Jonathan R. Allen asked:




During Abraham Lincoln’s 1864 run for a second term as president, Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) was his vice-presidential running mate. At this time during the Civil War, Lincoln was an unpopular president and Andrew Johnson, a southern War Democrat and Governor of Tennessee, would give the Republican ticket broader appeal to the important border states. On the Democrat ticket opposing Lincoln and Johnson in the 1864 election were George B. McClellan (the former Union general) and his running mate, George Hunt Pendleton. Abraham Lincoln won the election, but it was not a landslide victory. Lincoln won 55 percent of the total popular vote to McClellan’s 45 percent. Following President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson took the oath of office as president on April 15, 1865.

Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural on March 4, 1865 was held on a miserable, windy, rainy, and muddy day in Washington, D.C. The inaugural ceremonies were planned to be held outside, but were moved inside to the Senate chamber because the weather was so bad. Vice President Hannibal Hamlin was retiring, and Tennessee Democrat Andrew Johnson would now be inaugurated as Abraham Lincoln’s vice-president. The Senate chamber’s 1800s ventilation system was poor and it could not handle the added moisture from the wet and soaked clothes of the people attending the ceremony. The Senate chamber was muggy and sticky, it was a very uncomfortable place to be on this poor-weather inaugural day in Washington, D.C.

Andrew Johnson had been suffering from typhoid fever and generally was in poor health, during the weeks before the inaugural. Johnson’s travel to Washington, D.C. from Nashville did not help his physical condition, and he didn’t feel well shortly before the inauguration. He downed three glasses of “medicinal” whiskey before entering the uncomfortable Senate chamber. As Andrew Johnson walked into the Senate chamber he appeared to be unsteady, and he was leaning on Hannibal Hamlin’s arm.

Usually the vice-president’s inaugural speech is a brief formality on inauguration day. It became obvious to all that the new vice-president was three sheets to the wind as he began his vice-presidential inauguration speech. The stewed Johnson rambled on and on, speaking for seventeen minutes instead of the expected seven. Hannibal Hamlin finally gave a tug on Johnson’s coat-tail, and only then did Johnson end his alcohol-impaired inaugural speech.

Andrew Johnson’s sottish inauguration festivities and formalities were not yet complete. As he took the oath of office (which took more time than needed because Johnson drunkenly rambled with incoherent and slurred speech), Johnson put his hand on the Bible and said in a loud voice; “I kiss this Book in the face of my nation the United States.”

Johnson then gave the Bible a tipsy kiss. As the now freshly inaugurated vice-president, it was Johnson’s job to swear-in the new senators. Vice President Andrew Johnson was too drunk and confused for this, so instead a Senate clerk performed swearing-in of the new senators.

After the drunken Andrew Johnson had been inaugurated indoors as vice-president, the nasty weather began to clear and improve. Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address could now be given outside as was originally planned. As Lincoln witnessed the soused Andrew Johnson’s Bible kiss, he said to Senator John B. Henderson, who was the marshal for the inauguration; “Do not let Johnson speak outside.”

Later, President Lincoln remarked regarding Vice President Johnson’s inaugural drunkenness;

“It has been a severe lesson for Andy, but I do not think he will do it again.”

Lincoln had known Johnson for years and they were friends. To answer concerns expressed by some about Johnson, Lincoln further explained;

“I have known Andrew Johnson for many years. He made a slip the other day, but you need not be scared; Andy ain’t a drunkard.”

“The inauguration went off very well except that the Vice President Elect was too drunk to perform his duties & disgraced himself & the Senate by making a drunken foolish speech. I was never so mortified in my life, had I been able to find a hole I would have dropped through it out of sight.”

- Senator Zachariah Chandler.

Caffeinated Content

Bob B asked:


How did President Abraham Lincoln increase the power of the Presidency? Was it a positive development?

way2cutu asked:


I have to write a report about Abraham Lincoln. I have looked on google and wikipedia and I cannot find anything about Lincoln and states’ rights. Can you please help me? How did Lincoln feel about states’ rights?

Thank you so much!

martha asked:


What did Abraham Lincoln mean in his second inaugural address when he stated, “”Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease”?

any input would help! Thanks!

Abbey asked:


How did Abraham Lincoln interpret the Declaration of Independence as it related to African Americans? What is the significance of Lincoln’s interpretation of the Declaration of Independence for Americans today.

magicman15k asked:


If Abraham Lincoln was the president of the United States, how was it possible that his Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in a different country (the Confederacy)? Wouldn’t that be saying for example, the president of Canada saying all Americans have a right to shoplifting, and all of a sudden, we are allowed to steal from stores? I just don’t get how it’s possible for the President of one country to make one statement that changes the other country. Like how is that possible?

Thanks,

Eric

Steven Chabotte asked:


How does one free slaves in another country? How does one free slaves over which one has no control?

President Abraham Lincoln attempted to do just that, when he issued the two-part Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 and 1863. Criticized by Northerners, sneered at by Southerners, the Emancipation Proclamation evidenced more than anything Lincoln’s foresight and conviction that the Union would be once again be the United States of America – all states of America.

The beginnings of the Emancipation Proclamation were in the Fugitive Slave Law, enacted in 1850. The Fugitive Slave Law demanded that fugitive slaves, as property, be returned to their owners if they escaped, even if in escaping they made it to a free state. The Fugitive Slave Law became controversial as abolitionism gained ground in the North; abolitionists, flouting the law, often refused to comply and return escaped slaves to their southern owners.

While the Fugitive Slave Law caused uproar both North and South, it caused even larger problems once Civil War was declared. When Union troops encountered runaway slaves, there was no consensus as to how to treat them; while a few returned them to their owners, many considered slaves who were living in occupied areas war contraband. Others still freed the slaves, often resulting in their own dismissal.

Treating the slaves as contraband did not sit well with President Lincoln, as treating them as contraband was, in a sense, recognizing the Confederate States of America as a separate nation. Lincoln flatly refused to recognize the Confederacy as anything but a band of infidels, and as such, decided to attack the issue of slavery as an act of war, knowing that by doing so, he would both decide the issue of slavery and attack the South where it was most vulnerable.

Thus a series of events began to both free slaves and place a stranglehold on the South, still reliant on slavery to support their largely agricultural economy, events that resulted in the Emancipation Proclamation:



March 13, 1862: Lincoln forbids officers of the Union Army officers from returning fugitive slaves to their owners.

April 10, 1862: Congress decides that the federal government will compensate slave owners who free their slaves; this begins in Washington, D.C. On April 16, when slaveowners are compensated upon the release of their slaves.

June 19, 1862: Slavery is prohibited by Congress in United States territories. This decision opposes the 1857 ruling in the Dred Scott Case that stated Congress did not have the authority to regulate slavery in the United States.

January, 1862: Republican leader of the House of Representatives Thaddeus Stevens calls for total war against the perceived Southern rebellion, including the emancipation of slaves, in an attempt to destroy the Confederate economy.

July, 1862: Lincoln signs Congress’ “Second Confiscation Act” which liberates slaves held by southern “rebels.”

September 22, 1862: President Lincoln issues the first executive order of the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring freedom for all slaves in any state of the Confederacy that did return to the Union January 1, 1863.

January 1, 1863: President Lincoln issues the second executive order of the Emancipation Proclamation, which specifies that slaves in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia were free.



Yet the Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves; exempted from the Proclamation were the contested states of Kentucky and Missouri, the soon-to-be West Virginia, and two Union slave states, Maryland and Delaware. It would be 1865, the conclusion of the war, before all slaves were emancipated in these states.

In fact, it would be 1865 before the majority of the slaves held in the states addressed by the Emancipation Proclamation were freed. Until the Confederacy was defeated, many of these slaves remained under the control of their masters.

While the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free all slaves, it did finally address the major schism between the North and the South – slavery. It was President Abraham Lincoln’s message to the Confederacy that slavery was indeed a matter of war, and that their short-lived rule would not outlast the Union.