Richard Mentor Johnson (October 17, 1780 – November 19, 1850) was an American lawyer, military officer, and politician who served as the ninth vice president of the United States from 1837 to 1841 under President Martin Van Buren. He is the only vice president elected by the United States Senate under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment. Johnson also represented Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. He began and ended his political career in the Kentucky House of Representatives.
After two years in the Kentucky House, Johnson was elected to the U.S. House in 1806. He allied with fellow Kentuckian Henry Clay as a member of the War Hawks faction that favored war with Britain in 1812. At the outset of the War of 1812, Johnson was commissioned a colonel in the Kentucky Militia and commanded a regiment of mounted volunteers from 1812 to 1813. He and his brother James served under William Henry Harrison in Upper Canada. Johnson led troops in the Battle of the Thames. Many reported that he personally killed the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, a claim that he later used to his political advantage.
After the war, Johnson returned to the House of Representatives. The state legislature appointed him to the Senate in 1819 to fill the seat vacated by John J. Crittenden. With his increasing prominence, Johnson was criticized for his interracial relationship with Julia Chinn, a mixed-race slave who was classified as octoroon (or seven-eighths white). Unlike other upper-class planters and leaders who had African-American mistresses or concubines, but never acknowledged them, Johnson treated Chinn as his common law wife. He acknowledged their two daughters as his children, giving them his surname, much to the consternation of some of his constituents. It is believed that because of this, the state legislature picked another candidate for the Senate in 1828, forcing Johnson to leave in 1829, but his Congressional district voted for him and returned him to the House the same year.
In the 1836 election, Johnson was the Democratic nominee for vice-president on a ticket with Martin Van Buren. Campaigning with the slogan "Rumpsey Dumpsey, Rumpsey Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh", Johnson fell one short of the electoral votes needed to secure his election. Virginia's delegation to the Electoral College refused to endorse Johnson, voting instead for William Smith of South Carolina. The Senate elected him to the vice-presidential office. Due to his relationships with several Black or mixed-race women, including his common-law wife Julia Chinn, Johnson proved such a burden for the Democrats in the 1836 election that they refused to renominate him for vice president in 1840. Van Buren campaigned for reelection without a running mate. He lost to William Henry Harrison, a Whig. Johnson then served two more years in the Kentucky House of Representatives. He tried to return to higher office but was defeated. He finally was elected to the Kentucky House in 1850, but died on November 19, 1850, just two weeks into his term.
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.
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.
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.