This biopic focuses on Andrew Johnson, the first American president to be impeached. Initially an uneducated drifter who stumbles upon a job as a tailor in a Tennessee town, Johnson is taught to read by librarian and future wife Eliza, who convinces him to enter a local election; from there he rises swiftly. However, after inheriting the presidency in the wake of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, he finds himself on unsteady political ground.