Andrew Johnson's drunk vice-presidential inaugural address
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16th Vice President of the United States
17th President of the United States
Vice presidential and Presidential campaigns
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Andrew Johnson was drunk when he made his inaugural address as Vice President of the United States on March 4, 1865. Multiple sources suggest Johnson had been drunk for at least a week prior, he drank heavily the night before the inauguration, and he consumed either three glasses of whisky or one glass of French brandy the morning of the ceremony. Witnesses variously described Johnson's speech as incoherent, inane, self-aggrandizing, repetitive, hostile, sloppy, and overly long. He kissed the Bible when he took the oath of office, and he was too drunk to administer the oath of office to incoming senators. The incident presaged some of Johnson's difficulties when he succeeded to the presidency 42 days later, following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Background
The Lincoln–Johnson ticket of the
Pre-inaugural week
Johnson may well have been intoxicated for an extended period of time in the lead-up to the inauguration; in 1885, a former colleague who signed himself "J. L." wrote to
He was at the
Later, the Manitowoc Pilot of Wisconsin forthrightly stated, "At Cincinnati, when Mr. Johnson was passing through on his way to Washington, he was called out for a speech but was too intoxicated to respond. He seems literally to have continued in that state until the time he was installed in his present office."[24]
After departing Cincinnati, Johnson then traveled east through
Upon arrival Johnson took rooms at the
Inauguration Day: Saturday, March 4
Pre-ceremony
Johnson was picked up from his hotel by U.S. Senator James R. Doolittle at 10:30 a.m. and escorted to the Capitol.[39] There, at approximately noon, Johnson was to be sworn in by Hamlin and make an address scheduled to last seven minutes.[40][d]
An account of the morning from a biography of Hannibal Hamlin, written by his grandson Charles Eugene Hamlin and published in 1899, stated that—at what would have been at approximately 11 to 11:30 a.m.—Johnson consumed three full glasses of whisky (unwatered and un-iced).[43] The whisky had been procured at Johnson's specific request, and Johnson almost knocked over 27-year-old Maj. Charles Hamlin as he dashed back to pour himself the third glass.[43]
The Hamlin testimony reads as follows:[43]
When Johnson came to Washington to be inaugurated, he was accompanied by enthusiastic friends and admirers from Tennessee. There was a great deal of drinking and jubilation among them, and Johnson was already on the verge of another spree when the day came for him to be inducted into office. He called at the senate chamber shortly before the hour of inaugural, and found Vice-President Hamlin and General Charles Hamlin waiting for him in the former's private room. There was a cordial conversation, and then Johnson said, 'Mr. Hamlin, I am not well, and need a stimulant. Have you any whiskey?' 'No,' replied Mr. Hamlin, 'when I became Vice-President, I gave an order prohibiting the sale of liquor in the Senate restaurant; but if you desire, I will send across the street for some whiskey.' Mr. Johnson expressed his wish for liquor, and a messenger procured him a bottle. He filled a table glass up to the brim, and drank it down without any water. He then resumed conversation, and began to tell Mr. Hamlin of his ambition to make the effort of his life when taking the oath of office. While talking on this theme, he poured out another glass full to the brim, and rapidly poured that down. Mr. Hamlin afterwards said to his son that this made him a little apprehensive, but knowing that Johnson was a hard drinker, he supposed that he could stand the liquor he had taken. There was up to this time, indeed, nothing to indicate that the whiskey had affected Johnson. A moment later, word was given that it was time for the inaugural procession to start. Vice-President Hamlin offered Mr. Johnson his arm, and they started to leave the room, with General Hamlin following them. They had hardly stepped out of the room when Johnson, excusing himself hurriedly, turned back, almost running into General Hamlin. The general naturally turned around to see what the matter was, and saw Johnson step up to the table where the whiskey was and pour down a third tumblerful. He then hurried back to the Senate chamber and took his seat on the dais.[43]
John B. Henderson, a U.S. Senator who drafted the Thirteenth Amendment and later voted to acquit Johnson on the impeachment charges, wrote an account of the morning that was published in Century Magazine in 1912:[44]
Senator Doolittle, who had escorted the Vice-President elect to the Capitol, told me that when they went into Mr. Hamlin's room Johnson said to the retiring Vice-President:
"Mr. Hamlin, I have been feeling very ill. Can you give me some good brandy?"
A bottle of French brandy was found, and to brace his nerves for the task before him, he poured out the full glass that wrought the mischief.[44]
Meanwhile, in the Senate chamber, dignitaries found their seats on the floor, and "several hundred women, including Mary Lincoln, and members of the press" made their way to their assigned seats in the gallery above.[45]
Speech
Thus, the speech.
Journalist
The Washington Star report of the speech is a straightforward account that makes no allegations of inebriation but does suggest some incoherence or repetitiveness on the part of Johnson:[50]
Mr. Johnson then came forward on the dais front of the chair and addressed the assembly. He announced it was wholly by the aid of the people that he was there to take the oath as Vice President of the United States, and we were yet a nation. It was not because of your President, your Vice President, your Secretary of State, your Secretary of War, your Secretary of the Navy, or any or all these, because of your Supreme Court Judges, who like the rest, were creatures of the people, that the nation, that the American government, had been preserved. It was because of the people, and because this government was so closely connected with, and was of the people.
He himself was a plebian, and he wished to announce it here to the ministers of foreign governments before him and to this vast multitude that all this power of the nation was because of the people. lt was by them and through them that the nation had maintained this great struggle, and was putting down its enemies, and this Union had been and would be maintained. Tennessee was a State of this Union, and he thanked God and the people that she was. The power of the people had made her such, and would keep her so.
He wished to announce this fact, as well as repeat that other general idea of the power and efficiency of our institutions through their popular character. Mr. Johnson, after further enforcing these views, announced himself ready to take the oath of office. He was then sworn by Vice President Hamlin.
Another contemporary account of Andrew Johnson's swearing-in as vice president, as published in a Pennsylvania paper from the "correspondent of the New York Herald, a person sufficiently mendacious to praise Lincoln profusely and ready to go so far as to call his inaugural address eloquent,"[51] (meaning that the Herald was known as a relatively liberal, pro-Republican news outlet) reads thus:[52]
[The Senators began] to look at each other with significance as if to say, 'Is he crazy, or what is the matter?' [...] It was not only a ninety-ninth rate stump speech but disgraceful in the extreme [...] the Democratic senators leaned forward and appeared to be chuckling with each other at the figure made by the Republican Party through their Vice President-elect [...] the sentences so incoherent it is impossible to give an accurate report of the speech [...] ("Who is the Secretary of the Navy?"—was then heard, in a voice of less volume. Someone responded 'Mr. Welles'.) [...] 'Has he no friends?' [...] It is charitable to say that his condition was such that he was unfit to make a speech...The effort of the Vice President elect to go through with the form of reading the sentences [of the oath] as read by Mr. Hamlin was painful in the extreme. He stumbled, he stammered, he repeated portions of it several times over [...][51]
According to historian
Oath of office
The stumbling, stammering, and repetition mentioned by the Herald led one study of vice-presidential inaugurations to surmise that that they were still using an early, longer version of the Vice Presidential oath of office on this occasion.[55] Brooks thought Johnson's oath was "inaudible" but when he was done Johnson "turned and took the Bible in his hand, and, facing the audience, said, with a loud, theatrical voice and gesture, 'I kiss this Book in the face of my nation of the United States.'"[46][56][57] Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was apparently present; "He saw the Bible whirled by the incoming V. P. about his head, like a cap when a man gives three cheers...The spectacle of an inebriated Vice President hiccoughing out his oath of office furnished such a text for discourse on temperance as hardly turns up once in an age."[58] A Cincinnati paper reported that he had "driveled over the Holy Book as he took the oath of office," described the speech as "the idiotic babble of a mind besotted by a fortnight's debauch," demanded that Johnson resign, and editorialized "This cannot be covered up as a private infirmity [...] Mr. Johnson made a similar exhibition of himself here, and we then refrained on commenting on it because we thought it might only be a lapse in the interval when he was free from public duties."[59]
Lincoln
In 1871, Forney wrote an essay about Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, and recalled the day of the inauguration:[60]
I can never forget President Lincoln's face as he came into the Senate Chamber while Johnson was delivering his incoherent harangue. Lincoln had been detained signing the bills that had just passed the old Congress, and could not witness the regular opening of the new Senate till the ceremonies had fairly commenced. He took his seat facing the brilliant and surprised audience, and heard all that took place with unutterable sorrow.[60]
Henderson, who was sitting beside Lincoln on the floor, reported "During the painful ordeal, Mr. Lincoln's head dropped in the deepest humiliation. As I offered him my arm for the procession to the steps of the Capitol where he delivered the inaugural, he turned to the marshal [
Transcript
There appears to be no surviving verbatim transcript of the entire speech.[55][62]
Multiple accounts had it that the reporters of the
The correspondent for the Buffalo Courier rendered Johnson's opening remarks as below.
Fel' cizzens, this 's mos (hic) 'spicious mom't v' my zistence 'ni may (hic) say v' my l (hic) ife; ni' mere t' swear (hic) leshens t' ol Dabe 'nt' sport consushun, n' tseet consushun (hic) sported 'tall azurs. D'u (hic) know y am' [with emphasis] my name's And' Johnson' v Tensee n' im a pul a (hic) pul-le-an 'n ol Dabe's a pal-le-an n' im a plean (hic) an th' constushue d'rives 'ts (hic) cons't from pleeans. The consushun 's (hic) a stri (hic) ing sturment 'n I f'l'ere b'fore the Sen't that 'fi know (hic) my-sel I'm a man n'a (hic) broth'n Amekin cizzen, and [with distinctness] I'm a proud listration' v th' fac that a (hic) pleean'n a man from the (hic) ranks can be elv (hic) ated t' th' secon, t' th' secon [with marked emphasis] gif'in the place o' the Amekin people. Fel' cizzens, I'm a pleian 'n (hic) 'n two minitsnaf'n that point, f'r'i'm a pleean (hic) an 'twon time was a tailrs boy n'i teller wir rail (hic) pleeans 'n, Old Dabe 'n the (hic) n' spreme Court d'rive [with statesmanlike dignity] d'rive'r cons't' d'rive power from th' (hic) Amekin pleeans. But twom (hic) inits'naf on that point. Tensee's allers been loy'l'ni (hic) glore'n dressing my fel' twom inits'naf on that (hic) point.[71]
Another approximation comes from the Times of London, which described Johnson as behaving like an "illiterate, vulgar, and drunken rowdy," boasting of himself in "the language of a clown and with the manners of a costermonger," and consistently pronouncing you as yeooo:[48]
I am 'a-going for to tell you here—to-day—yes, l am a-going for to tell you all that I am a plebeian. I glory in it, I am a plebeian. The people, yes, the people of the United States, the great people have made me what I am; and I am a-going for to tell you here to-day, yes, to-day, in this place that the people are everything. We owe all to them. If it not be too presumptuous, I will tell the foreign ministers a-sittin' there that I am one of the people. I will say to senators and others before me, I will say to the Supreme Court which sits before me, that you all get your power and place from the people.[48]
Reactions from observers
U.S. Senator Zachariah Chandler of Michigan wrote his wife, "I was never so mortified in my life. Had I been able to find a small hole, I should have dropped through it out of sight."[72] Someone working in the Ordnance Department wrote in a private letter to his father that Johnson had been "disgracefully drunk."[73] The Hartford Press correspondent refused to cover it out of shame, writing his editor Charles Dudley Warner, "The second official of the Nation—drunk—drunk—when about to take his oath of office, bellowing and ranting and shaking his fists at Judges, Cabinet and Diplomats, and making a fool of himself to such a degree that indignation is almost compelled to pity."[74] Brooks watched the watchers, later reporting: "The speaker kept on, although President Lincoln sat before him, patiently waiting for his extraordinary harangue to be over. The study of the faces below was interesting. Seward was as bland and serene as a summer day; Stanton appeared to be petrified [...] Among the Union senators Henry Wilson's face was flushed; Sumner wore a saturnine and sarcastic smile; and most of the others turned and twisted in their senatorial chairs as if in long-drawn agony. Of the Supreme Bench, Judge Nelson only was apparently moved, his lower jaw being dropped clean down in blank horror. Chase was marble, adamant, granite in immobility until Johnson turned his back upon the Senate to take the oath, when he exchanged glances with Nelson, who then closed up his mouth."[46]
Welles recorded in his diary:[75]
The Vice-President elect made a rambling and strange harangue, which was listened to with pain and mortification by all his friends. My impressions were that he was under the influence of stimulants, yet I know not that he drinks. He has been sick and is feeble; perhaps he may have taken medicine, or stimulants, or his brain from sickness may have been overactive in these new responsibilities. Whatever the cause, it was all in very bad taste. The delivery of the inaugural address, the administering of the oath, and the whole deportment of the President were well done, and the retiring Vice-President appeared to advantage when contrasted with his successor, who has humiliated his friends. Speed, who sat at my left, whispered me that "all this is in wretched bad taste", and very soon he said, "The man is certainly deranged." I said to Stanton, who was on my right, "Johnson is either drunk or crazy." Stanton replied, "There is evidently something wrong." Seward says it was emotion on returning and revisiting the Senate; that he can appreciate Johnson's feelings, who was much overcome. I hope Seward is right, but don't entirely concur with him. There is, as Stanton says, something wrong. I hope it is sickness.[75]
In the original journal, rather than the transcription edited and published by his son, Welles had written and then struck out the word drunk, replacing "the short stark word" with the phrase under the influence of stimulants.[74]
Later that day
Per a Pennsylvania paper, after his own swearing-in, Johnson "had to be pushed through his rôle in a condition of
Mr. Lincoln touched Mr. Johnson, and pointed me out to him. The first expression which came to his face, and which I think was the true index of his heart, was one of bitter contempt and aversion. Seeing that I observed him, he tried to assume a more friendly appearance; but it was too late; it was useless to close the door when all within had been seen. His first glance was the frown of the man, the second was the bland and sickly smile of the demagogue. I turned to Mrs. Dorsey and said, "Whatever Andrew Johnson may be, he certainly is no friend of our race." No stronger contrast could well be presented between two men than between President Lincoln and Vice-President Johnson on this day. Mr. Lincoln was like one who was treading the hard and thorny path of duty and self-denial; Mr. Johnson was like one just from a drunken debauch. The face of the one was full of manly humility, although at the topmost height of power and pride, the other was full of pomp and swaggering vanity. The fact was, though it was yet early in the day, Mr. Johnson was drunk.[80]
Aftermath
Press commentary
Following the inauguration there was a roiling debate about what, exactly, had happened, but "there was no disagreement as to the baneful effect his maudlin performance had on those in attendence. Reaction throughout the country was one of shock, dismay, and humiliation."[81] The New York World read the entrails and saw augurs of doom: "And to think that only one frail human stands between this insolent clownish drunkard and the Presidency! May God bless and spare Abraham Lincoln! Should this Andrew Johnson become his successor, the decline and fall of the American republic would smell as rank in history as that of atrocious monsters in human shape as Nero and Caligula."[63] Cincinnati journalist "Mack" (Joseph B. McCullagh) wrote, "... the subject is really too sickening to write about [...] All I have to say about the inauguration is, may He who controls the lives of men and the destinies of nations preserve the life of Abraham Lincoln, and spare the country the humiliation it would be made to feel in the contingency of Andrew Johnson's assumption of the reins of government."[82] Several years later, Forney wrote a passage that is suggestive of the incident: "Lincoln, without seeming to aspire, reached the highest station in the world; while Johnson, always reaching forth for the golden fruit, got it, and lost it in a fit of inconceivable madness. Abraham Lincoln died at the best moment for himself; Andrew Johnson lives to prove how great opportunities may be wasted."[83]
The newspapers, with their various political alignments, fell into partisan backbiting about the coverage or lack thereof, about which the New York Independent wrote, "Once or twice, we have felt it our duty to speak against the excessive use of intoxicating liquors by our public men. It may be asked: What is the duty of a public journal in such cases? It seems to us plain. We hold that if a public man is drunken in private company, he is not amendable to a comment in the newspapers, but if he be drunk while acting his part on a public occasion, his offence is against the public, and should never be shielded from the just punishment of public censure. In the Senate chamber on the 4th of March, in presence of the Senate, of the House, of the Cabinet, of the Supreme Court, of the diplomatic corps, of the newspaper press, of a gallery of ladies, and (during part of the time) of the President of the United States—and on an occasion to be forever historic—the Vice President elect presented himself to take his solemn oath of office in state of intoxication. Not in anger, but in sorrow, do we chronicle this fact, which we have no right to suppress."[84] Similarly, Maine's Bangor Jeffersonian editorialized, "What is the object of having a party respectable and honest if such public obliquities of conduct are to be whitewashed?"[85] The Troy Daily Whig of upstate New York took the opportunity to engage in some gossipy whataboutism, listing John Bell, John C. Breckinridge, Stephen A. Douglas, Franklin Pierce, John Tyler, Daniel Webster, and Silas Wright as U.S. government leaders who had been known to overindulge (in some cases chronically), ergo public drunkenness on a state occasion was not automatically disqualifying, although Johnson's friends should surely give him a stern talking-to.[86]
The spectacle inspired a song performed at Grover's Theater on E Street:[87]
And there Great Andy Johnson got
And took a brandy-toddy hot,
Which made him drunk as any sot,
At the Inauguration.
And now to wipe out the disgrace,
The President has closed the place,
Where Andy Johnson fell from grace,—
At the Inauguration![87]
Both before and after Lincoln's murder, people speculated, without evidence, that maybe Johnson had not been drunk but had in fact been poisoned as part of a larger conspiracy to destroy the federal government.[88][89]
Political impact
The Times (London) commented that any other man would have been arrested by the sergeant at arms "for drunkenness in the Senate chamber."[72] Johnson was not arrested. Nor was he discharged from his position of responsibility. Amidst the crisis, according to Forney, "No voice of anger was heard from Abraham Lincoln. While nearly all censured and many threatened, Mr. Lincoln simply said, 'It has been a severe lesson for Andy, but I do not think he will do it again.'"[60] Even if President Lincoln had wanted to "fire" Vice President Johnson, he would not have had constitutional standing to do so.[90] Lincoln told his Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch, who had expressed concern about Johnson's public intoxication, not to worry about it: "I have known Andy Johnson for many years; he made a bad slip the other day, but you need not be scared; Andy ain't a drunkard."[91] Historian Louis Clinton Hatch wrote, "This is a surprising statement. Lincoln could have had little or no personal acquaintance with Johnson, though he had met him during the campaign. Probably McCulloch, who retired from the Cabinet after his breach with the Republicans, unconsciously did Johnson the favor of strengthening his statement."[92] Gordon-Reed comments that McCulloch's account of Lincoln's comment "is often presented as if it settled the matter. Lincoln was the great lawyer and leader that he was because he possessed that ineffable but critical skill necessary in both positions: the ability to project calm and allay fears—to be able to look into the eyes of a frightened client, guilty or not, and say that everything is going to be all right, or to convince a fearful population that the nation would emerge victorious from its time of trouble. What else could the great man have said to McCulloch? Yes, Hugh, I agree—we're all doomed, now. Abandon ship! If something happens to me, the United States will be left in the hands of a drunkard."[91] Per Welles, Johnson's "infirmity" was discussed at the cabinet meeting immediately following ("no one appears to have been aware of any failing"),[93] and per Henderson, "The scene was so deeply humiliating that a caucus of senators a few days afterward seriously considered the propriety of asking him to resign as their presiding officer."[44] As a direct consequence of the speech fiasco, the U.S. Senate did vote "to drop McDougal of California and Saulsbury of Delaware from all its standing committees 'because of their habitual inebriety and incapacity for business.'"[94]
Impact on Johnson's vice presidency and presidency
After the fact, Johnson "hid from the press" at the
In the end, whether or not he exhibited clinically significant symptoms of alcoholism during his presidency, after the March 4 spectacle at the U.S. Capitol, "it did not much matter what the truth was about his drinking habits. The truth that mattered was that he had set himself up, made himself vulnerable to charges of drunkenness at virtually every crisis that beset his late political career."[101] In the wars of Reconstruction that came after, "Senator Ben Wade and other Radicals repeatedly used the incident to portray Johnson as a drunkard."[45] Indeed, as the Congress moved toward impeachment, Thaddeus Stevens commented, "I don't want to hurt the man's feelings by telling him he is a rascal. I'd rather put it mildly, and say he hasn't got off that inaugural drunk yet, and just let him retire to get sobered."[102]
View of historians
According to two Congressional Research Service staffers, Johnson's speech is "unfortunately, the most remembered inaugural address by a Vice President."[103] According to the authors of what stood in the 20th century as the "basic work" on the Vice Presidency,[104] vice-presidential inaugural addresses have "been uniformly grave and dignified with the exceptions of those of 1865 and 1917," and only two of all vice-presidential addresses to the Senate are considered "preeminent by the impression they made."[105] The first preeminent speech was Aaron Burr's 1805 farewell address: Senators wept.[106] The 1917 inaugural address by Thomas R. Marshall included some self-deprecating humor.[105] Johnson's inaugural address of 1865, made while he was visibly and verifiably intoxicated, inspired universal "horror and disgust."[105] Excuses were later made that Johnson's obvious intoxication was the result of medication for typhoid, or that Hamlin manipulated him into drinking to excess.[107]
These formulations ignore a salient fact: Andrew Johnson was a grown man and responsible for his actions. If he was seriously ill before one of the most important events in American political life—at perhaps the most critical juncture in the nation's history—he should have taken better care of himself, and known that drinking multiple tumblers of whiskey was not a good idea. If he was the kind of person whom another man could ply with drinks against his will before he participated in what was, until then, the crowning achievement of his career, he was even less qualified to be president than he showed himself to be.
— Annette Gordon-Reed (2011)[108]
According to political scientist Gautam Mukunda: "[Johnson's] combination of weakness, rigidity, and racism was exceptional even by 19th-century standards. The South was able to successfully win the peace after losing the war because Johnson inspired recalcitrant southerners to keep up the fight longer than a war-weary North was willing to maintain the pressure [...] Johnson's selection as vice president in 1864 was Lincoln's greatest mistake. Given the scale of Johnson's damage, Lincoln's assassination may be the greatest tragedy in American history."[110]
See also
- Inauguration of Andrew Johnson
- Bibliography of Andrew Johnson
- List of vice presidents of the United States
- Vice President of the United States § Constitutional roles
- Historical rankings of presidents of the United States
- Third Party System – Phase in U.S. electoral politics (1856–1896)
- Outline of whisky
Notes
- ^ Johnson and Lincoln were both in the 30th Congress (1847–1849). Abraham Lincoln's uncle Mordecai lived in Greeneville, and A. Lincoln's cousin Mary-Sophia Lincoln was married to William R. Brown, a Greeneville merchant. The Lincolns were also very distantly related to the family of Johnson's son-in-law Daniel Stover. (In 1869 Johnson's widowed daughter Mary Johnson Stover married Brown, a widower with several children.)[8]
- ^ Perhaps relevant to his presentation of Andrew Johnson's biography, Moore wrote elsewhere of the Reconstruction Amendments: "The three negro amendments to the Constitution giving him citizenship and social equality [were] a greater sin to him and to us than slavery itself."[18]
- ^ According to The Papers of Andrew Johnson, the Gazette reported of Johnson's speech that he said "He was a radical Democrat; none of your pseudo, hermaphroditish Vallandigham Democrats, but a Jacksonian Democrat, opposed to nullification and secession in all their repulsive phases. He had labored all his life for emancipation—not only of the black man, but of the white man." Johnson then expounded on loyalty, criticized Kentucky's rebellion and return to the Union, and "closed by appealing to the people of Cincinnati to stand firmly in the position they have maintained throughout this struggle, for he assured them that in so doing they would reap the reward of faithfulness in the end."[22]
- ^ According to Milton's The Age of Hate: Andrew Johnson and the Radicals (1930), from an account provided by then-Representative John H. Rice, a "personal and political friend of Mr. Hamlin", "When the party had entered the Vice President's Room, he remarked to Hamlin: 'I am not fit to be here, and ought not to have left my home, as I was slow recovering from an attack of typhoid fever. But Mr. Lincoln telegraphed me, as did other friends, that I must be here, and I came. I am now very weak and enervated, and require all the strength I can get. Can you give me some good whiskey?' Accordingly, Hamlin sent out for a bottle of whiskey and Johnson 'drank a good potation.' The two remained seated for some minutes, until it was announced that it was time for them to go into the Senate chamber for the ceremony. Johnson said again 'I will take some more of the whiskey, as I need all the strength for the occasion I can have.'"[41][42]
- ^ The Buffalo Courier rendition seems to suggest that Johnson repeatedly muttered something like "two and a half minutes on that point,"[71] which is interesting in light of the fact that the speech was scheduled to last seven minutes.[40]
- ^ Johnson also did not return to the Senate on the afternoon of March 4 to preside over further business.[51]
- ^ According to Hatch, records show that if Johnson was indeed presiding on March 6, he oversaw Henry Wilson's motion to "forthwith to remove all liquor from the Senate wing of the Capitol" whereas before "A bar well supplied was kept in an adjoining room and, thanks to an opening famous as 'the Hole in the Wall,' Senators without leaving the floor of their place of meeting could and did thoroughly moisten their parched throats."[95]
- ^ The Springfield Republican of Massachusetts, a source described as "one of the leading Republican newspapers in the country," reported that Johnson was "so far stupefied with liquor" at the inaugural ball that he had to be physically carried back to his rooms.[96] Another paper, the Democratic-aligned Democrat of Montrose, Pennsylvania also claimed that Johnson had to be carried out of the inaugural ball.[97]
References
Citations
- ^ Dudley (1932), p. 505.
- ^ a b Rable (1973), p. 332.
- ^ Trefousse (1989), p. 152.
- ^ Barber (1968).
- ^ Hatch & Shoup (1934), p. 204.
- ^ Dudley (1932), p. 509.
- ^ Lawing (1961), p. 104.
- ^ Lincoln (1923), p. 351.
- ^ Cohen (2019), p. 86.
- ^ Dudley (1932), p. 517.
- ^ Stathis & Moe (1980), p. 554.
- ^ J. L. (October 29, 1885). "Grant and Johnson". The Tennessean. Nashville. p. 5. Retrieved 2024-01-19.
- ^ "Nashville Again Threatened by Confederate Cavalry". The Cincinnati Enquirer. February 17, 1865. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-01-06.
- ^ "Seriously ill". The Times-Democrat. Lima, Ohio. February 15, 1865. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ The Papers of Andrew Johnson, Vol. 7: 1864–1865 (1986), p. 482–483.
- ^ Moore (1929), p. 25.
- ^ Milton (1930), p. 702, n. 5.
- ^ Bailey (1999), p. 24.
- ^ Brabson (1972), p. 118.
- ^ a b c Trefousse (1989), p. 188.
- ^ "Distinguished Guests". The Courier-Journal. Louisville, Kentucky. February 26, 1865. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ a b The Papers of Andrew Johnson, Vol. 7: 1864–1865 (1986), p. 494.
- ^ a b "A Serenade". The Cincinnati Enquirer. February 28, 1865. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ "No American who respects the honor of his country..." The Manitowoc Pilot. Manitowoc, Wisconsin. March 24, 1865. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-01-06.
- ^ a b Truman (1913), p. 438.
- ^ Gaston (1984), p. 67.
- ^ "Personal". The Pittsburgh Commercial. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. March 2, 1865. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ "Death of Colonel Browning". Evening Star. Washington, D.C. March 2, 1866. p. 2.
- ^ Maslowski (1978), pp. 40–41.
- ^ Maslowski (1978), p. 73, n. 89.
- ^ Maslowski (1978), p. 78.
- ^ "Vice-President Johnson". The Baltimore Sun. Baltimore, Maryland. March 2, 1865. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ "The Vice President-elect". Alexandria Gazette. Alexandria, Virginia. March 2, 1865. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ "Personal". Evening Star. Washington, D.C. March 2, 1865. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ "Vice President Andrew Johnson". The Pittsburgh Commercial. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. March 4, 1865. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ "The health of Governor Andrew Johnson..." Charles City Intelligencer. Charles City, Iowa. March 2, 1865. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ Scroggins (1994), p. 217.
- ^ Hatch & Shoup (1934), p. 203.
- ^ Achorn (2020), p. 266.
- ^ a b Achorn (2020), p. 267.
- ^ Milton (1930), p. 702, n. 15.
- ^ "Andrew Johnson on the 4th of March". The Lancaster Examiner. Lancaster, Pennsylvania. May 24, 1865. p. 2.
- ^ a b c d e Hamlin (1899), pp. 497–498.
- ^ a b c d Henderson (1912), p. 198.
- ^ a b c Harris (2009), p. 139.
- ^ a b c d Brooks (1895), p. 871.
- ^ "The Nation's Humiliation". Salem Weekly Advocate. Salem, Illinois. March 23, 1865. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-01-06.
- ^ a b c "The Inauguration of President Lincoln". The Times. London. March 20, 1865. p. 25. Retrieved 2024-01-10.
- ^ a b Means (2006), p. 90.
- ^ "Mr. Johnson then came forward..." Evening Star. Washington, D.C. March 4, 1865. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-12-29.
- ^ a b c d "Morals of the Republican Party". Intelligencer Journal. Lancaster, Pennsylvania. March 7, 1865. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-07-04.
- ^ a b "Speech of Andrew Johnson". New York Daily Herald. March 6, 1865. p. 7. & "Speech of Johnson (cont'd) & Faux Pas". New York Daily Herald. March 6, 1865. p. 7.
- ^ Milton (1930), p. 146.
- ^ "The Extraordinary Address of the Vice-President". The Cincinnati Enquirer. March 9, 1865. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ a b Stathis & Moe (1980), p. 565, n. 10.
- ^ Trefousse (1989), p. 190.
- ^ "Vice President Hamlin..." The Pittsburgh Commercial. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. March 6, 1865. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-01-08.
I kiss this book before my nation of the United States.
- ^ "The Vice President's Critics". The Selinsgrove Times-Tribune. Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. March 31, 1865. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
- ^ "Our New Republican Vice President Requested to Resign". The Cincinnati Enquirer. March 11, 1865. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-12-29.
- ^ a b c Forney (1873), p. 177.
- ^ Brabson (1972), p. 120–121.
- ^ Furman, Paul N. (January 8, 1941). "Inaugurations in Other Days". Austin American-Statesman. Vol. 70, no. 216. Austin, Texas. p. 3.
- ^ a b "From New York World of March 7: Mr. Vice-President Johnson". Argus and Patriot. Montpelier, Vermont. March 16, 1865. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-07-08.
- – via HathiTrust.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-12-29.
- ^ The Papers of Andrew Johnson, Vol. 7: 1864–1865 (1986), pp. 502–507.
- ^ "Andy Johnson's Speech". Cleveland Daily Leader. Cleveland, Ohio. March 23, 1865. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-01-06.
- ^ a b c d Schroeder-Lein & Zuczek (2001), pp. 306–307.
- ^ "The Presidential Inauguration". The Baltimore Sun. March 6, 1865. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ "Andy Johnson's Inaugural Address". Weekly Progress. Raleigh, North Carolina. March 28, 1865. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-01-06.
- ^ a b c "Andy Johnson's inaugural". Lancaster Intelligencer. Lancaster, Pennsylvania. March 29, 1865. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-01-09.
- ^ a b Achorn (2020), p. 269.
- ^ "Lot #43402 Sold on Nov. 2, 2019 [Andrew Johnson]: Drunk at the 1865 Inauguration". Heritage Auctions.
- ^ a b c Milton (1930), p. 147.
- ^ a b Welles (1911), p. 252.
- ^ Harris (2009), p. 141.
- ^ "The second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln..." Wayne County Herald. Honesdale, Pennsylvania. March 9, 1865. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
- ^ Achorn (2020), p. 272.
- ^ Achorn (2020), p. 318.
- ^ a b Douglass (1881), p. 371.
- ^ Stathis & Moe (1980), p. 558.
- ^ Achorn (2020), pp. 271–272.
- ^ Forney (1873), p. 166.
- ^ "New York Independent on The Vice President". Janesville Weekly Gazette. Janesville, Wisconsin. March 23, 1865. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-01-06.
- ^ Hatch & Shoup (1934), p. 205.
- ^ "Drunken Public Men". Champaign County Gazette. Champaign, Illinois. March 31, 1865. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-01-06.
- ^ a b Milton (1930), p. 150.
- ^ From the New York Ledger (May 7, 1865). "The Poisoning of Andrew Johnson on the Fourth of March". The New York Times. p. 1.
- ^ Achorn (2020), p. 323.
- ^ "U.S. Senate: About Impeachment". www.senate.gov. Retrieved 2024-01-07.
- ^ a b Gordon-Reed (2011), p. 90.
- ^ Hatch & Shoup (1934), p. 208.
- ^ Welles (1911), p. 253.
- ^ Milton (1930), p. 148.
- ^ a b Hatch & Shoup (1934), p. 206.
- ^ "Vice President Johnson". The Aegis. Bel Air, Maryland. March 31, 1865. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-01-06.
- ^ The Papers of Andrew Johnson, Vol. 7: 1864–1865 (1986), p. xxvii.
- ^ Blaine (1886), p. 8.
- ^ "Abraham Lincoln's Opinion of Andrew Johnson". Brownlow's Knoxville Whig. Knoxville, Tennessee. December 19, 1866. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-07-10.
- ^ "Andrew Johnson on the 4th of March". The Lancaster Examiner. Lancaster, Penn. May 24, 1865. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-01-14.
- ^ Browne (2008), p. 198.
- ^ Nowlan (2016), p. 422.
- ^ Stathis & Moe (1980), p. 557.
- ^ Durham (1948), p. 311.
- ^ a b c Hatch & Shoup (1934), p. 200.
- ^ Hatch & Shoup (1934), p. 200–202.
- ^ Gordon-Reed (2011), p. 86–87.
- ^ Gordon-Reed (2011), p. 87.
- ^ Browne (2008), p. 195.
- ^ Mukunda (2022), p. 101.
Books
- Achorn, Edward (2020). "Chapter 11: 'Andy Ain't a Drunkard' Saturday, noon, March 4, 1865". Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln. Grove Atlantic. OCLC 1164845279.
- OL 7166157M.
- OL 4578789M.
- Browne, Stephen H. (2008). "Andrew Johnson and the Politics of Character". In Medhurst, Martin J. (ed.). Before the Rhetorical Presidency. Presidential Rhetoric and Political Communication No. 19. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press. pp. 194–212. .
- OCLC 1054267847.
- OL 24644977M.
- OCLC 613194445.
- OCLC 154806758.
- Hamlin, Charles E. (1899). The Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Riverside Press. OL 528831M.
- S2CID 152948464.
- Maslowski, Peter (1978). Treason Must Be Made Odious: Military Occupation and Wartime Reconstruction in Nashville, Tennessee, 1862–65. Millwood, New York: KTO Press. OCLC 4004346.
- Means, Howard B. (2006). The Avenger Takes His Place: Andrew Johnson and the 45 Days That Changed the Nation. Harcourt, Inc. OCLC 67239881.
- OCLC 739916.
- Mukunda, Gautam (2022). Picking Presidents: How to Make the Most Consequential Decision in the World. Berkeley: University of California Press. S2CID 252420069.
- Nowlan, Robert A. (2016). The American Presidents From Polk to Hayes: What They Did, What They Said & What Was Said About Them. Denver: Outskirts Press. OCLC 949382331.
- Schroeder-Lein, Glenna R.; Zuczek, Richard (2001). Andrew Johnson: A Biographical Companion. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. OL 3937770M.
- Scroggins, Mark (1994). Hannibal: The Life of Abraham Lincoln's First Vice President. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. OCLC 29564237.
- OCLC 463084977.
- Various (1986). Graf, LeRoy P. (ed.). The Papers of Andrew Johnson. Vol. 7, 1864–1865. Associate editors Patricia P. Clark and Marion O. Smith. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press. OCLC 489663229.
- OL 6379113M.
Journal articles
- Hatch, Louis Clinton; Shoup, Earl L. (April 1934). "The Vice-Presidency of the United States". Americana. XXVIII (2). Somerville, N.J., and New York: American Historical Society, Inc.: 191–249. OCLC 1480991.
- Stathis, Stephen W.; Moe, Ronald C. (October 1980). "America's Other Inauguration". Presidential Studies Quarterly. Inaugurating the President and the Vice President Issue. 10 (4). New York: Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress: 550–570. OCLC 45848856.
Magazine articles
- ISSN 2837-5637.
- ISSN 2837-5637.
- ISSN 0048-9239.
- ISSN 2837-5637.)
{{cite magazine}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link
Historical context
- Bailey, Fred Arthur (1999). "John Trotwood Moore and the Patrician Cult of the New South". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 58 (1): 16–33. JSTOR 42627447.
- JSTOR 20023846.
- JSTOR 442286.
- Dudley, Harold M. (1932). "The Election of 1864". The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 18 (4): 500–518. JSTOR 1898560.
- Gaston, Kay Baker (1984). "Robertson County Distilleries, 1796–1909". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 43 (1): 49–67. JSTOR 42626422.
- Lawing, Hugh A. (1961). "Andrew Johnson National Monument". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 20 (2): 103–119. JSTOR 42621527.
- Lincoln, Waldo (1923). "aadaf d. Mordecai Lincoln (1788–1851)". History of the Lincoln Family: An Account of the Descendants of Samuel Lincoln, of Hingham, Massachusetts, 1637–1920. Worcester, Mass.: Commonwealth Press. OL 6655304M.
- JSTOR 42623407.
External links
- Senate Historical Office. "Andrew Johnson's Inauguration – March 4, 1865". U.S. Senate (senate.gov).