The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-20 00:00:00

presided for the last four years, and concluded by
introducing his successor, 'the Hon. Andrew John-
son, of Tennessee, Vice-President Elect.
All eyes were turned to Mr. John cn as he
started, rather than rose, from his ehai and, with
wild gesticulations and shrieks, arz ngely and
weirdly intermingled with audible sta&e whispers,
began to address the brilliant auditory around and
above him. Such oratory it was never my fortune
to hear before, and I hope never to hear again. Mr.
Johnson was once a journeyman tailor, and rose by,
industry and the possession of something like politi-
cal genius to his present high position. In no free
country—and least of all in America--would any
right-minded man seek to cast a slur upon him
on account of the humbleness of his origin. No one
thinks the worse of Mr. Lincoln because in early
life he was a rail-splitter and a boatalan ; but if, as
President of the United States, he behaved like a
rail-splitter, spoke like one, drank like one, thought
like one, and could not import into the higher sphere
of his new life anything but the vulgar manners and
gross habits of the old, it would be impossible for
any one to forget his origin, or not to lament that

circumstances had lifted him out of a sphere in which
it would have been better if he had remained. It
is not therefore became he was once a journeyman
tailor that every witness of the exhibition which Mr.
Johnson made of himself on the day that ought to
have been the proudest of his life feels humiliated at
the idea that such a person should have arisen from
the dregs of society, to disgrace not only the dignity
of his official position, but even the honest working
classes from whom he sprang. His behaviour was
that of an illiterate, vulgar, and drunken rowdy,
and could it have been displayed before any other
legislative assembly in the world, would have led to
his arrest by the sergeant-at-arms, if not to his igno-
minious expulsion by the deliberate vote of his in-
sulted colleagues. He had not uttered two sentences
when everybody saw that something was wrong.
"He is drunk," said one. "He is crazy," said
another." " This is disgraceful," said a third. Mr.
Seward and the Ministers looked on the ground, or
moved uneasily in their seats. The Judges of the
Supreme Court manifested by their faces their pain
and their surprise. Mr. Johnson was so proud of the
dignity into which fate had thrust him that he
boasted of it in the language of a clown and with
the manners of a costermonger. "I am a-going for
to tell you—here—to-day—yes, I am a-going for to
tell you all that lam a plebian. I glory in it. lam
a plebian. The people--yes, the people of the United
States—the great people—have made me what I am;
and I am a-going for to tell you here to-day—yes,
to-day, inthis place—that the people are everything.
We owe all to them. If it be not too presumptuous,
I will tell the foreign Ministers a-sitting there that I
am one of the people. I will say to senators and
others before me, I will say to the Supreme Court
which sits before me, that you all get your power
and place from the people. And Mr. Chase," he said,
suddenly addressing the wiprised Chief Justice by
name, " your position depends upon the people."
Turning to the other side of the house, where sat Mr.
Seward and the other Ministers, he severally addressed
them as he had addressed Mr. Chase. "And I will say
to you, Mr. Secretary Seward, and to you, Mr. Secre-
tary Stanton, and to you, Mr. Secretary —." Here
he hesitated for a name, and, according to the public
report in the Washington papers of this morning,
bent down and asked Mr. Hamlin if he knew who
was Secretary of the Navy. Having been informed,
he continued in the same loud tone, " And to you,
Mr. Secretary Welles, you all of you derive your
powers from the people." These words were uttered
with strong emphasis upon the word " you," which
Mr. Johnson invariably pronounced " yeoo !" He
pitched his voice as if he had been addressing a
large multitude in the open air, and alternately
whispered and roared in a manner that would
have been ludicrous had it not been disgusting.
He ended at last, to the relief of everybody, just
as the members of the House of Representatives,
whose session closed punctually at noon, came
crowding into the Senate Chamber to witness the
chief ceremonial of the day. Mr. Lincoln, escorted
by Marshal Lamon, once his partner in the law
business at Springfield, entered shortly afterwards
and took his seat below the Vice-President's chair,
while the oath of office was administered to Mr.
Johnson. Fortunately the President heard no part
of Mr. Johnson's speech, and. was unaware of the
sad exhibition which his subordinate had made. A
few minutes were employed in reading Mr. Lincoln's
proclamation for an extra session of the Senate to
commence that day at noon for the consideration
of important public business, and in tendering the
oath to several new senators who had been elected
within the previous months, among whom was Mr.
Fessenden, the late Secretary of the Treasury. It
was then announced to the President sotto voco by.
the Marshal that the weather was clear, that the
sun was shining brilliantly, and that all was
ready for the ceremonial of the day on the plat-
form erected on the steps of the Capitol. Mr.
Lincoln rose ; the Ministers, the Judges of the
Supreme Court, and a large body of the senators
followed. There was a general rush and scramble in
all parts of the house, like the emptying of a theatre
when the performances are over, but far more eager,
inasmuch as every one strove who should be first to
reach a good place to witness a new performance
more interesting than the last. Every one was left
to shift for himself, and the members of the Corps
Diplomatique, with all their fine feathers and uni-
forms, sashes and ribands, stars and crosses, fared
no better than the common crowd, and were left to
fight their way into or out of the mass, as it best
pleased them. Most of them were so displeased at
the want of arrangement, or the want of courtesy,
whichever it might have been, that they made no
attempt to follow the President, and consequently
took no part in the great celebration of the day.
Making my way out of the building as fast as possible
to mingle with the crowd outside, I arrived just in
time to hear Mr. Lincoln deliver the last words
of his singular but pathetic address. The document
was remarkably short, and did not occupy 10 mi-
nutes in the reading. This done, a salute of 100
guns was fired in honour of the event, and Mr. Lin-
coln drove home again up Pennsylvania-avenue,
preceded and followed by the same procession which
accompanied him to the Capitol, bowing graciously
and not ungracefully to his lieges on every side, and
taking their homage as naturally and unostenta-
tiously
as if he were truly a king, and had been born
in the purple.

Labouring through the mire of the avenue half
an hour afterwards, I met a distinguished citizerqof
Washington, and a lea,ding'politician, who asked me
if I had heard the Vice-President's speech ? I re-
plied that I had, and asked to what cause he attri-
buted the humiliating display. "He was drunk;
very drunk," he said. " But it was not his fault.
His liquor was drugged ,by some Southern rebel,
in order to throw disgrace upon the Federal Go-
said I, "if such was the in-
vernment." "But,"
tention, why did not the Southern rebel drug the
President's drink rather than the Vice-President's ?"
cc so he would have done, I have no doubt, only he
could not get at old Abe, who is, besides, a sober
man, and does not take drinks with strangers."
Meeting shortly afterwards with a Democratic
senator, a moderate opponent of the Government,
and no admirer of Mr. Lincoln or any member of
the Administration, he asked me " if I had heard
Andrew Johnson ?" " The country is disgraced,"
he said, " and I pray God for the health and long
life of Abraham Lincoln. I never prayed for him
next to theyears,
before, nor knew how valuable his
life
was
four
country. Should he die within the
which calamity may Heaven in its mercy avert, we
should have Andrew Johnson for President, and
sink to a lower depth of degradation than was
ever reached by any nation since the Roman Em-
peror made his horse a consul." The editor of one
of the Washington journals here stopped and took
part in our conversation. "Do not," he said, " de-
scribe this scene to the people of England without
telling them at the same time that the press of the
United States, without distinction of party, were
down' upon Mr. Johnson for his scandalous mis-
conduct. Mark my words," he continued, " Mr.
Johnson will never recover from the disgrace he has
brought upon himself. He is ruined as a public
man for ever." In accordance with the editor's
Suggestion, I record the fact that, as far as I have
yet seen, the Democratic or Opposition press, and