The Andrew Johnson alcoholism debate is the dispute, originally conducted amongst the general public, and now typically a question for historians, about whether or not Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, drank to excess. There is no question that Andrew Johnson consumed alcohol (as would have been typical for any Tennessean of his era and station); the debate concerns whether or not he was governing drunk, how alcohol may have altered his personality and disrupted his relationships, and if, when, or how it affected his political standing, and even his current bottom-quartile historical assessment. Less so today, but in his own time, Johnson's alleged drinking contributed substantially to how his peers evaluated his "attributes of mind, character, and speech...where the good ruler is temperate, Johnson is an inebriate; where the good ruler is selfless, Johnson is self-regarding; where the good ruler is eloquent, Johnson is a rank demagogue...behind all these assumptions is the still and silent image of the Great Emancipator, but that is another story."[2]
All that said, the Andrew Johnson alcoholism debate may be a case of questions without answers. Per historian Annette Gordon-Reed, "We will probably never know the extent to which alcohol was a part of Johnson's life. Not all alcoholics appear drunk in public, and his relatively solitary existence—his family was almost never with him and he had few friends—was exactly the kind of setup that allowed for unobtrusive drinking that could become a problem in a time of great emotional and physical stress."[3]
We tell them we would sooner have Andy Johnson drunk than Jeff. Davis sober, or John Breckenridge either, if he could be ever found sober.
— Rev. Dr. Hancock's Temperance Address, New York, June 1865, Buffalo Advocate
According to two histories of alcohol in the United States, the country had three alcoholic presidents during the 19th century: Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and Ulysses S. Grant.[4][5] A broad overview of the human use of intoxicants asserts that Johnson was thought to "be rarely sober."[6] A scholarly examination of the consequences of illness in national leaders states, "The best-known instance of alcohol abuse in high office is that of Andrew Johnson, whose alcoholism figured in the debate concerning his impeachment."[7]
"Drunkenness, of Johnson" has 16 mentions in Andrew Johnson: A Biographical Companion, which puts the topic on par with "Election of 1866" and "First Military Reconstruction Act."[8] The Biographical Companion, citing the editors of The Papers of Andrew Johnson and Hans Trefousse, states that all charges/claims of Johnson being drunk "were false except for one incident [the March 4 inauguration]...Johnson was not intoxicated. He was merely falling back into ingrained stump-speaking habits...His actions did not conform to many people's ideas about how a president should behave."[8] The most famous case of Andy drunk was at his 1865 vice-presidential inauguration, but it was not the first or the last time he appeared intoxicated in public, and per historian Elizabeth R. Varon, "He never lived these incidents down, although historians contend that they were greatly exaggerated."[9] As he set out on his Swing Around the Circle tour as president, a Pennsylvania newspaper summarized the general perception (amongst his enemies, at least) of the intersection of Johnson's drinking and his politics: "From the day that Andrew Johnson took his seat as Vice President of the United to the present moment he seems to have improved every opportunity to belittle himself and disgrace the position he holds, by either bacchanalian revels, or the retailing of vile slang in partisan speeches...His stooping to blackguard private citizens was thought to be lowest depth to which drunken recklessness could drag him down, but a lower depth has been found."[10] A 1916 thesis on Johnson's era as military governor of Tennessee argued, "The habit of indulging in intoxicants, afterwards reputed as Johnson's most conspicuous personal failing as President, had, of course, been formed long before. There is no evidence that it interfered seriously with the performance of his duties, but it occasionally betrayed him into extravagance of action and expression which did him no credit."[11]
Nonetheless, after examining recollections of Johnson by Vice President Hannibal Hamlin and Interior Secretary Carl Schurz, a historian of alcoholism found that Andrew Johnson most likely met the criteria for problem drinking, based on accounts that suggest he indulged in benders, drank in "enormous" quantities, gulped down hard liquor as if it were water, drank in the morning, drank after drinking, and consumed excessive, inebriating quantities of alcohol at inappropriate times.[5] The author, James Graham, argues that "ugly behavior is symptomatic," and states that "It's probable that [Johnson's] alcoholism-driven ego played a more important role in his clash with Congress, which led to the attempted impeachment, than alcoholism-ignorant modern historians realize."[5] He also argues that alcoholism is often "not noticed outside the home until the alcoholic reaches the advanced stage of the disease and starts showing the bizarre behavior associated with the condition—such as showing up drunk on the job."[5]
Historian | Year | Johnson alcoholic? | Notes, quotes | |
---|---|---|---|---|
James Schouler | 1906 | No[12] | ||
Clifton Hall | 1916 | Yes[11] | ||
Robert W. Winston | 1928 | No[13] | "Strangely enough, in the midst of such universal dissipation, Andrew Johnson was not overmuch afflicted with the drink habit." | |
Lloyd Paul Stryker | 1929 | No[14] | "Like all truly temperate men he was abstemious in food as well as drink." | |
George Fort Milton | 1930 | No[15] | No, per memoir of McCulloch | |
Howard K. Beale | 1930 | ? | ||
Paul Buck | 1938 | ? | ||
Peter Levin | 1948 | ? | ||
Milton Lomask | 1960 | ? | ||
Fay W. Brabson | 1972 | No[16] | "He did not use tobacco in any form, and was discreet in the use of liquors. As was the general habit of men in his stratum of society, and especially of men in political life, he took a social drink. His personal and political enemies made the most of even this temperate habit of drinking by resorting to deft exaggeration or by straight lying."[16] | |
Eric L. McKitrick | 1961 | Drinking issue left largely unexamined[17] | Mentions apparent exoneration on charges of drinking round the circle | |
Albert Castel | 1979 | Inconclusive | "...once again [Johnson] succumbed to oratorical self-intoxication..."[18] | |
Hans L. Trefousse | 1989 | No[19] | ||
Annette Gordon-Reed | 2011 | Inconclusive[3] |
Given that alcoholism in family systems continues to be a subject of addiction research, it may be relevant that all three of Johnson's sons struggled with alcoholism,[16] quite publicly in the case of Robert Johnson—he was in the New York State Inebriate Asylum at the time of Grant's inauguration.[20] Robert died of an overdose of alcohol and laudanum, but by some historians theorize that alcohol was also involved in the youthful deaths of Charles and Frank, which are otherwise attributed to accident and tuberculosis, respectively.[21] Further, there are suggestions that David T. Patterson, who was married to Johnson's daughter Martha, had a drinking problem. During the impeachment process, Andrew Johnson himself wrote, "I have had a son killed, a son-in-law die during the last battle at Nashville, another son has thrown himself away, a second son-in-law is in no better condition. I think I have had sorrow enough without having my bank account examined by a Committee of Congress," referring to Charles, Dan Stover, Robert, and Patterson (a sitting U.S. Senator), respectively.[22] In 1891, three months before Patterson's death, a newspaper article described him as "fallen before the same terrific curse which swept away the head of [Martha Johnson Patterson's] family and three talented boys."[23] There are also two newspaper reports that William A. Browning, who worked as Johnson's personal secretary for many years, died of alcohol dependence at age 31.[24][25]
Hans Trefousse, who wrote the most recent full-length scholarly biography of Johnson, argued, "...although his sons suffered from alcoholism, and he himself was constantly accused of it after his inauguration, it seems evident that, unlike a true alcoholic, Johnson could take or leave his liquor at will."[19]
On the whole, historians seem to have concluded that Johnson's problems were not solely a consequence of whisky. W.E.B. DuBois described him as "drunk, not so much with liquor, as with the heady wine of sudden and accidental success."[26] However, "The Atlantic Monthly thought Johnson 'Egotistic to the point of mental disease,'"[2] and the two issues may have overlapped, as "Studies have shown links between narcissistic behavioral patterns and substance abuse issues."[27] In analyzing speeches that seemed like the drunken harangues of a half-deranged misanthrope, historians often find as much evidence for self-obsession as inebriation, as determined by audits of Johnson's favorite topic: himself. For example, in the official transcript of Johnson's vice-presidential inauguration speech, historian Stephen Howard Browne found "extraordinary use of the pronominal and possessive first person. In a speech of approximately 800 words, such constructions run to 28 'I's and nine 'my's. Indeed, in the first paragraph alone 'I' is deployed no less than 20 times. Now, a certain preoccupation with the self is no doubt to be expected under such circumstances, but as his audiences would learn soon enough, Johnson's phrasing here foreshadows an almost pathological fixation on his personal identity."[2]
Similarly, lowlights of the notorious Washington's Birthday speech of 1866 included its long duration, apparent ignorance of political reality, persecutory delusions, sullen resentment, thin-skinned "intolerance of criticism," egotism ("Who, I ask, has suffered more for the Union than I have?"), and more than 200 self-references.[28][29][30] Per historian Eric McKitrick in his ground-breaking Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (1961), what the audience saw and heard was not the President under the influence of mind-altering substances but "Andrew Johnson the man, fully true to his themes of his career and character."[31] According to historian Greg Phifer, The Boston Transcript summarized Johnson's Swing Around the Circle speeches in the fall of 1866 as "beginning with thanks, continuing with 'my sacrifices, my losses, my policy,' and always including "I, I, I, My, My, Me, Me.' "[32]
According to Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking, "Andy Johnson may not have been a drunkard, but neither was he a stranger to whiskey. If one reads through his letters and bills, there is ample evidence that Johnson possessed a discernible taste for quality whiskey—and was willing to pay good money to get it."[33] A conflicting account of Johnson's taste comes from John B. Brownlow in an 1892 letter to Oliver Perry Temple: "Johnson was always perfectly indifferent to the quality of whiskey he drank, he smacked his lips and enjoyed the meanest whiskey hot and fresh from the still, with the fusil oil on it, and stuff that would vomit a gentleman..."[34] According to historian David Warren Bowen, Johnson's back-slapping, swill-chugging persona was part of a larger "almost pathetic appeal for acceptance".[34] According to DuBois, Johnson was known to consume "three or four glasses of Robertson's Canada Whiskey" per day.[26] Benjamin C. Truman, who was Johnson's personal secretary for a time during the American Civil War, said much the same, that Johnson pretty much only drank Robertson County whiskey (he refused wine with meals and disliked champagne), he avoided bars and saloons, and that four glasses a day was not unusual for him, although he didn't necessarily drink daily.[35] In the 19th century, Robertson County, Tennessee distilled more whisky than any other county in the state.[36] Robertson County produced a "distinctive" sour mash whisky that was said to be "similar to, but not quite the same as, Kentucky bourbon."[36]
The recollections of Carl Schurz, M. V. Moore, and others also suggest that Johnson would periodically isolate himself and go on multi-day binges.[37][23] The Johnson family may have used the term "spree" to describe such binge drinking.[13][23]
As for Johnson's own testimony on the sale and consumption of alcohol, according The Curse of Drink: Or, Stories of Hell's Commerce:[38]
Main article: Andrew Johnson's drunk vice-presidential inaugural address |
The incident that set the stage for almost all later evaluation of Johnson's drinking habits was his floridly drunk speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate on the occasion of his swearing-in as Vice President of the United States. Serious historians describe him as "plastered,"[2] and recount that he "humiliated himself before everyone of importance in Washington."[40]
The spectacle inspired a song performed at a theater on E Street:[15]
And there Great Andy Johnson got
And took a brandy-toddy hot,
Which made him drunk as any sot,
At the Inauguration.
And now to wipe out the disgrace,
The President has closed the place,
Where Andy Johnson fell from grace,—
At the Inauguration!
In the end, whether or not he exhibited clinically significant symptoms of alcoholism during his Presidency, after the March 4 spectacle at the U.S. Capitol, "it did not much matter what the truth was about his drinking habits. The truth that mattered was that he had set himself up, made himself vulnerable to charges of drunkenness at virtually every crisis that beset his late political career."[2]
Main article: Inauguration of Andrew Johnson § Senator Stewart's account (1908) |
In 1908, former U.S. Senator William Morris Stewart published his Reminiscences, and most of the 20th chapter of the book is devoted to the abbreviated second term of Abraham Lincoln. One of the Chapter XX subtitles is "How a drunken man was sworn in as President."[41]
Trefousse, Johnson's most recent major biographer, discounts Stewart's account entirely, writing, "The falsity of these assertions is evident. Stewart's account of the swearing in is contradicted by most other contemporary sources, including a memorandum in the chief justice's papers prepared the next day. The fact that the president took his oath at a later time than eight in the morning is well attested by various newspapermen, who failed to see any sign of drunkenness or a hangover. Moreover, the cabinet meeting at noon, which Welles recorded in his diary as well as in other memoranda, is proof positive of Johnson's condition and whereabouts on the fifteenth."[19] However, some or all of these refutations appear to be responses to straw-man arguments.
When Andy was really Governor of Tennessee to save money he boarded in a Livery Stable but since he is no Ass—though he "often felt his oats and oftener his rye"—he took his forage upstairs.
— Unsigned, Knoxville Daily Register, 1862[51]