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I feel incompetent to perform duties...which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.

Andrew Johnson

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Andrew Johnson
Age: 66 †
Born: 1808
Born: December 29
Died: 1875
Died: July 31
17Th U.S. President
Military Officer
Politician
Slaveholder
Statesperson
Tailor
Raleigh
North Carolina
A. Johnson
President Johnson
Thrown
Duty
Upon
President
Unexpectedly
Feel
Incompetent
Feels
Duties
Perform
Presidential

More quotes by Andrew Johnson

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I have lived among negroes, all my life, and I am for this Government with slavery under the Constitution as it is. I am for the Government of my fathers with negroes. I am for it without negroes. Before I would see this Government destroyed I would send every negro back to Africa, disintegrated and blotted out of space
Andrew Johnson
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I have been almost overwhelmed by the announcement of the sad event [Lincoln's assassination] which has so recently occurred. I feel incompetent to perform duties so important and responsible as those which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.
Andrew Johnson
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The life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelligence of its citizens.
Andrew Johnson
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Duties have been mine consequences are God's.
Andrew Johnson
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My right side is paralyzed. I need no doctor. I can overcome my own troubles.
Andrew Johnson
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Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests.
Andrew Johnson
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Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects.
Andrew Johnson
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I tell our sisters in the South that so far as Tennessee is concerned she will not be dragged into a Southern or any other confederacy until she has had time to consider and then she will go when she believes it to be her interest, and not before.
Andrew Johnson
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If blacks were given the right to vote, that would place every splay-footed, bandy-shanked, hump-backed, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, woolly-headed, ebon-colored in the country upon an equality with the poor white man.
Andrew Johnson
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If I am to be shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.
Andrew Johnson
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I never thought I would be impeached.
Andrew Johnson
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Notwithstanding a mendacious press notwithstanding a subsidized gang of hirelings who have not ceased to traduce me, I have discharged all my official duties and fulfilled my pledges. And I say here tonight that if my predecessor had lived, the vials of wrath would have poured out upon him.
Andrew Johnson
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Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.
Andrew Johnson
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When I die, I desire no better winding sheet than the Stars and Stripes, and no softer pillow than the Constitution of my country.
Andrew Johnson
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For myself, I care not whether treason be committed North or South he that is guilty of treason is entitled to a traitor's fate!
Andrew Johnson
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Tyranny and despotism can be exercised by many, more rigorously, more vigorously, and more severely, than by one.
Andrew Johnson
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I have reached the summit of my ambition.
Andrew Johnson
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If you always support the correct principles then you will never get the wrong results!
Andrew Johnson
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The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people.
Andrew Johnson
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Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it and inscribed for our motto: 'Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever,' and exclaim, 'Christ first, our country next!'
Andrew Johnson