17.Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th President of the United States (1865–1869). Following the assassination of PresidentAbraham Lincoln, Johnson presided over the Reconstruction era of the United States in the four years after the American Civil War. His tenure was controversial as his positions hostile to the Freedmen came under heavy political attack from Republicans.

When Tennessee seceded in 1861, Johnson was a U.S. Senator from Greeneville in East Tennessee. A Unionist, he was the only Southern senator not to resign. He became the most prominent War Democrat from the South and supported Lincoln's military policies during the American Civil War of 1861–1865. In 1862, Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of occupied Tennessee, where he was energetic and effective in fighting the rebellion and beginning the transition to Reconstruction.

Johnson was nominated as the vice presidential candidate in 1864 on the National Union Party ticket. He and Lincoln were elected in November 1864 and inaugurated on March 4, 1865. Johnson succeeded to the presidency upon Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865.

As president, he took charge of Presidential Reconstruction – the first phase of Reconstruction – which lasted until the Radical Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1866 elections. His conciliatory policies towards the South, his hurry to reincorporate the former Confederate states back into the union, and his vetoes of civil rights bills embroiled him in a bitter dispute with Radical Republicans.^[3] The Radicals in the House of Representatives impeached him in 1868, charging him with violating the law (specifically the Tenure of Office Act), but the Senate acquitted him by a single vote.

Johnson's party status was ambiguous during his presidency. As president, he did not identify with the two main parties – though he did try for theDemocratic presidential nomination in 1868. While President he attempted to build a party of loyalists under the National Union label. Asked in 1868 why he did not become a Democrat, he said, "It is true I am asked why don't I join the Democratic Party. Why don't they join me ... if I have administered the office of president so well?"^[4] His failure to make the National Union brand an actual party made Johnson effectively an independent during his presidency, though he was supported by Democrats and later rejoined the party as a Democratic Senator from Tennessee from 1875 until his death.^[5] Johnson was the first U.S. President to undergo an impeachment trial. He is commonly ranked by historians as being among the worst U.S. presidents

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19.Rutherford B. Hayes

Rutherford Birchard Hayes (October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was the 19th President of the United States (1877–1881). As president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction and the United States' entry into the Second Industrial Revolution. Hayes was a reformer who began the efforts that would lead to civil service reform and attempted, unsuccessfully, to reconcile the divisions that had led to the American Civil War fifteen years earlier.

Born in Delaware, Ohio, Hayes practiced law in Lower Sandusky (now Fremont) and was city solicitor of Cincinnati from 1858 to 1861. When the Civil War began, Hayes left a successful political career to join the Union Army. Wounded five times, most seriously at the Battle of South Mountain, he earned a reputation for bravery in combat and was promoted to the rank of major general. After the war, he served in the U.S. Congress from 1865 to 1867 as aRepublican. Hayes left Congress to run for Governor of Ohio and was elected to two terms, serving from 1867 to 1871. After his second term had ended, he resumed the practice of law for a time, but returned to politics in 1875 to serve a third term as governor.

In 1876, Hayes was elected president in one of the most contentious and hotly disputed elections in American history. Although he lost the popular vote toDemocrat Samuel J. Tilden, Hayes won the presidency by the narrowest of margins after a Congressional commission awarded him twenty disputed electoral votes. The result was the Compromise of 1877, in which the Democrats acquiesced to Hayes's election and Hayes accepted the end of military occupation of the South.

Hayes believed in meritocratic government, equal treatment without regard to race, and improvement through education. He ordered federal troops to quell the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and ordered them out of Southern capitals as Reconstruction ended. He implemented modest civil service reforms that laid the groundwork for further reform in the 1880s and 1890s. Hayes kept his pledge not to run for re-election. He retired to his home in Ohio and became an advocate of social and educational reform.