look for bigger things.

Being mayor of a small town didn't really give him much power. I mean, it was nice, but he really started to see for himself a life of politics. Maybe he could do something there. Now, the current issue of the day was the state's constitution. People were debating on whether you needed to own property to vote. The original argument being

well, you'd only really care about the laws if you had property there. So, only property owners should vote. If you didn't own property, you would just say anything and laws... You wouldn't be able to read, it would cause chaos. Yeah. Laws would spiral out of control. It would just

be mayhem. That was the original idea. By this time, we're a few decades on from the start of the country, people are starting to say things like, that's ridiculous. Surely, if we live under the laws, we should be able to vote on the laws. We're starting to say things like, that's ridiculous. Surely if we live under the laws, we should be able to vote on the laws. We're meant to be a democracy. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a good argument. It's one hard to argue against. Johnson did not argue against it. In fact, he very much argued for it. Poor people should definitely be allowed to vote. Poor white people should definitely be allowed to vote. Poor white people should definitely be allowed to vote, was his argument. Any human being. As long as they're white, should definitely. Of course, it would be ridiculous, inhumane of the whites. So he pushed hard for this, and it went through. Not only did it go through,

Johnson pushing so hard and so loud made his name be noticed outside Greenville. On the back of this, he decides, you know what, I'm going to run for the state legislature. Now, he was up against better known men who had family names that were recognised. He certainly was not the favourite. But Johnson threw himself into campaign and debated the other candidates. And his opponents simply were not ready for Johnson's style of debating that had been honed in his debating

society. He ridiculed, he talked over people, he tore the others apart. Is he one of these annoying people that doesn't really let the person get a word in edgeways and just... Pretty much, by the sounds of it. It's not debating, that's just being an arse. By the sounds of it, he just bullied his opponents.

That's not debating. But in an amusing way, because the crowd loved it. So he mocked them and bullied them. Yeah, well, the crowd loved it, because here was this young tailor telling it how it is. Here's this young tailor talking to the toughs who think they're all that. And he's saying what I've always wanted to say to the planter class.

Element of populism in that, isn't it? Oh, yes, very much so. His popularity grew enough that he won the election. So he left his young family behind and headed for Nashville. And this is a common thing. His family tend not to go with him when he goes off to places. Like I say, we don't know much about his family.

And Andrew seemed to be happy to be away from his family for long periods of time. Bloody children. Yeah. Anyway, off to Nashville he goes. Not only had he started his political career, but he'd also started something else as well. Because he had just become a slave owner for the first time.

Oh, splendid. Oh yes, because he had just purchased a 14-year-old girl called Dolly. I have a feeling this isn't going to go down well. Well, according to the family history, Dolly approached Johnson during the auction and asked Johnson to buy her because he looked so friendly. Right. Yeah.

That's the story that's passed down. Now, obviously... It's rubbish. We have no idea whether this is true because there's no way we could ever know if that was true. But it tells us something about the times that this story was seen as a nice one and not hideous. Yeah. Because even if it as a nice one and not hideous. Yeah. Because even if it is true

it's still hideous. Yeah. It just really brings home just how awful it must have been. It's so normalised, isn't it? Just being a 14 year old girl and having to scan a field full of people who is least likely to beat and rape me. I know.

That one looks kindly. I'll go and beg beat and rape me. I know, that one looks kindly. I'll go and beg that he buys me. So, Dolly's now around. Over the years, there was a rumour that Dolly's children, that she had over the next few years, were fathered by Johnson. We, again, don't know. There's been no study into this like there was with Jefferson.

Yeah. Where it's almost certain, like 99% certain that something was going on there. But yeah, so we don't know with this one, but... It's not implausible. It's really not, if not likely, to be honest. Yeah, the rape of slaves was everywhere. It just was commonplace. I thought we were getting to a better time now.

We keep bringing it back to bad things. Slavery has not ended yet. We went back in time. Yeah, I know. Don't worry, once slavery ended, everything is marshmallows and rainbows. There's no problems in US history after that. It's going to be fine.

Anyway, so there was a good chance that Johnson was fathering children with one of his slaves. But we don't know. What we do know is that Johnson soon bought Dolly's half-brother. So some of her family were purchased. And we also know that once Dolly's children started to be born, Johnson apparently treated these children very kindly. He sat them on his knees, he told them stories, he was quite a nice figure in their memories,

which kind of gives a hint that maybe he had a reason to be kindly to these children. There's a lot you can infer from this. Yes, definitely. It's also depressingly easy how these people were able to convince themselves that they were good people Whilst actively owning other people, but I'm nice to my slaves and I give them food and shelter

and a family Anyway, shall we get back to politics? Johnson moves to Nashville and initially aligned himself with the Whicks. Although his hero was Andrew Jackson, the Democrats were also the party of the planter class, and Johnson wasn't keen on aligning himself with them too much. However, despite his hatred of the planters, he shared many democratic values, in particular when it came to infrastructure.

He did not like the rise of the railroad companies that were popping up. He saw them as corrupt and anti-democratic. These huge businesses telling other people what to do. And they just clearly were corrupt thrown through. Just monopolising and doing their own thing. Yeah, exactly. So Johnson spent a lot of his time in the start of his political career attempting to stop the spread of railroads.

Arguing that they would scare horses and deprive in-owners of income. Only scare horses if you move your horse to a rail track. Like tie it to the tracks. Yeah. Yeah. Then it would be scared. Yeah, of course it would. Poor horse.

I mean, common horses are ridden into battles and stuff. Yeah. They're not going to be scared by... No. I mean, those horses are trained, to be fair. Yeah. And horses also are notoriously scared of new technology. That's true.

That's why you never see a horse in an internet cafe. Or a horse with an iPhone. Yeah, exactly. So maybe they would. But if Johnson was concerned about the growing power of the railroad companies and the blatant corruption that came with them, all that came across to the public was that he hated trains. Yeah, of course.

Things always get lost in translation, don't they? What's that? That's Johnson. He's the guy who hates trains, isn't he? Yeah. And people love trains. I mean, this is back when everyone had an anorak of thermos and a pack of sandwiches.

Yeah, and a little notebook. Yeah. Everyone just trying to spot the train. It's the B172 from Nashville! Or just Train 1 from Nashville. Early days. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. One day there'll be a second.

Have you spotted the train? Yep. That was a good hobby, wasn't it? Alright, okay. See you next year. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, they were new. They connected the country in ways that were thought impossible just years previously. Yeah. Tennessee wanted to be connected to the rest of the country.

Why the hell was this Johnson fellow opposing this? Yeah. Yeah, so his popularity kind of plummets a bit because he's fighting for the spread of trains. And he lost the race when his re-election came up. Ooh. Yeah. However, he's determined to get back into power. He's got the bug here. So he's going to get back in.

He approached the Whigs and then the Democrats. Just to see which party would give him the best chance of getting in come the next cycle of elections. He was less concerned with party politics than he was with just being in power. Ah, and this is something again that we will see as we go through.

Now, he decided that the Democrats would offer him the best chances at this point. He still didn't fully agree with everything that they believed in. And those high up in the Democratic Party were cautious of this outspoken man. He seemed a bit of a populist, like he said. Yeah. He'd say whatever he wanted to, just to rouse the rabble. Yeah. Yeah. However,

as the Panic of 1837 had just hit, the Democrats' popularity started to wane under Martin Van Buren, and it was noticed that Johnson was still really popular in Tennessee. Democrats are starting to lose left, right and centre, and yet this Johnson fellow, he's keeping his support. How's he doing that?

He was described as the Democrats' only man in eastern Tennessee at this point. So he throws himself into party politics. He was soon rallying the voters for Van Buren's upcoming election. He's not a full Democrat, but he's willing to toe the line. As we've seen, Van Buren lost this election to Harrison, but by this time, Johnson was a name known to many

in the Democratic Party nationally. Oh, so his name's already out there? Yeah, because he's just a bit of an anomaly. Who the hell is that? Yeah, it's like, why is everyone like him? Oh, that's why. He's a bit... He's not a bit of an anomaly. Who the hell is that? Yeah, it's like, why is everyone like him? Oh, that's why. He's a bit... He's not a real Democrat.

No. But he's fighting for us. You do. Okay, yeah, okay. He could be the face. Yeah. And Johnson had decided, you know what? It is time for some national politics.

So in 1842, he runs for a seat in the House. He styled himself as a fighter for the working man, an opponent of the House. He styled himself as a fighter for the working man, an opponent of the elites. Now, considering the Democratic Party was the party for the elites, this was an interesting niche that he was forcing himself into. It's interesting because you kind of see parties

that sort of, like, certainly in our country, there are certain parties that lean more towards more of a nationalistic tendency, but they often have members that don't fit that tendency to almost show that, look how diverse we are. Yeah, it certainly isn't harming the Democrats. You've got someone saying, we'll fight for you. All you people who now suddenly have the vote.

Yeah. We're on your side, really. So yeah, definitely. So yeah, Johnson ran on a campaign of not wasting any public money, something that he was determined the government not to do. This becomes a bit of a thing for him.

The idea of wasting public money. The government should only ever spend money when it was really necessary. Like, really necessary. He was the kind of person you'd only get a new pencil if you brought back the nub of the old one. That kind of person. There's like the rubber, the metal

bit, then literally the tip, the end straight away. Yeah, it's gotta be like that. Wow. Anyway, he wins this race and he becomes a representative. He's a bit of an unusual figure in the House, because out of the 223 men in the House of Representatives, 200 of them

were lawyers. Right. I mean, as we've seen, who hasn't been a lawyer out of everyone we've covered? Actually, that's a damn good point. Washington. Off the top of my head. Jackson, was he a lawyer? No, no. No, he was a lawyer. Oh, of course he was. Yeah, no, he went round. He was judging

with his pistols. Tiberius. Different podcast. Taylor. Oh. Yeah. But, I mean, they're few and far between, aren't they? And Johnson was a tailor, ironically. Yeah. He was an outspoken tailor.

He had a sharp tongue. He knew how to hold his own in a debate, but he wasn't a lawyer. Yeah. Yeah, so he stood out a little bit. Now, in an age of growing partisanship, Johnson kept his independent streak. He was a Democrat, but he would not always vote for them. He agreed that the government should not interfere with slavery.

That was the Democrat line. But he did not agree with the party's opinions on tariffs, for example. Right. The Democrats soon grew wary of him. What is this man doing? But there was one thing they did know. He was insanely popular back in Tennessee. There was no way he was about to lose his seat. He's here, he's here to stay. Now he served well enough for the first term. He spent most of his time voting down any bills whatsoever that involved

any kind of public spending. Yeah. You want to spend money? No. Sorry, not happening. Probably stems back to his poor upbringing, I'm guessing. Quite possibly, yes. Unless there was an exception to this. It was to do with education.

Yeah, again. Yeah, again. It all goes back. Johnson firmly believes that education should be available to all, not just the rich. Wow.

Yeah. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Available to all? All just the rich. Wow. Yeah. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Available to all? All white people, of course. Oh, thank goodness. Yes. Yeah.

So, yeah, he's got some nice ideas on education. Let's spread the education around, he's thinking. But apart from that, no. No. What's that? You want money for police? Not needed. Aqueducts.

This is an ancient Rome. Rome? Yeah. Aid to victims of an accidental cannon explosion. No. Don't stand so close. Exactly. Interestingly, again, I tried to find this out and I couldn't

because I came across the fact that he voted no to aid to victims of an accidental cannon explosion. I'm fairly certain that this is the USS Princeton that TIDA was on, because it's the right time, and how many cannon explosions are you going to have? Here's a bad few. So yeah, so those poor people who died on the ship when TIDA was president, no, he was saying, no, they don't need anything. They're already dead. What are they going to do with the money?

So, he was a bit tight-fisted, shall we say. So yeah, he was living in Washington at this time. Eliza, again, had decided to stay at home, but his eldest daughter had come with him so she could get an education in the capital. Yeah, so she just

lived in a boarding school. You're coming with daddy. Yay! And you're going into the boarding school. Johnson attended few parties. He spent most of his time reading books in the Library of Congress. And just kept to himself, really.

Yeah. He won his re-election nice and easily because he was very popular back at home But at this point Polk is president And the Mexican war kicks off And then ends Short version of that war As we've covered it before

Johnson didn't really get too involved In the ins and outs of the war Because he was working on a bill that would become known As the Homestead Bill And this was his thing This was a bill designed for the mechanics, which is roughly how the working class were referred to at the time. Okay.

So it didn't matter if you were like a tailor or a carpenter, made the drains. You were a mechanic. That's what the word was used for. Yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, he's designing a bill for the mechanics. Now, the plan was to encourage poor white people to settle in the West by giving them 160 acres of land.

As long as you live on it for a set amount of years, you can have it for free. Oh, wow. Yeah. Not freedmen, though, because, well, there's a reason. It's not just racism. Giving freedmen land would encourage them to, and I quote here, a life of indolence. Oh.

Yeah. But white people, oh no, for them, it would give them a leg up that they needed to become useful members of society. What on earth? Yeah. Now, it took a while, but eventually this bill was passed by the House. However, there's something else big going on at this time that we've always had to talk about at this time, because 1850 has just rolled by.

Oh, brilliant. Yes, and that, of course, means the Compromise of 1850. The one with the Fugitive Slave Law, and what are we going to do with California, etc., etc. I bet Johnson loved this. Well, he was very much in the thick of the debate. What were they going to do with this land taken from Mexico? Now, Johnson had created his own compromise solution.

His idea was to allow California into the Union as a free state, and in return, interestingly, give the capital city to Maryland. What, the capital capital city to Maryland. What, the capital of California is Maryland? No, to give Washington, D.C. to Maryland. Oh, I'm with you. Let's get rid of this weird District of Columbia thing. Yeah, yeah.

We can just have Washington, D.C. in Maryland, which it is in. I mean, come on. It clearly is in Maryland. It's basically a swamp. Come on. Yeah. Maryland's a slave state, and therefore we can just all have slavery in the capital It's basically a swamp. Come on. Yeah. And Maryland's a slave state, and therefore we can just all have slavery in the capital,

and everything's fine. Oh, and also the Fugitive Slave Act. Definitely. That's got to be a thing. Yeah. After all, and I'm going to quote Johnson here, slavery itself has its foundation and will find its perpetuity in the Union, and the Union its continuance by non-interference with the

institution of slavery. Yes. So, essentially, slavery will always be in the Union, and the Union will always continue slavery. It's how it is. Yeah. Now, as we've seen, this compromise wasn't taken up. It was actually Henry Clay's that goes

through eventually. But he very much sided with the South on this one. Yeah, fair enough. Unsurprisingly. Now, by 1852, Johnson had been in the capital for almost a decade. Oh, wow. Yeah, we've kind of skipped a bit there. But it's just him, like, turning up to meetings and stuff.

There's only so much you can say. He's made a name for himself over this time, though. He is now known nationally as a stubborn man who would not bend and would cut you down verbally if you dared to challenge him. Due to this, he made some enemies. Oh, really? Oh, yes.

Realising that he was far too popular to lose his seat, the Whigs in the Tennessee legislature fell back on that good old US tradition of gerrymandering. Oh. Oh. Oh, yes. For goodness sake. If you can't win by fair democratic principles, just cheat. Yeah, yeah.

Because for some reason, it's still not illegal. Yeah. But it's fine. Obviously, they get rid of gerrymandering soon because it's so obviously ridiculous and non-democratic. Yeah. Yeah. Any time after this, I'm sure.

Bound to get rid of it soon. Of course. Anyway, overnight... And towards the modern age, damnocratic. Yeah. Yeah, any time after this, I'm sure. Bound to get rid of it soon. Of course. Anyway, overnight... Getting towards the modern age, damn it. Yeah. Overnight, Johnson found himself in a district in which he was no longer quite as popular as he was before.

They're all pointing guns at us there. Yeah. So just like that, he loses his seat. Aw. Back to Tennessee, he goes. He is determined not to lose the gains he's made in his life so far however so he decides to run for the governor of the state

yes he was up against Major Gustavus Henry Gustavus oh yeah it's a good name Major Gustavus I am Major Gustavus yes you are known also as the Eagle Orator.

Ooh. Oh, yeah. Quack! Quack! Just squawks. Yeah. Oh, he was one of Lincoln's friends who trained an eagle, wasn't it? Oh! Just do party tricks whilst he was speaking.

Maybe Gustavus had an eagle as well. Yeah, Gustavus was a man known to give a good speech. He was also the man responsible for the gerrymandering. So Johnson had a personal axe to grind. Now, once again, Johnson proved that he should not be underestimated. The eagle orator may know all his highfalutin words, but Johnson knew how to insult your mother to your face. In a witty yet cutting way.

That doesn't offend the mother, but offends the son. I don't think Johnson would have cared as long as the crowd cheered. That's a good point, yeah. Now, a few years before this, in a typical waste no money whatsoever style, Johnson had voted against sending money as aid to Ireland.

Ireland were currently facing a few problems due to lack of potatoes. Or, more importantly, a surplus of British people invading them. Yeah, it doesn't help. No, it doesn't. So this would have been about the time that my great-grandparents would have travelled from Ireland to Scotland. Yes, yeah, would have been about that. Yeah, the famine's going on in Ireland. Things were tough.

Johnson had voted against sending money to Ireland. A lot of Irish people in America at this time, because everyone's starving over there. Yeah. And they were coming over. So Johnson just seemed a little bit heartless here. In one debate, Major Gustavus the Eagle Orator brought this up and called Johnson heartless

to his face You are, and I don't say this lightly heartless And everyone else went Sick burn That's how it went Johnson stood up and responded to this You're in

Possibly, but then he went on to say, when I voted against that resolution, I turned to my fellow congressmen and I proposed to give $50 of my own funds if they would give likewise. When they declined, I ran my hand into my pocket and I pulled out $50,

which I donated to the cause. How much did you give, sir? Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Pointing out the, to be fair, hypocrisy. You can't blame someone for not giving if you don't give yourself. Yeah.

No, I just didn't want the taxpayers to have to pay. But I've been looking in life, so I will gladly pay myself. Whether this is true or not, I couldn't find out. I found a story, and I tried to look into whether he actually did it A lot of people seem to be distracted by this Lincoln fellow at this time Not as much seems to be written about Johnson

Yeah So who knows, maybe he was completely making this up But it was a good speech And soon he was elected Now as we've seen, in particular in the South The governorship was a largely ceremonial role They didn't want the governors of the states to be too powerful. So he didn't really have too much to do.

But he did get some things done. He opened Tennessee's first free public library and school. I thought you were going to say pub then. No, unfortunately not. But yeah, so again, with the education, he's pushing that. As before, the high-ups in the Democratic Party were wary of their man in Tennessee. He seemed a little bit too much like

a populist still. And he keeps talking about enfranchising the working classes. Do we really want that? However, he was one of the few Democrats that was constantly popular in the region, so again, the party somewhat reluctantly support him

when he ran for a second term. So again, you've got this slightly dicey relationship with the Democratic Party. The second time he was up for election as governor, however, he was up against a know-nothing. Yeah, we've got to that time already. The know-nothings are around. Johnson despises the know-nothings. A bunch of racists. Yeah.

Wow. I'll quote here. Show me a know-nothing and I will show you a loathsome reptile on whose neck every honest man should set his feet. He just hated a party that would discriminate against a whole group of people blindly. Wow, yeah.

It's just terrible, isn't it? Yeah, it's awful. Yeah. No morals. Yeah, I mean, obviously the hypocrisy of this is ridiculous, but completely lost on many people at the time. Yeah. Anyway, some members of the Democratic Party came to see Johnson and asked him to tone down his anti-know-nothing rhetoric. I mean, after all, there were a lot of bigots who voted in this state,

and it didn't do to point out that their anti-Catholic rhetoric was just not on. It's like, come on, Andrew. It's like, we don't want to upset the bigots. We're also bigots. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Come on, Andrew. And the old pal.

Johnson responded, and again I quote, Gentlemen, I will make that same speech tomorrow if it blows the Democratic Party to hell. So he's all about winning. Oh, yeah. I'd like to think he got his Democratic Party membership out at the same time and said, oh, by the way, could I just get that signed again? I'm up for renewal. That'd be splendid.

Yeah. You can see why some in the Democratic Party were not sure about him. Bit on the edge. Anyway, he won the election. He knows how to turn the crowd, and he is very popular in Tennessee. Not only does he win this election, this is when we first start to see that he

was perhaps eyeing up the top job itself. There was some speculation that in the 1856 nomination that was coming up, Johnson made some tentative moves in that direction. The Democratic Convention's coming up, Johnson made some tentative moves in that direction. The Democratic Convention's coming up, can I do anything here? But it soon became very clear that the party was going to expect him to back Pierce.

Pierce and Buchanan were battling it out. Pierce would be great. Well, Pierce... Buchanan will be great, I should say. Yeah, Pierce was already there and not popular. As we've seen, Pierce lost to Buchanan, who then went on to win the election. Johnson, seeing that this route was a no-go at this time,

decided that it's time to get back on the national scene. So this time he runs for the Senate, not the House. Oh, yes. And with his popularity, he wins the seat with very little fuss. Or at least back home. In the House of Representatives, he was one of 23 men out of 223 who was not a lawyer. Yeah. The House of Representatives was very much the lower house.

Right. The Senate was for the gentlemen. Ah. The Senate is the place where the people who really knew how to do things went. Yes. There was quite a bit of outrage that this poor tailor had come to sit in the Senate.

What's this democracy rubbish that's going on? As you can imagine, Johnson didn't give two things I shouldn't say about this. Hoots. Hoots. We're doing that. Two hoots about this. No hoots given at all. No. So he heads for the capital once more, travelling by train.

So you're seeing the advantage of them now. Oh, he's really miffed all the way there. Yeah. These damn capitalists. He was going past fields looking at horses that were just casually looking over the train, going, damn. And shouting boo out, bling out. Making scary faces.

Boo! Horse didn't even flinch. No. Barely blinked. So yeah, he's shouting boo out really loud. Making scary faces. Horse didn't even flinch. No. Barely blinked. So yeah, he's in his train. The train's trundling along. As trains do. Yes, they do.

And then there was an almighty clang. And then a crash. And then the train derailed. Oh. It plunged 60 foot down an embarkment. Oh. Is this the same train? No, it's not.

It's exactly the same description. Trains were just dangerous back then. Goodness me. Horse still didn't care. That train skidded halfway across the field, stopped a centimeter from the horse. Looked down, nibbled a bit of grass. Yeah.

Cocked his leg in weed. Yeah. As horses do. Oh, yeah. Anyway, Johnson's arm was crushed, a bone broken. But apart from that, miraculously, he was fine. Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

A near-death experience there. Because it's Pierce, isn't it, and his son? Yeah, yeah. But that was only a few years before this. Wow. It was about four years before this. Oh in his son. Yeah. Yeah, but that was only a few years before this I was about four years before this. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so you've got future presidents being trained Yes, all over the place Did he have a claw hand for us his life? Yes, he did. He did. Oh, yeah I was no I'm making that okay just to try and make him sound more interesting

Let's say he did so and no one can prove us wrong. It's just no one knows where his body is. That's also not true. I've got to stop making things up. I wasn't even present. He didn't exist. I wouldn't know. Unless I check on Google.

There's no way I'd know that any of this is true. No, he's got a robot hand. Steam-powered. Steam-punk hand. Yes, that's what he's got. Yeah, well, the injury bothered him for years. He was in a lot of pain. Did he have to quit the debating club?

His debating hand. I don't know. Either that or he just developed new debating techniques. We apologise for this week's episode. This episode is rated R. Yeah, anyway, he finally gets to the capital.

Obviously very much still injured, but apparently in good spirits because he'd made it. He told a friend that he'd reached the summit of his ambition. To be a senator. Yeah. Poor boy in a log cabin could barely his ambition. To be a senator. Yeah. Poor boy in a log cabin, could barely eat. Now he's a senator. Well, yeah, fair play.

Pretty good. And now he was in the Senate, he had work to do. His homestead bill that he'd got through the House was now just languishing in the Senate, not really going anywhere. This giving poor people free things was a bit too far for most senators. What, what, what?

So he decided he'd work on that. However, there was a slight problem. No one wanted to talk about his bill because all anyone could talk about was slavery. I guess that sort of is the hot topic at the moment. It really is. Considering in most of our episodes we have

just talked about slavery and the compromise and everything that's coming up. And in Johnson's episode, you get the sense that he was just not interested. He's trying to get his homestead bill through. Yeah. He just seemed, if anything, a bit annoyed that people were just distracted by

this. It didn't seem to matter what they were supposed to be talking about in the Senate because it always came back to bloody slavery. And to Johnson, the radicals from this new Republican Party were trying to destroy things by bringing up this issue over and over again. The South, a region that had previously shown some interest in his bill, were now very suspicious of any bill that gave the federal government more power

in case they used it to stop the spread of slavery. And it did not help Johnson that a northern abolitionist called Wade supported the bill because he just saw it as perhaps a good thing to help impoverished families. So the South were saying, hang on, Wade supports it, so it must

somehow be anti-slavery? We're not sure how, but if Wade likes it, we can't. There's a link there somewhere. No matter how tenuous, there's a link. Equally, in the North, they weren't too keen on a bill that could spread slavery supporters around the country. It could just generally complicate things.

We're not really sure how, but look, just go away with your bill. We're talking about slavery here. Johnson became frustrated. He announced and I quote, Johnson became frustrated. He announced, and I quote, If the Ten Commandments were to come up for consideration, someone would find a Negro in them somewhere,

and the issue of slavery would be raised once again. Yeah, he's just getting frustrated that everyone's talking about the fact that this country's falling apart. Yeah. Instead of his bill. Widen your view. Well, again, he becomes frustrated that black people were taking away from the poor whites.

All their fault, he becomes frustrated that black people were taking away from the poor whites. All their fault, he thought. Yeah, again, I mean, you just, he's completely blind to the fact. Well, no, he's not completely blind. He hates the rich planter class, but he still just blames the slaves as well. Yeah. That's the first time we've really come across that, isn't it? Yeah, we've not really seen anyone quite like Johnson's fault. Warped logic. It is a That's a warped logic.

It is a bit of a warped logic, but it obviously made sense to him. Anyway, he realised that he was going to have to pick a side on this slavery issue, otherwise no one's going to talk to him and no one's going to support his bill. So, he stands up and he delivers a speech that describes slavery as a force for good and supported the recent decision from Dred Scott that black people were not included in the all men are created equal statement. Yeah. His rhetoric reassured many southern senators that Johnson was not a northern stooge, despite Wade's support. So, you know what,

maybe we could support this bill. He's saying all the right things. Again, he knows what to say, doesn't he? Well, yeah, yeah. And not everyone's happy. Some hardliners asked, would this not make people lazy if we give poor people land? They'd just be lazy, weren't they? So not everyone liked Johnson's bill. But generally, people could see that giving people enough to care about

rather than letting them starve to death was actually a good thing for the country. Something America is still trying to discover today. Interestingly. Perhaps don't let your population starve? No. Maybe? That's just a crazy idea.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we get sidetracked. Finally, the bill passed. So there you go. Homestand bill is through Johnson's got it through the House And then got it through the Senate

Countless lives of poor people Will be improved by this That's a positive thing I mean, he's now a dirty socialist There are some There were some horrible things round the edges And his attitude towards black people Is horrible, but the bill would

undoubtedly do good for many people who were in a bad position. Buchanan immediately vetoed it. Oh. Buchanan. Come back again. He really was awful. Furious, Johnson started working on a veto override. As long as you've got two thirds of the Senate overriding the veto, that's fine.

We can get it through. But by this point the country was so obviously on the verge of civil war, people's attentions were elsewhere. You got the feeling Johnson's running around Washington just trying to tap people on the shoulder. We need to veto this. Veto the veto. We need the Homestead Bill

to go through. People are turning around saying, seriously, we're picking up guns, man. We're marching. We're in the battle. I've been shot. I'm dead. Just leave me alone. Let me rest.

Yeah. One of the main reasons why people's attentions were elsewhere was because a Republican had just won the election and was going to be the next president. Oh, for goodness sake. Some lawyer from Illinois. Now, if Johnson had plans for that election, it was dashed when the Democrats split.

Now, if you remember, this is when the Democrats split North and South. Is this considered the birth of the more modern Democrats? It morphs a lot, but not really. We've still got a good 50-odd years to go, 60, 70 years even, before we start seeing the Democrats, how you'd recognise them today.

This split was a disaster for Johnson. Johnson, as we've seen, never really fit in with the Democrats very well. So when Southern and Northern Democrats split, he didn't really have an obvious place to go. He's from the South himself. He hates the planter class. He hates the big, greedy companies from the North.

Yeah, he hates trains. Yeah, I mean, so where's he go? He had some soul-searching to do. And he fell back on his hero, Andrew Jackson. Oh, yes. Because Johnson was a true Jacksonian Democrat in a sense that most weren't. Yeah. Jackson fought for the common man.

Jackson hated big government. Jackson understood one thing over everything else, and that is the Union must prevail. Do you remember his toe stuff? Yes. Oh, yes. Johnson had been thinking this for quite some time himself, and this is the path he decides to follow.

In December 1860, as Buchanan faced the Fort Sumter problem, Johnson gave a speech in the Senate channeling his hero, and I'll quote him here, Let us exclaim the Union, the Federal Union. It must be preserved. Which is almost word for word to Jackson's toast. Now here was a southern senator proclaiming that the South, which had started to break away by this point,

South Carolina, had already seceded. So this was a southern senator saying that the South was playing with treason. Ooh. Johnson's popularity surged and plummeted depending where you were in the country. Yes. You can imagine it would. Yeah. Now, Johnson's 51 at this point, and he faced a huge decision.

He was described at the time, and I quote here, as a self-absorbed, lonely man. He never really fit in. And he seemed to only have one ambition. But perhaps this is unfair, because he obviously had his family. Another boy had been born by this point as well, so his family's a bit bigger. Still in contact with his wife, then? Yeah, occasionally. As far as we can tell, Johnson kept his family and work life completely separate.

They just didn't really seem to cross over. Eliza, like I said, would not really travel to Washington when Johnson was there. But even if that's the case, Johnson must have known that if he threw his support behind the union, this would have a huge impact not just on him but his family as well. After all, it was looking more and more likely that Tennessee was going to secede. Yeah. His family are back there. He's just called them traitors.

Ah. Yeah. However, Johnson simply could not see a future in a new southern country if the South seceded and succeeded seceding. Um, well, he wouldn't fit in there. Oh, no. He didn't get on with the likes of Jefferson Davis, people who had opposed his homestead bill

and were also members of the despised planter class. So he just wasn't going to be able to make a career in a new southern country. No. He didn't really like the north either. But it seemed like a better way to go. So he made up his mind. South Carolina was acting in a treasonous way and all states that thought about following their example needed to really stop and think about their actions, was essentially what he started saying. So he heads home to press his case. He's going to go to Tennessee and trying to stop them from seceding. But as he was traveling home, he found a very divided country, one turning against him and his views. Oh dear. In fact, this was quite a ballsy move because he was well known.

Yeah, he's going to be quite, almost a bit of a target in a way. Oh yes. Yeah. The South saw him as a traitor and there were many examples of people burning effigies of him. Oh.

Yeah, the speech he gave really did not go down well at all. Do you think he was aware of that at the time, or did he find that out more and more as he travelled and went, oh dear. I get the impression he was aware but not aware how much. Right. Because he heads back home on a train again. Yeah.

Again, brave man, I wouldn't be getting back on a train. No. No. Looking out for horses. On his way home, his train pulled into Virginia en route. A man recognised him. Are you Andrew Johnson? The man said. I am, said Johnson. I'm going to pull your nose,

said the other man. Is Johnson confused? Oh, what? Why? Are you ill? Well, interestingly, and I had to look into this as well, pulling someone's nose apparently was an upper-class insult. Oh.

Yeah, I'm reminded of a... Cutthroat. Bite my thumb at you, sir, from Shakespeare kind of thing. Oh, yes. Yeah. The lower classes would rough and tumble. The upper classes, they didn't really duel anymore. Dueling's starting to fade out.

So instead they'd... Rap battles. No. This is the start of rap battles. Okay. Diss battles, isn't it? No, no. They'd just pull each other's noses.

Literally? Or figuratively? Apparently so. Oh, really? Yeah. What's interesting to note is that someone is going to pull his nose. Little Andrew, who was born in a log cabin, who was a tailor. He's now seen as the upper class.

Oh, so yeah, good point. Anyway, the man stepped forward to pull Andrew's nose. And several others started to make noises that they approved of this treatment. Obviously, it's not just going to be a little nose tweak and everyone walks away. I'm guessing it starts with a nose tweak and then people start laying in the punches. Yeah. Yeah. This is looking like it's going to be dicey.

Seems to hold on to it, doesn't it? Yeah. Well, Johnson drew out his revolver. Ooh. Oh yes. Pad out, pencil in hand. He threatened to shoot the man that first approached. He forced the man opposite him and all his friends off the train

and stood at the door of one of the carriages, pistol aimed at the growing mob, just staring at them. Until eventually the train driver decided perhaps it's time to go. I think you can make the argument that this situation's gone a little out of hand. Oh yes.

The train pulled away and Johnson shouted, I am a union man! And pulled his nose into finance. Yeah, his own nose. And then the train turned round the corner. As they do. As they do. Went uphill.

Yeah, yes. Went downhill. Yeah, loop-de-loop. And then arrived in somewhere called Lynchburg. Oh, no. Yes. Yes. No. Johnson wasn't quite as prepared,

although they either didn't announce they were going to pull his nose or they got him when he wasn't looking because this time he was dragged from his carriage. Oh. Oh, yes. He was kicked and he was spat upon. It looked like a full blown lynching was about to happen in Lynchburg. They'd obviously had experience in the past, although

probably not with rich white men. Anyway, things were looking bad. Yeah. When an old man in the crowd apparently suddenly shouted to stop, he stated that it would be unfair to steal this lynching from their neighbours in Greenville. They will lynch him there. That's where he's from. The mob perhaps thinking that, yeah, they wanted to lynch him, but perhaps let another town do it so we don't get into trouble.

I mean, we've proved we're tough now. Yeah. Yeah, we would lynch him, but, I mean, it would be impolite to Greenville. He'd uncouth. Yeah. So after a couple more kicks, they let him go. Now, I should point out that in some places I found these two stories were actually one event.

Right. Yeah. There seems to be some discrepancy here. I couldn't quite tally it up. So this either is two stories that happened separately completely, or one story where the story has changed. Yeah, likely at the time. Yeah.

It seems unlikely that it was the same train journey, which is essentially how I presented it now, just because it sounded like a better story. Yeah. But what we do get from this is it was dangerous for him to be heading home. Yeah. Like, seriously, he could be killed here. He almost was twice. Yes, exactly. But yeah, so even though it's not 100% clear, I

decided to keep both stories in because they were both fun. Fair play. So anyway, Johnson arrives home in a country on the brink of civil war, surrounded by people who wanted him dead. And that is where we're going to leave it today. Oh, no! Normally you stop at, like, Lincoln's now been shot.

I thought that's where you're going to go. That's where I was aiming to go to. Too much. But my life has just been so insanely busy recently. I'm not judging you, don't worry. No, no, I genuinely, that was where I was aiming for. I've actually got 600 more words to play with that I didn't use. So it might be a slightly longer episode next time.

Because I didn't quite get to the point where I was planning to. But I just ran out of time. But I figured the story at the end of him almost being lynched is a nice place to end. Yeah, it's quite good. So next time we'll see what he does during the Civil War. And then what happens when he suddenly becomes President.

Only good things, I'm sure. So what are your thoughts so far? He's an arse. Yeah, it's such a shame because there's a couple of things where you go, yeah, you know what, Johnson, well done. And you can see why because from his past, you can see why he's so passionate about that. He really wants education for people who would not usually get education.

Yeah. And that's good. He does things like he opens libraries for the public. Yes. You can see little glimmers of, well done, but it's only glimmers because almost all of it is just, oh, you're an awful human being. And it, yeah.

But everything stems from his childhood and his disillusion is because he was poor. It all stems from that. His racism, his inherent hatred and vindictiveness. Yeah, even to little things like not giving aid to Starving Island or even to the families of the cannon explosion because you don't want to waste money. He's putting a price on human life, which he does because he bought slaves.

Yes, there's also that. And as soon as you start devaluing a human being, which he does because he bought slaves. Yes. There's also that. And as soon as you start devaluing a human being, you can devalue anybody. Yeah. Famous word from Captain Picard. Nice. Series six.

Right. Chain of Command, episode two. Wow. Oh, yes. Is that really? Yeah. People who are listening to this, one or two are listening to this going,

yeah, that's true. How far through the episode? I don't know but he's talking to Thor it doesn't matter disappointed Jeremy I'm disappointed call yourself a track fan okay right thank you very much for listening we will be doing part two

next time but until then please leave reviews get in contact with us, chat to us online via Facebook or Twitter. And don't forget you can download us on Podbean and iTunes and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, as Rob just said. Yeah, I did. That'd be great. And don't forget to download us on RomanEmpress.com about Romans, I guess.

Yeah, yeah. And WhiskeyTotalsR Rankin which we need to do an episode soon on that oh we totally do but we're coming up to summer soon I've got literally six episodes of that

to edit and release really yeah ready to so I need to get on that anyway I'll do that first then we'll record

I'll do that first yeah right thank you very much for listening then and until next time goodbye goodbye Right, thank you very much for listening then and until next time, goodbye Goodbye And I say

the next question propounded to me by Mr. Johnson is, can the people of a territory in any lawful way against the wishes of any citizen of the United States exclude the extension of trains? What say you to this, Mr. Johnson? Well, I say to you, your mother is fat. I beg your pardon, Mr. Johnson? You heard me, your mother is fat. I beg your pardon, Mr. Johnson? You heard me. Your mother is fat. She is such a chunky, wonky blubbernaut

that when she got in the bath, a tidal wave was dothcaused. Johnson, this is really not what we're here to discuss. We're here to discuss the spread of trains. I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about. Your mum. I really don't understand. Right, anyway, I'm continuing with my speech, if I may, Mr. Johnson. Okay. Yes, anyway, as I was saying, Mr. Johnson knew that I had answered the questions over and over again that he first proposed, and I say to him that when a train does enter a tunnel...

That's what your mother said to me. What? Train entering a tunnel. What's that costume? Seriously, Johnson. Saturday evening. What about Saturday evening? Your picture was on her nightstand.

Why is my... I looked at you and I smiled. Seriously, Johnson. As my locomotive... Good God, man. Is this how you debate? Is this what you do? Is this what you learn

to debate at school? This is what I do and your mother. You, sir, are a scoundrel. The crowd here clearly don't want to... Oh, they're cheering for you out there.

Yes, they are. You're quite a beast. Well, that's sort of ironic. Why? That's what your mother said. Andrew Jackson, part one! I'm learning. You also said Andrew Jackson instead of Andrew Johnson.

Apparently I'm not learning. Good that we spotted that now. I'm fairly sure you did. I'm not learning. Could you have responded that now? I'm fairly sure you did. I think I did. Although his hero was Andrew Johnson. No. His hero was Andrew Jackson. It's easy, isn't it?

It is easy, yes.