Vice President Richard M. Johnson(October 17, 1780 - November 19, 1850)

Richard Mentor Johnson was born in 1780 on the site of present-day Louisville, Kentucky. He was admitted to the bar in 1802. He became prominent in state politics as a Jeffersonian Republican and was a member of the Kentucky legislature from 1804-1807. Johnson served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1807-1819. Hecommanded a regiment of Kentucky riflemen in the War of 1812, in which he served under William Henry Harrison in the Canadian campaign. At the battle of the Thames in 1813, Johnson was severely wounded in action and he is said to have killed Tecumseh. He resigned from the House in 1819 to fill an unexpired term in the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1829. Again in the Housefrom 1829-1837, Johnson supported President Jackson's administration and pushed the bill abolishing imprisonment for debt. Backed by Jackson, Johnson was nominated in 1836 for Vice President on the Democratic ticket with Martin Van Buren. None of the vice presidential candidates received a majority of the electoral vote, so the election was decided by the U.S. Senate, which gave the office to Johnson. Johnson proved such a liability for the Democrats in the 1836 election that the party refused to renominate him for vice-president in 1840. Instead, Van Buren campaigned with no running mate and lost the election to William Henry Harrison. Johnson made several failed attempts to return to elected office and he finally returned to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1850. He died on November 19, 1850, just two weeks into his term.



When his father passed away, Johnson inherited a slave named Julia Chinn. She bore him two children, and she and Johnson cohabited for several years. While it wasn’t unheard of in the antebellum South for a landowner to impregnate one of his slaves, setting up and keeping house was another matter entirely. After Julia died in a cholera epidemic in 1833, Johnson picked a second slave. But his second wife was not Julia and didn’t return Johnson’s affections, instead running off with her common-law husband. Johnson responded by hunting her down, catching her, and selling her at auction. He then selected the woman’s sister to be his wife. Probably mindful of her sister’s ill-considered deportment, Johnson’s third slave wife at least pretended to be happily married to the man she called, either lovingly or dutifully, “the Colonel”.