Andrew Johnson's drunk vice-presidential inaugural address

Andrew Johnson was intoxicated when he made his inaugural address as vice president of the United States under Abraham Lincoln 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 hostile, inane, incoherent, repetitive, self-aggrandizing, and sloppy. He kissed the Bible when he took the oath of office, and he was too altered to administer the oath of office to incoming Senators.

The incident was partially covered up, although some New York and Cincinnati newspapers and The Times of London covered the story honestly. Other newspapers glossed over the speech or claimed it could not be heard clearly. There is no known surviving verbatim transcript. The editors of the Congressional Globe were persuaded to use a more dignified fantasy rendition of the speech. Lincoln was present for the second half of the speech and on the way to his own swearing-in told the inaugural marshal not to let Johnson speak outside. Lincoln later pointed out to Johnson that Frederick Douglass was in the audience; Douglass described Johnson's reaction and his drunkenness in his Narrative autobiography.

Both the Cabinet and the Congress expressed concern but took no action against Johnson, although as a direct consequence of the speech the U.S. Senate did remove two Senators from committee work due to their chronic drinking problems. A parodic song about the incident was performed at Grover's Theater in Washington. Johnson spent most of the following month hiding out and/or sobering up at the Maryland home of the Democratic-stalwart Blair family.

The incident presaged some of Johnson's difficulties when he succeeded to the presidency 42 days later, following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson never lived down the public humiliation, which seriously eroded whatever political capital he had accumulated. During the impeachment process Thaddeus Stevens trolled, "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." Reconstruction-era political commentary and editorial cartoons often included references to Johnson's alleged alcoholism. In later years, Johnson-friendly historians who attempted to present a flattering portrait would typically claim that the drunk speech was not reflective of Johnson's true character but the unlucky consequence of an accidental overdose of alcohol used medicinally during a bout of typhoid fever.