Early years , 1818 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. 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. 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". Over the following year, Congress attempted to tighten the embargo, which was widely evaded, especially in the Northeast, with Johnson voting in favor each time. Johnson generally supported Jefferson's proposals, and those of his successor
James Madison: all three were
Democratic-Republicans, and Johnson saw the party's proposals as superior to any suggested by the
Federalists, whom he saw as not acting in the best interests of the country. In 1809, Johnson supported Jefferson in adopting the administration's proposal to replace the Embargo Act with the
Non-Intercourse Act, as the embargo had proven ineffective except in causing a serious recession in the United States. Although Johnson is considered one of the War Hawks, the young Southern and Western Democratic-Republicans who sought expansion and development of the nation, he was cautious in the runup to the
War of 1812. Johnson saw Britain as the major obstacle to United States control of North America, but worried about what a war might bring. By the time Congress met in late 1811, he had come around to war, and joined the War Hawks in electing one of their own,
Henry Clay of Kentucky, as
Speaker. Like the other War Hawks, though, he was initially unwilling to support increased taxes and borrowing to finance the construction of naval vessels. When Madison asked Congress for a declaration of war against Britain in June 1812, Johnson voted in favor as the House passed the resolution, 79–49. Madison signed the declaration on June 18, 1812. For his fourth consecutive term from 1813 to 1815, he had secured one of Kentucky's
at-large seats in the House. For his fifth and sixth consecutive terms, 1815 to 1819, he represented Kentucky's
Third District. Johnson continued to represent the interests of the poor as a member of the House. He first came to national attention with his opposition to rechartering the
First Bank of the United States. Although Hamilton was a champion of the rival
Federalist Party, Johnson had compassion for Hamilton's widow; before the end of his term, he secured payment of the wages. 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.
Battle of the Thames In September,
Oliver Hazard Perry captured a British squadron at the
Battle of Lake Erie, taking control of the lake. This made the British army, then at
Fort Malden (now
Amherstburg, Ontario) vulnerable to having its supply lines cut. The British, under General
Henry Procter, withdrew to the northeast, pursued by Harrison, who had advanced through
Michigan while Johnson kept the Indians engaged. The Indian chief
Tecumseh and his allies covered the British retreat, but were countered by Johnson, who had been called back from a raid on
Kaskaskia that had taken the post where the British had distributed arms and money to the Indians. Johnson's cavalry defeated Tecumseh's main force on September 29, took British supply trains on October 3, and was one of the factors inducing Procter to stand and fight at the
Battle of the Thames on October 5, as Tecumseh had been demanding he do. One of Johnson's slaves, Daniel Chinn, accompanied Johnson to the battle. 's lithograph ( 1846) is one of many images that portrayed Johnson as Tecumseh's killer. At the battle itself, Johnson's forces were the first to attack. One battalion of five hundred men, under Johnson's elder brother, James Johnson, engaged the British force of eight hundred
regulars; simultaneously, Richard Johnson, with the other, now somewhat smaller battalion, attacked the fifteen hundred Indians led by Tecumseh. There was too much tree cover for the British volleys to be effective against James Johnson; three-quarters of the regulars were killed or captured. The Indians were a harder fight; they were out of the main field of battle, skirmishing on the edge of an adjacent swamp. Richard Johnson ordered a suicide squad of twenty men to charge with him and draw the Indians' fire, with the rest to attack as the Indians reloaded. But he was unable to push his troops through the enemy position due to the swampy ground. Johnson had to order his men to dismount and hold until Shelby's infantry came up. By then, under the pressure of Johnson's attack, the Native American force broke and fled into the swamp, during which time Tecumseh was slain. The question of who shot and killed Tecumseh was highly controversial in Johnson's lifetime, as he was most often named as the shooter. Johnson himself did not publicly say that he had killed Tecumseh, stating that he had killed "a tall, good-looking Indian", but initial published accounts named him, and it was not until 1816 that another claimant, a man named David King, appeared. John Sugden, in his book on the Battle of the Thames, found that Johnson's "claim is surely the stronger". Jones suggested that the issue did not truly catch the public's attention until Johnson became a potential candidate for national office in the 1830s, and was promoted through such means as a campaign biography, stage play and song. In any event, he found, "Colonel Johnson truly was a war hero at the Battle of the Thames. By ... leading the suicide mission on horseback, more lives were saved than lost. Johnson was lucky to have been only wounded, since fifteen men died instantly during the charge." There are reports from Indians that support Johnson's account, but most were made decades after the battle, by which time the question of whether Johnson shot Tecumseh had become politically charged. Tecumseh was said to have been shot from a firearm pointed at a downward angle, as if from a horse, with a ball and three buckshot, which Johnson's pistol was said to be loaded with. Evidence that it was so loaded is lacking, and the angle of the wound did not exclude the possibility that he had been stooping when shot. Some accounts have muskets loaded with cartridges containing a ball and three buckshot being commonly carried by American soldiers, and whether the Americans identified the proper body as Tecumseh (whose death was attested to by British officers who had been at the battle) is another source of contention. On April 4, 1818, an act of Congress requested that the President of the United States present to Johnson a sword in honor of his "daring and distinguished valor" at the Battle of the Thames. The sword was presented to Johnson by President
James Monroe in April 1820.
Return to Washington With the American success at the Battle of the Thames, the war in the northwest was effectively over. Although there was no organized resistance to his presence in Canada, Harrison withdrew to Detroit because of supply problems. It took him five months to recover, though he was still left with a damaged left arm and hand, and was later described as walking with a limp. He returned to Congress in February 1814, but due to his wounds was unable to participate in debates until the following session of Congress. He received a hero's welcome, still suffering from war wounds that would plague him for the rest of his life. In August 1814, British forces attacked Washington, D.C., and burned the
White House and Capitol, and when Congress reconvened on September 19, with Johnson present, it was in temporary quarters. On September 22, Johnson moved for the appointment of a committee to look into why the British had been allowed to burn the city, and he was appointed as chairman. Johnson's committee compiled a voluminous report, but it was objected to by Representative
Daniel Webster, who felt the report, including much correspondence, needed to be printed so that all congressmen could study it. This postponed any debate to 1815, by which time the
Treaty of Ghent had been ratified, and the United States was again at peace. With Congress having little interest in debating the matter, it was dropped. Had the war continued, Johnson was ready to return to Kentucky to raise another military unit.
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. 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. 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 $3,000 (~$ in ) 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." Calhoun's bill for a
Second Bank of the United States passed Congress in early 1816. Johnson was opposed, but was absent for the vote, busy with other matters. A bonus was to be paid to the government by the Second Bank, and a bill was introduced early in 1817 to spend that money on internal improvements. Although Johnson was opposed to the national bank, he supported the bill, believing that the improvements to transportation would benefit his constituents, and the bill passed the House by two votes. Madison, then in his final days in office, vetoed the bill. Johnson joined the effort to override the veto, but it failed. The break from the administration was unusual for Johnson, but he believed the war had shown the need for better roads and canals. When he took office in 1817, President
James Monroe's first choice for Secretary of War was Henry Clay, who declined the position. The post ultimately went to Calhoun. This disagreement between Johnson and Clay, however, marked the beginning of a political separation between the two that lasted for the duration of their careers. In 1818, Calhoun approved an
expedition to build a military outpost near the present site of
Bismarck, North Dakota on the
Yellowstone River; Johnson awarded the contract to his brother James. Richard and James Johnson, as well as other family members, remained in debt until 1824, when arrangements were made with the largest creditor, the
Second Bank of the United States, to settle the liabilities.
Senator Monroe years (1819–1825) 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. Under the original federal Constitution, state legislators, not the voters, elected U.S. senators, 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, 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. Johnson was re-elected to a full term in 1822, so that in total, his Senate tenure ran from December 10, 1819, to March 4, 1829. Furthermore, he went against the ideas put forward by sympathizers of the
Colonization movement, arguing in "favor of meaningfully incorporating people of color into a multiracial empire". In December 1822, Johnson introduced legislation to abolish imprisonment for debt at the federal level. He first spoke to the issue in the Senate on December 14, 1822, pointing to the positive effects its cessation had effected in his home state. The bill failed, but Johnson persisted in re-introducing it every year. In 1824, it passed the Senate but was too late to be acted upon by the House. It passed the Senate a second time in 1828, but again, the House failed to act on it, and the measure died for some years, owing to Johnson's exit from the Senate the next year. Passage would have made only a modest impact since few were imprisoned for debt at the federal level, but Johnson hoped to advance the cause of abolishing it in the states. The reform was opposed by the business community, but Jackson's support after he became president in 1829 eventually gave the movement fresh life, and a limited bill was passed in 1832. Within ten years after that, imprisonment for debt had been abolished in most states. Johnson also sought help for debtors not in prison, such as some form of bankruptcy legislation, which would help his own problems and those of his neighbors. Johnson knew this politically pressing issue, which he worked on into the 1830s, quite well because it affected him personally. He was in debt himself from his business losses and support for Western expansion. He also continued to advocate for the positions he had held while a member of the House. As the chair of the Committee on Military Affairs, Johnson pushed for higher veterans pensions, and a liberal policy to enable settlers to buy land in the West more easily.
Adams opponent (1825–1829) The
congressional nominating caucus system for choosing presidential and vice presidential candidates was unpopular by 1824, though a caucus did choose
William H. Crawford of Georgia. State legislatures chose the other presidential candidates: Clay, Jackson and
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. Johnson supported Clay, his fellow Kentuckian, and Clay gained the state's electoral votes. Jackson led in both the popular and electoral vote for president, but did not have a majority, so
the election for president was thrown into the House of Representatives, though Calhoun gained a majority of the electoral vote for vice president. Clay had finished fourth in electoral vote, and as the Constitution limits the House's choice to the top three finishers, he was eliminated. Johnson supported Jackson, and there were rumors Johnson would be Secretary of War in a Jackson administration. Clay threw his support to Adams, who was elected, and many believed Clay (who became Secretary of State) and Adams had made a
Corrupt Bargain. Johnson was the one who informed Jackson of this. Many of Jackson's supporters were enraged by the outcome, including Johnson, who promised to oppose the Adams administration: "for by the Eternal, if they act as pure as the angels that stand at the right hand of the throne of God, we'll put them down". Johnson opposed Adams's policies, and became a member of the faction, later the
Democratic Party, that New York Senator
Martin Van Buren was forming to promote Jackson's candidacy in 1828. Already known for securing government contracts for himself, as well as his brothers and friends, he offered land to establish the
Choctaw Academy, a school devoted to the European-American education of Indians from the Southeast tribes. Johnson had tried to establish an Indian school at Great Crossings in 1818, partnering with the Kentucky Baptist Society, but the school folded in 1821 after it failed to gain the support of the federal government or private donors. The new academy would come into being a few years later. The academy, sitting on his farm in Scott County in 1825, was overseen by Johnson; and not only was part of treaty negotiations with the
Choctaw Nation but appealed to his colleagues as a form "peaceful conquest" or "expansion with honor" as
Henry Knox put it. Although he never ran afoul of the
conflict of interest standards of his day, some of his colleagues considered his actions ethically questionable. Some European-American students also attended the academy, including his nephew
Robert Ward Johnson from Arkansas. Another pet project Johnson supported was prompted by his friendship with
John Cleves Symmes Jr., who proposed that the
Earth was hollow. In 1823, Johnson proposed in the Senate that the government fund an expedition to the center of the Earth. The proposal was soundly defeated, receiving only twenty-five votes in the House and Senate combined. In the report, presented to Congress on January 19, 1829, Johnson argued that government was "a civil, and not a religious institution", and as such could not legislate the tenets of any particular
denomination. In his own defense, Johnson said, "Unlike
Jefferson, Clay,
Poindexter and others I married my wife under the eyes of
God, and apparently He has found no objections." (The named men were suspected or known to have similar relationships with slave women.) The report, commonly called "Col. Johnson's second Sunday mail report", was delivered to Congress in March 1830. Kendall claimed he had seen the report only after it had been drafted and said he had only altered "one or two words". 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. Jackson's faith in Johnson to balance the ticket proved misplaced. In the general election, Johnson cost the Democrats votes in the
South, where his relationship with Chinn was particularly unpopular. He also failed to garner much support from the West, where he was supposed to be strong due to his reputation as an Indian fighter and war hero. ==Vice presidency (1837–1841)==