Andrew Johnson’s Vice Presidential Inauguration Address
Andrew Johnson never had much of a penchant for public speaking. As president, his Swing Around the Circle campaign deserves honorable mention here as possibly the most unsuccessful public speaking campaign in history, characterized by awkward pauses, heckling mobs and even collapsing public platforms. “The campaign would have been better”, one of Johnson’s supporters would later lament, “had it never been made”.
But even this campaign wasn’t the most excruciating performance of Johnson’s political life. That moment came earlier, during his inaugural speech as Abraham Lincoln’s vice president on March 4, 1865. Recovering from a nasty bout of typhoid fever, Johnson spent the eve of his inauguration self-medicating at a fellow senator’s party by getting steaming, stumbling drunk. Suffice to say he felt terrible the next day, and faced with having to walk to the Capitol through wet and windy weather, he decided to fortify himself for the task ahead by getting straight back on the sauce.
Warmed by three tumblers of whiskey, Johnson waited for his predecessor, Hamlin, to finish his short valedictory before embarking on what ended up being a rambling (and one imagines somewhat slurred) 90-minute tirade. He spoke at length about his plebeian roots, boasting about how despite all odds he’d managed to snub the rebel aristocracy. Unfortunately, the “rebel aristocracy” were his precise audience, receiving his incoherent address in a state of shock and utter silence.
On several occasions, Hamlin tugged at Johnson’s coattails to try and get his colleague to either sit down or at least shorten his remarks. His efforts, however, were in vain. His face flushed red and swaying slightly from side to side, Johnson stood in stark contrast to his president, Abraham Lincoln, who according to contemporary accounts bore throughout the ordeal an expression of “unutterable sorrow”.
Lincoln wasn’t the only one. Senator Charles Sumer reportedly hid his face in his hands, unable to watch the oratorical car crash unfolding before his eyes. But even despite the solemnity of the occasion, 90 minutes still wasn’t enough to sober Johnson up. As his speech slurred to a conclusion, the vice president was still too far gone to perform the customary task of swearing in the new senators, and the responsibility was passed to a Senate clerk. Fortunately for the incumbent government, Lincoln’s subsequent address would go on to be remembered as one of the most eloquent in history.