Richard Mentor Johnson

Early life and education

Richard Mentor Johnson was born in the settlement of Beargrass on the Kentucky frontier (present-day Louisville) on October 17, 1780, the fifth of Robert and Jemima (Suggett) Johnson's 11 children, and the second of eight sons. His brothers John and Henry Johnson survived him. His parents married in 1770. Robert Johnson purchased land in what is now Kentucky, but was then part of Virginia, from Patrick Henry and from James Madison. He had worked as a surveyor and was able to pick out good land. His wife Jemima Suggett "came from a wealthy and politically connected family."

About the time of Richard's birth, the family moved to Bryan's Station, near present-day Lexington in the Bluegrass Region. This was a fortified outpost, as there was much Native American resistance to white settlement. The Shawnee and Cherokee hunted in this area. Jemima Johnson was remembered as among the community's heroic women because of what was told of her actions during Simon Girty's raid on Bryan's Station in August 1782. According to later reports, with Indian warriors hidden in the nearby woods and the community short on water, she led the women to a nearby spring, and the attackers allowed them to return to the fort with the water. Having the water helped the settlers beat off an attack made with flaming arrows. At the time, Robert Johnson was serving in the legislature in Richmond, Virginia, as he had been elected to represent Fayette County. (Kentucky was part of Virginia until 1792.)

Beginning in 1783, Kentucky was considered safe enough that settlers began to leave the fortified stations to establish farms. The Johnsons settled on the land Robert had purchased at Great Crossing. As a surveyor, he became successful through well-chosen land purchases and being in the region when he could take advantage of huge land grants.

According to Miles Smith's doctoral thesis, "Richard developed a cheery disposition and seems to have been a generally happy and content child". Richard lived on the family plantation until he was 16. In 1796, he was sent briefly to a local grammar school, and then attended Transylvania University, the first college west of the Appalachian Mountains. While at the Lexington college, where his father was a trustee, he read law as a legal apprentice with George Nicholas and James Brown, later a US Senator.

Career

Johnson was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1802, and opened his law office at Great Crossing. Later, he owned a retail store as a merchant and pursued a number of business ventures with his brothers. Johnson often worked pro bono for poor people, prosecuting their cases when they had merit. He also opened his home to disabled veterans, widows, and orphans. Johnson also became a prominent Freemason, and in the late 1830s was part of a Masonic organization, the Hunters Lodge, that unsuccessfully planned an invasion of Canada to overthrow the British government there and establish a provisional American administration.

Marriage and family

Family tradition holds that Johnson broke off an early marital engagement when he was about sixteen because of his mother's disapproval. Purportedly Johnson vowed revenge for his mother's interference. His former fiancée later gave birth to his daughter, named Celia, who was raised by the Johnson family. Celia Johnson later married Wesley Fancher, one of the men who served in Johnson's regiment at the Battle of the Thames.

After his father died, Richard Johnson inherited Julia Chinn, an octoroon mixed-race woman (seven-eighths European and one-eighth African in ancestry), who was born into slavery around 1790. She had grown up in the Johnson household, where her mother served. Julia Chinn was the daughter of Benjamin Chinn, who was living in Malden, Upper Canada, or London, Canada, and a sister of Daniel Chinn. An 1845 letter from Newton Craig, Keeper of the Penitentiary in Frankfort, Kentucky, to Daniel Chinn, mentions another brother of Julia Chinn named Marcellus, who accompanied Col. Johnson on his first electioneering tour for vice-presidency. Marcellus left Col. Johnson in New York, whereupon Col. Johnson tried to find Marcellus' whereabouts from Arthur Tappan, Esq.

Though Chinn was legally Johnson's concubine, he began a long-term relationship with her and treated her as his common-law wife, which was legal in Kentucky at the time. They had two daughters together and she later became manager of his plantation. Both Johnson and Chinn championed the "notion of a diverse society" by their multi-racial, predominately white family. They were prohibited from marrying because she was a slave. When Johnson was away from his Kentucky plantation, he authorized Chinn to manage his business affairs. She died in the widespread cholera epidemic that occurred in the summer of 1833. Johnson deeply grieved her loss.

The relationship between Johnson and Chinn shows the contradictions within slavery at the time. There were certainly numerous examples that "kin could also be property". Johnson was unusual for being open about his relationship and treating Chinn as his common-law wife. He was heard to call her "my bride" on at least one occasion, and they acted like a married couple. According to oral tradition, other slaves at Great Crossings were said to work on their wedding.

Chinn gradually gained more responsibilities. As she spent much of her time in the "plantation's big house", a two-story brick home, she managed Johnson's estate for at least half of each year, with her purview later expanding to all of his property, even acting as "Richard's representative" and allowing her to handle money. This gave, as historical scholar Christina Snyder argues, some independence, since Johnson told his white employees that Chinn's authority must be respected, and her role allowing her children's lives to be different from "others of African descent at Great Crossings", giving them levels of privileged access within the plantation. This was further complicated by the fact that Chinn was still enslaved but supervised the work of slaves, which the Chinn family never sold or mortgaged off, but she did not have the power to "challenge the institution of slavery or overturn the government that supported it", she only had the power to gain some personal autonomy, with Johnson never legally emancipating her. This may have been because, as Snyder says, liberating her from human bondage would erode "ties that bound her to him" and keeping her enslaved supported his idea of being a "benevolent patriarch".

Political career

Early years

After passing the bar, Johnson returned to Great Crossing, where his father gave him a plantation and slaves to work it. The many lawsuits over ownership of land provided him with much legal work, and, combined with his agricultural interests, he quickly became prosperous.

Johnson ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1803, but finished third, behind the winner, Thomas Sandford, and William Henry. At that time, following the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson in 1801, many young, democratically minded aspiring politicians were seeking office. While Jefferson and Johnson agreed on the need for greater democracy, Jefferson felt that the people should be led by the elite, such as himself, while Johnson took a more populist view.

In 1804, Johnson ran for the Kentucky House of Representatives for Scott County (where Great Crossing is) and this time was elected, the first native Kentuckian to serve in the state's legislature. Although the Kentucky Constitution imposed an age requirement of twenty-four for members of the House of Representatives, Johnson was so popular that no one raised questions about his age, and he was allowed to take his seat. Seeking to protect his constituents, most of whom were small farmers, he introduced a proposed U.S. constitutional amendment limiting the power of the federal courts to matters involving the U.S. Constitution. Throughout his political career, Johnson sought to limit the jurisdiction of federal courts, which he deemed undemocratic.

In 1806, Johnson was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the United States House of Representatives, serving as the first native Kentuckian to be elected to Congress. In the three-way election, he defeated Congressman Sandford and James Moore. At the time of his election in August 1806, he did not meet the U.S. Constitution's age requirement for service in the House (25), but by the time the congressional term began the following March, he had turned 25. He was re-elected and served six consecutive terms. During the first three terms from 1807 to 1813, he represented Kentucky's Fourth District.

Johnson took his seat in the House on October 26, 1807; Congress had been called into special session by President Jefferson to consider how to react to the Chesapeake–Leopard affair, the forcible boarding of an American naval ship by a British vessel, with four sailors seized as deserters and one hanged. Jefferson had tried to maintain neutrality with the main combatants in the Napoleonic Wars, Britain and France, and at his urging, Congress passed the Embargo Act of 1807, with Johnson voting in support, finding economic warfare preferable to the use of guns: "we fear no nation, but let the time for shedding human blood be protracted, when consistent with our safety".

War of 1812

Within a week of the declaration of war, Johnson urged the House of Representatives to recommend the raising of troops in the western states, lest disaster befall settlers on the frontier. After the adjournment, Johnson returned to Kentucky to recruit volunteers. So many men responded that he chose only those with horses, and raised a body of mounted rifles. The War of 1812 was extraordinarily popular in Kentucky; Kentuckians depended on sea trade through the port of New Orleans and feared that the British would stir up another Indian war. The land war fought in the Northern United States pitted American troops against British forces and their Indian allies. Johnson recruited 300 men, divided into three companies, who elected him major. They merged with another battalion, forming a regiment of 500 men, with Johnson as colonel, with the merged volunteer forces becoming a brigade commanded by General Edward W. Tupper of Ohio. The Kentucky militia was under the command of General William Henry Harrison, the Governor of the Indiana Territory.

Johnson's force was originally intended to join General William Hull at Detroit, but Hull surrendered Detroit on August 16 and his army was captured. Harrison by then was in command of the entire Northwest frontier and ordered Johnson to relieve Fort Wayne in the northeast of the Territory, which was already being attacked by the Indians. On September 18, 1812, Johnson's men reached Fort Wayne in time to save it, and turned back an Indian ambush. They returned to Kentucky and disbanded, going out of their way to burn Potawatomi villages along the Elkhart River en route.

Johnson returned to his seat in Congress in the late fall of 1812. Based on his experience, he proposed a plan to defeat the mobile, guerrilla warfare of the Indians. American troops moved slowly, dependent on a supply line. Indians would evade battle and raid supplies until the American forces withdrew or were overrun. Mounted riflemen could move quickly, carry their own supplies, and live off the woods. If they attacked Indian villages in winter, the Indians would be compelled to stand and fight for the supplies they used to wage war and could be decisively defeated. Johnson submitted this plan to President James Madison and Secretary of War John Armstrong, who approved it in principle. They referred the plan to Harrison, who found winter operations impracticable. Johnson was permitted to try the tactics in the summer of 1813; later, the US conducted Indian wars in winter with his strategy.

Johnson left Washington, D.C., just before Congress adjourned. He raised one thousand men, nominally part of the Kentucky militia under Governor Isaac Shelby, but largely operating independently. He disciplined his men, required that every man have arms in prime condition and ready to hand, and hired gunsmiths, blacksmiths, and doctors at his own expense. He devised a new tactical system: when any group of men encountered the enemy, they were to dismount, take cover, and hold the enemy in place. All groups not in contact were to ride to the sound of firing, and dismount, surrounding the enemy when they got there. Between May and September, Johnson raided throughout the Northwest, burning the war supply centers of Indian villages, surrounding their fighting units and scattering them, killing some warriors each time.

Post-war career in the House

With the end of the war, Johnson, who was made chairman of the House Committee on Military Affairs, turned his legislative attention to issues such as securing pensions for widows and orphans and funding internal improvements in the West. There were widespread reports of Americans, including women and children, captured by Indians during the war, and Johnson used his congressional office to investigate these matters, and to try to secure the release of captives. Western Democratic-Republicans like Johnson strongly supported the military and urged aid for the veterans; in December 1815, Johnson introduced legislation for the "relief of the infirm, disabled, and superannuated officers and soldiers". Fearing that the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York produced dandies, not soldiers, Johnson expanded on a proposal by President Madison to establish three additional military academies, urging the placement of one of them in Kentucky. Despite the support of such influential members of the House as Clay and John C. Calhoun, the proposal did not pass, but Johnson worked to have federal facilities built in the West throughout his time in Congress.

Johnson believed that Congressional business was too slow and tedious and that the per diem system of compensation encouraged delays on the part of members. To remedy this, he sponsored legislation to pay annual salaries of $1,500 to congressmen rather than a $6 per diem for the days the body was in session. At the time, this had the effect of increasing the total compensation from about $900 to $1500. Johnson noted that congressmen had not had a pay increase in 27 years, during which time the cost of living had greatly increased, and that $1,500 was less than the salaries of 28 of the clerks employed by the government. The popular Johnson's sponsorship of the measure provided political cover for proponents; Maryland's Robert Wright wondered how his colleagues would feel if, "the highly honorable mover of this bill, who slew Tecumseh with his own hands ... he who came up here covered with wounds and glory, with his favorite war-horse and his more favorite servant—his attendant in the army, his nurse and necessary assistant" was "obliged to sell his war-horse or his servant"; salaries would prevent such things from coming to pass. The bill passed the House and Senate quickly and was made law on March 19, 1816. But, the measure proved extremely unpopular with voters, in part because it gave Congress an immediate pay raise, rather than waiting until after the next election. Many members who supported the bill lost their seats as a result, including Johnson's colleague Solomon P. Sharp from Kentucky. Johnson's overall popularity helped him retain his seat against a challenge, one of only 15 of 81 who voted to pass the bill to keep their seats in the House. The old Congress met for a lame-duck session in December, repealed the new law effective when the new Congress was sworn in, but at Johnson's suggestion, did not revive the old per diem, thus forcing the new legislators to act on the matter if they wanted to get paid. Compensation for members of Congress remained on a per diem basis until an annual salary of $3,000 (~$79,754 in 2024) was prescribed in 1855. According to Edward J. McManus, who wrote Johnson's entry in the American National Biography, "Johnson, instead of defending the merits of the reform, avoided the backlash by pledging to work for the repeal of his own measure. He justified his reversal by arguing that representatives should reflect the popular will, but lack of political stamina may have been closer to the truth."

Senator

Johnson announced his intent to retire from the House of Representatives in early 1818. Sources differ on why he did; David Petriello, in his biography of Johnson, stated that the Kentucky congressman had determined to move on to the Senate; an earlier biographer, Leland Winfield Meyer stated that Johnson's departure from the House was because he believed in rotation in office and felt he had served there long enough. Jones stated that Johnson planned to return to private life to deal with family business interests.

Under the original federal Constitution, state legislators, not the voters, elected U.S. senators, and the Kentucky General Assembly was to choose a replacement for outgoing senator Isham Talbot in December 1818. Johnson was considered a strong contender if he entered the race, and in October he let it be known through the press that he would accept the Senate seat if the General Assembly elected him. On December 18, 1818, legislators chose William Logan over Johnson, 67–55. Newspapers noted that the former congressman had never officially declared his candidacy, and that Johnson's political friends intended to nominate him for governor in the 1820 election.

Johnson's term in the House expired March 3, 1819, but by August, he had been elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives, where he worked to secure passage of a law that abolished imprisonment for debtors in the state, though it did not pass until 1821. But when Senator John J. Crittenden resigned in November 1819, the legislature was called upon to fill the seat. The following month, the General Assembly elected Johnson to the Senate in a 68–53 vote over John Adair, who would be Kentucky's next governor.

Johnson was sworn in on January 3, 1820. The Senate was at that time grappling with the admission of the Missouri Territory and the Maine District (then part of Massachusetts) as states. When a bill was introduced which would bar slavery in the territories north and west of Missouri, Johnson was assigned to a select committee of five senators to consider it. The Maine and Missouri questions had been combined into one bill; Johnson voted against an amendment to separate them, which was defeated.

On February 17, the Senate voted to bar slavery outside Missouri in the part of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ north latitude line, with Johnson voting in favor. The bill passed, and was signed by President Monroe in March. Missouri's admission was delayed due to controversial clauses in its draft constitution, such as one forbidding the entry to the state of free African-Americans. Johnson served on the committee of House and Senate members which brokered a resolution, enabling Missouri's admission in August 1821.

Return to the House

After his failed Senatorial re-election bid, Johnson returned to the House, representing Kentucky's Fifth District from 1829 to 1833, and Thirteenth District from 1833 to 1837. During the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Congresses, he again served as chairman of the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads. In this capacity, he was again asked to address the question of Sunday mail delivery. He drew up a second report, largely similar in content to the first, arguing against legislation preventing mail delivery on Sunday. The report, commonly called "Col. Johnson's second Sunday mail report", was delivered to Congress in March 1830.

Some contemporaries doubted Johnson's authorship of this second report. Many claimed it was instead written by Amos Kendall. Kendall claimed he had seen the report only after it had been drafted and said he had only altered "one or two words". Kendall speculated that the author could be Reverend O.B. Brown, but historian Leland Meyer concludes that there is no reason to doubt that Johnson authored the report himself.

Johnson chaired the Committee on Military Affairs during the Twenty-second, Twenty-third, and Twenty-fourth Congresses. Beginning in 1830, there arose a groundswell of public support for Johnson's "pet project" of ending debt imprisonment. The subject began to appear more frequently in President Jackson's addresses to the legislature. Johnson chaired a House committee to report on the subject, and delivered the committee's report on January 17, 1832. Later that year, a bill abolishing the practice of debt imprisonment passed both houses of Congress, and was signed into law on July 14.

Johnson's stands won him widespread popularity and endorsement by George H. Evans, Robert Dale Owen, and Theophilus Fisk for the presidency in 1832, but Johnson abandoned his campaign when Andrew Jackson announced he would seek a second term. He then began campaigning to become Jackson's running mate, but Jackson favored Martin Van Buren instead. At the Democratic National Convention, Johnson finished a distant third in the vice-presidential balloting, receiving only the votes of the Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois delegations; William B. Lewis had to persuade him to withdraw

Election of 1836

After the election of 1832, Johnson continued to campaign for the vice presidency which would be available in 1836. He was endorsed by the New York labor leader Ely Moore on March 13, 1833, nine days after Jackson and Van Buren were inaugurated. Moore praised his devotion to freedom of religion and his opposition to imprisonment for debt.

William Emmons, the Boston printer, published a biography of Johnson in New York dated July 1833. Richard Emmons, from Great Crossing, Kentucky, followed this up with a play entitled Tecumseh, of the Battle of the Thames and a poem in honor of Johnson. Many of Johnson's friends and supporters – Davy Crockett and John Bell among them – encouraged him to run for president. Jackson, however, supported Vice President Van Buren for the office. Johnson accepted this choice, and worked to gain the nomination for vice president.

Emmons's poem provided the line that became Johnson's campaign slogan: "Rumpsey Dumpsey, Rumpsey Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh." Jackson supported Johnson for vice-president, thinking that the war hero would balance the ticket with Van Buren, who had not served in the War of 1812. Jackson made his decision based on Johnson's loyalty but also the president's anger at the primary rival candidate, William Cabell Rives.

Despite Jackson's support, the party was far from united behind Johnson. Van Buren preferred Rives as a running mate. In a letter to Jackson, Tennessee Supreme Court justice John Catron doubted that "a lucky random shot, even if it did hit Tecumseh, qualifies a man for the vice presidency." Although Johnson was a "widower" after Chinn's death in 1833, there was still dissension related to Johnson's open relationship with a slave. The 1835 Democratic National Convention, in Baltimore, in May 1835, was held under the two-thirds rule, largely to demonstrate Van Buren's wide popularity. Although Van Buren was nominated unanimously, Johnson barely obtained the necessary two-thirds of the vote. (A motion was made to change the rule, but it obtained only a bare majority, not two-thirds.)

Tennessee's delegation did not attend the convention. Edward Rucker, a Tennessean who happened to be in Baltimore, was picked to cast its 15 votes, so that all the states would endorse Van Buren. Senator Silas Wright, of New York, prevailed upon Rucker to vote for Johnson, giving him just more than twice the votes cast for Rives, and the nomination.

Vice presidency (1837–1841)

Johnson served as vice president from March 4, 1837, to March 4, 1841. His term was largely unremarkable, and he enjoyed little influence with President Van Buren. His penchant for wielding his power for his own interests did not abate. He lobbied the Senate to promote Samuel Milroy, whom he owed a favor, to the position of Indian agent. When Lewis Tappan requested presentation of an abolitionist petition to the Senate, Johnson, who was still a slaveholder, declined the request.

As presiding officer of the Senate, Johnson was called on to cast a tie-breaking vote fourteen times, more than all of his predecessors save John Adams and John Calhoun. Despite the precedent set by some of his predecessors, Johnson never addressed the Senate on the occasion of a tie-breaking vote; however, on one occasion, he did explain his vote — via an article in the Kentucky Gazette.

After the financial Panic of 1837, Johnson took a nine-month leave of absence, during which he returned home to Kentucky and opened a tavern and spa on his farm to offset his continued financial problems. Upon visiting the establishment, Amos Kendall wrote to President Van Buren that he found Johnson "happy in the inglorious pursuit of tavern keeping – even giving his personal superintendence to the chicken and egg purchasing and water-melon selling department".

In his later political career, he became known for wearing a bright red vest and tie. He adopted this dress during his term as vice-president when he and James Reeside, a mail contractor known for his drab dress, passed a tailor's shop that displayed a bright red cloth in the window. Johnson suggested that Reeside should wear a red vest because the mail coaches he owned and operated were red. Reeside agreed to do so if Johnson would also. Both men ordered red vests and neckties, and were known for donning this attire for the rest of their lives.

Election of 1840

By 1840, it had become clear that Johnson was a liability to the Democratic ticket. Even former president Jackson conceded that Johnson was "dead wait [sic]," and threw his support to James K. Polk. President Van Buren stood for re-election, and the Whigs once again countered with William Henry Harrison. Van Buren was reluctant to drop Johnson from the ticket, fearing that dropping the Democrats' own war hero would split the party and cost him votes to Harrison. A unique compromise ensued, with the Democratic National Convention refusing to nominate Johnson, or any other candidate, for vice president. The idea was to allow the states to choose their own candidates, or perhaps return the question to the Senate should Van Buren be elected with no clear winner in the vice-presidential race.

Undaunted by this lack of confidence from his peers, Johnson continued to campaign to retain his office. Although his campaign was more vigorous than that of Van Buren, his behavior on the campaign trail raised concern among voters. He made rambling, incoherent speeches. During one speech in Ohio, he raised his shirt in order to display to the crowd the wounds that he had received during the Battle of the Thames. Charges he leveled against Harrison in Cleveland were so poorly received that they touched off a riot in the city.

In the end, Johnson received only forty-eight electoral votes. One elector from Virginia and all eleven from South Carolina voted for Van Buren for president but selected someone other than Johnson for vice-president. Johnson lost his home state of Kentucky again and his home district.

Post-vice presidency (1841–1850)

After his term as vice president, Johnson returned to Kentucky to tend to his farm and oversee his tavern. He again represented Scott County in the Kentucky House from 1841 to 1843. In 1845, he served as a pallbearer when Daniel Boone was re-interred in Frankfort Cemetery.

Johnson never gave up on a return to public service. He ran an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate against John J. Crittenden in 1842. He briefly and futilely sought his party's nomination for president in 1844. He also ran as an independent candidate for Governor of Kentucky in 1848, but after talking with the Democratic candidate, Lazarus W. Powell, who had replaced Linn Boyd on the ticket, Johnson decided to drop out and back Powell. Some speculated that the real object of this campaign was to secure another nomination to the vice-presidency, but this hope was denied.

Johnson finally returned to elected office in 1850, when he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives. By this time, however, his physical and mental health was already failing. On November 9, the Louisville Daily Journal reported that "Col. R. M. Johnson is laboring under an attack of dementia, which renders him totally unfit for business. It is painful to see him on the floor attempting to discharge the duties of a member. He is incapable of properly exercising his physical or mental powers."

He died of a stroke on November 19, just two weeks into his term, aged 70. He was interred in the Frankfort Cemetery, in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Legacy

Counties in four U.S. states are named for Johnson, namely in Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, and Nebraska. Richard Mentor Johnson is also the namesake of Dick Johnson Township, Indiana.

His political prominence led to a family dynasty: his brothers James and John Telemachus Johnson, and his nephew Robert Ward Johnson were all elected to the House of Representatives, the first two from Kentucky, and Robert from Arkansas. Robert was later elected as a senator before the Civil War.