Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1895 — JOHNSONS INAUGURATION. [ARTICLE]

JOHNSONS INAUGURATION.

The Vice President Was Not Sober When He Took the Oath. Noah Brooks tells the following story in his personal reminiscences of Lincoln in the Century: All eyes were turned to the main entrance, where, precisely on the stroke of 12, appeared Andrew Johnson, Vice President elect, arm in arm with Hannibal Hamlin, whose term of office was now expiring. They took seats together on the dais of the presiding officer, and Hamlin made a brief and sensible speech, and Andrew Johnson, whose face was extraorordinarily red, was presented to take the oath. It is needless to say here that the unfortunate gentleman, who had been very ill, was not altogether sober at this most important moment of his life. In order to strengthen himself for the physical and mental ordeal through which he was about to pass he had taken a stiff drink of whisky in the room of the Vice President, and the warmth of the Senate chamber, together with other physical conditions, had sent the fiery liquor to his brain. He was evidently intoxicated. As he went on with his speech, he turned upon the cabinet officers and addressed them as “Mr. Stanton,” “Mr. Seward,” etc., without the official handles to their hames. Forgetting Mr. Welles’ name, he said, “and you, too, Mr.”—then leaning over to Col. Forney, he said, “What is the name of the Secretary of the Navy?” and then continued as though nothing had happened. Once in a while, from the reporter’s gallery, I could observe Hamlin nudging Johnson from behind, reminding him him that the hour for the inauguration ceremony had passed. 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; Welles’ face was usually void of any expression ; Speed sat with his eyes closed; Dennison was red and white by turns. 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 Melson, who then closed up his mouth. When Johnson had repeated inaudibly the oath of office, his hand upon the book, he 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.”