Several clients have asked me to do more historical astrology, specifically presidential astrology so once a month I will feature a president born in that month. January gives quite a number from which to choose because Capricorn is a sign that lends itself to corporate and political leadership. Richard Nixon, Woodrow Wilson, Andrew Johnson and yes, even Millard P Fillmore were all Capricorn presidents. We know much about the first two and really, do we want to know anything about Fillmore? Andrew Johnson, however, is a more interesting of the relatively unknown Presidents. However, I would argue that Taurus was a bigger influence in his life than his Capricorn sun.
Johnson had a Taurus Moon, and more importantly a Taurus South Node. Karmically he was coming from a Taurus incarnation. Taurus is one of the most stubborn of signs. No one, not even the sturdy Capricorn Goat is as stubborn as Taurus the Bull. Johnson held fast to his beliefs even when it caused him great political disfavor and even when it brought him to being the first impeached President and just one vote away from conviction and expulsion from office.
Of course, that Taurean energy was also a help to him. One of the reasons, if not the only reason he was picked at Lincoln’s Vice President was that he was a Southerner who refused to join the Confederacy. (It was not because he was cared about slaves but because he hated the rich Southern landowners who were in favor of war and slavery. It was for him, like for the rest of the country, a matter of economics.)
We also see his ability to persevere in the anchors of his chart. Chart anchors are the signs on the cusps of the 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th houses and Johnson’s were all in cardinal signs, Libra, Capricorn, Aries, and Cancer. Cardinal signs are doers – movers – leaders. He needed this ability – having been born in abject poverty. In fact, there is a good deal of evidence that he was illiterate until he met and married his wife who was also his teacher. He literally came from nowhere and overcame immense obstacles to do so.
When he was inaugurated as Lincoln’s Vice President, Johnson appeared to be intoxicated and made quite a spectacle of himself (where was CNN when you needed them?) The “spin” that was put out by the administration was that he was ill and had taken some medicine but rumors always persisted about his alcoholism. We will never know for sure, however, with his 6th house (health and healing) opened by Pisces which is known to have escapism and alcoholism as a shadow aspect and Pisces’ ruler Neptune being in a tight conjunction with Saturn – he was certainly predisposed to loneliness and the need to escape his problems in some fashion.
