| Event Name: | Presidential inauguration of Andrew Johnson |
| Participants: | Andrew Johnson 17th president of the United States — Assuming office Salmon P. Chase Chief Justice of the United States — Administering oath |
| Location: | Kirkwood House, Washington, D.C. |
The inauguration of Andrew Johnson as the 17th president of the United States was held on April 15, 1865, on the third floor[1] of Kirkwood House in Washington, D.C., following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The inauguration marked the commencement of Andrew Johnson's only term (a partial term of) as president. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase administered the presidential oath of office.
This was the first extraordinary inauguration, in which the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in this case, Salmon P. Chase, administered the oath to the new president, Andrew Johnson.[2] This was the third non-scheduled, extraordinary inauguration to take place. News reports had it that the oath was administered at 11 a.m. that day.[3]
After the ceremony, President Johnson gave an impromptu inaugural address, which began with him begging the cabinet to remain with him and then attacking the Confederate States of America with such venom, that one witness remarked "It would have been better had he been struck dumb."[4]
As President Lincoln lay dying, Vice President Johnson visited the room where he lay. When Mrs. Lincoln saw him, she reportedly screamed and demanded he be removed, so he went back to his room at Kirkwood House.
According to newspaper reports, Johnson had gotten severely inebriated, and when aides to the now-dead Lincoln came to fetch the new president they were unable to wake him for several minutes. When he was finally awake, the accounts read, "he had puffy eyes and his hair was caked with mud from the street," and that a barber and doctor were summoned to clean him up for the 10 a.m. ceremony, which most accounts agree went smoothly. However, there are other accounts, believed more reliable by some, that refute this claim.[5]
Most of what is known about the swearing-in of Johnson comes from one wire report: "Andrew Johnson was sworn into office as President of the United States by Chief Justice Chase to-day at eleven o'clock." The ceremony was witnessed by members of the cabinet and "a few Congressmen."
Ramsey, Stewart, and Yates were members of the United States Senate at the time of Andrew Johnson's 1868 impeachment; all three voted to convict.[7]
According to James G. Blaine, the swearing of the oath was attended by "all the members of the Cabinet except" Secretary of State Seward (who had been gravely wounded by the conspirators against Lincoln's government), meaning that Gideon Welles, John Palmer Usher, and William Dennison Jr. would also have been present.[8]
McCulloch, who served as Treasury Secretary for the remainder of Johnson's term described the ceremony in his 1888 memoir:[9]
Per the New York Times, Johnson's first statement, which served as an inaugural address under the circumstances, was as follows:[10]
According to James G. Blaine, this statement was poorly received. In his memoirs published in the 1880s, Blaine wrote, "The effect produced upon the public by this speech, which might be regarded as an Inaugural address, was not happy. Besides its evasive character respecting public policies which every observing man noted with apprehension, an unpleasant impression was created by its evasive character respecting Mr. Lincoln. The entire absence of eulogy of the slain President was remarked...While he found no time to praise one whose praise was on every tongue, he made ample reference to himself and his own past history. Though speaking not more than five minutes, it was noticed that I and my and me were mentioned at least a score of times."
According to Nevada Senator William Morris Stewart's telling in his memoir of 1908, there were but three witnesses to Johnson's inauguration (Stewart himself, Chief Justice Chase, and Senator Foot of Vermont) and "all statements to the contrary are absolutely false." Stewart claimed that Johnson had been in a "half-drunken stupor" since he arrived in Washington, D.C. in "January or February" 1865 and continued drinking following the debacle at the Capitol, and made at least one speech to a "great crowd of street hoodlums and darkies congregated...about the City Hall steps. He was intoxicated...It was quite common for Johnson to make these open-air speeches; and as he delivered them whenever he had been drinking, naturally he became the most persistent orator in the capital."[11]
According to Stewart, after the death of Lincoln, Chase, Foot, and Stewart found Johnson in his rooms at Kirkwood House.
According to Stewart, Johnson's response to the news that he was to be sworn in was "I'm ready."
Then, per Stewart again, after going to find Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and informing him of the state of the President:
Stewart's account was disputed at length by Tennessee Congressman Walter P. Brownlow (a nephew of Johnson's old political enemy Parson Brownlow) in an article the following year. Brownlow had the article entered into the Congressional Record of February 25, 1909.[12] Brownlow's rebuttals included:
Brownlow also pointed to an account by Lincoln and Johnson's Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch that repeated the traditional account of Cabinet members and Senators and stated that Johnson's hand rested on Proverbs 22 and 23 when, "with all due solemnity," he took the oath.[15] McCulloch has been described as "the only real defender of Johnson."[16] James G. Blaine also repeats the standard version, although in his account, the swearing of the oath was attended by all of Lincoln's cabinet except Secretary of State Seward (who had been gravely wounded by the conspirators against Lincoln's government), meaning that Gideon Welles, John Palmer Usher, and William Dennison Jr. would also have been present.[17]
After Booth shot Lincoln, Johnson was summoned by Leonard J. Farwell, who also boarded at the Kirkwood. Together they visited the house where Lincoln lay dying. (Mary Todd Lincoln despised Johnson, and out of respect for her circumstances, Johnson's visit was brief.) In 1875 Johnson told a Tennessee compatriot, "It was evident from the first that Booth's shot would prove fatal. I walked the floor all night long, feeling a responsibility greater than I had ever felt before. More than one hundred times I said to myself, what course must I pursue, so that the calm and correct historian will say one hundred years from now, 'He pursued the right course'? I knew that I would have to contend against the mad passions of some and self-aggrandizement of others."[18]
According to a 1928 biographer named Robert W. Winston, who was granted access to the Johnson papers by his grandson Andrew Johnson Patterson, the newly elevated President kissed the Bible at verse 21 of Ezekiel 11.[19]
According to historians Dorothy Kunhardt and Philip B. Kunhardt in 1965, "Stanton ran the country single-handedly for the first days after the assassination, and no one looked to the newly sworn-in Johnson to make decisions. Johnson merely received delegations at the Treasury Building, seemed to mention the name Lincoln very seldom, and assured people he would punish treason."[20]