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Chapter 3 1865: Johnson’s Year From Nashville on Saturday, April, 15, 1865, Johnson’s daughter, Martha Patterson, penned this poignant message to her father: “The sad, sad news has just reached us, announcing the death of President Lincoln’s. Are you safe, and, do you feel secure? . . . How I long to be with you this sad day, that we might weep together at a Nation’s calamity . . . .”1 Undeniably, Lincoln’s death turned the world upside down not only for America but also for the Johnson family, none of whom was with him in Washington that tragic weekend. After having served only six weeks as vice president, Johnson suddenly became the nation’s leader. With that dramatic turn of events, it would be Johnson, rather than Lincoln, who would bear the tremendous burden of winning the peace. He had arrived in Washington on the eve of the inauguration,ready to commence his role as vice president in the Lincoln administration. The night before the ceremonies, Johnson and his friends celebrated his new status. And perhaps they tarried too long. The next morning, he appeared at the capitol evidently suffering the after-effects of illness or “jollification” or both. After taking the oath of office in the Senate chamber, he delivered “a rambling and strange harangue,” as Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles phrased it, or a “very disreputable inaugural ,” as another witness, Orville H. Browning, described it. While sitting in the chamber,Welles leaned over to confer quietly with his cabinet colleagues. Attorney General James Speed protested that Johnson’s speech was “in wretched bad taste”and added that “the man is certainly 1865 66 deranged.”When Welles whispered to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that “Johnson is either drunk or crazy,” Stanton mildly responded that “there is evidently something wrong.” Meanwhile, Secretary of State William H. Seward suggested that Johnson had simply been overcome with emotion. Three days later, however, when at a cabinet meeting, Johnson’s “infirmity” was discussed, Seward shifted his position to a fairly negative opinion of the vice president.2 The controversy has been fed in part by the lack of a reliable report of Johnson’s actual speech.The most complete and most widely circulated account was one written by a reporter for the New York Times who admitted that he could barely hear Johnson because of “the want of order which prevailed among the women in the galleries.”3 An official version of the speech appeared subsequently in the Congressional Globe; but it had been modified by Johnson himself, who conferred with Richard Sutton, the chief reporter of the Senate. Regardless of which version is accepted, one important argument appears in both: Johnson’s declaration that no state can leave the Union and that his home state of Tennessee had always been and was still a part of the Union, a position shared by Lincoln.4 Reactions to the vice president’s behavior at the inaugural ceremony were swift and generally negative, focusing on his peculiar comments and antics. Senators Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson even attempted to force the adoption of a resolution that called for Johnson’s resignation; but their Senate colleagues blocked this theatrical ploy.5 Although Lincoln had allegedly instructed the marshal of the inauguration ceremonies not to let the vice president speak outdoors, a recollection by Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch years later indicates that Lincoln was not overly perturbed by Johnson’s unfortunate scene. According to McCulloch, the president confided: “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.”6 Johnson’s own reactions to his spectacle were understandable. Even though he briefly presided over a session of the Senate on March 6, immediately afterward he went into a self-imposed exile at the home of Francis P. Blair Sr., outside the District in Maryland. While there, among other things, he composed a note to Lincoln in which he in- Johnson’s Year 67 troduced two Tennessee friends who sought an interview with the president. Johnson explained: “The prostration of my health forbids my visiting you in person with them or I would readily do so.” The next day he penned a letter to Richard Sutton concerning the publication of his speech, and observed, “I am not well, having been confined to my room for some days past, and am unable to call and see you.” At some point...

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