Andrew Johnson’s Drunken Inauguration

“I got your Vice-Presidency riiiiight here.”

~Andrew Johnson

The America Fun Fact of the Day organization has taken a lot of heat from various public interest groups over the years, which is to be expected whenever a fresh, vibrant voice appears to lead the general public down the proper American path.  Native American groups really didn’t take kindly to our Super Bowl commercials that ran under the slogan, “Indians:  Stop Bitching and Be Thankful We Let You Have Casinos” (though, surprisingly, the media uproar over those spots was largely overshadowed by how much people inexplicably loathed those boring Groupon ads).  A lot of Eastern European groups tend to take umbrage with our bizarre inexplicable hatred towards Ukranians.  And, of course, we take a lot of heat from MADD for our supposedly controversial “High Fives for safe Buzzed drivers” program, and our, “Blowing a .08 isn’t nearly as big of a crime as blowing a .2, get over it America” advertising banners that we may or may not have placed on the MADD website for a time.

We didn’t earn any favors with this campaign either…

And of our many transgressions (people always tend to overlook our Condor fighting ring, which baffles us to no end) our stance towards alcohol (mainly that it’s awesome) tends to get a surprising amount of backlash.  Not that we care to address that backlash at the moment.  Let’s put it this way, 90% of the people that tell us, “Alcohol ruins lives” also list their favorite TV shows as being According to Jim, Two and a Half Men, and The Bachelor.  Call us cynical, but we’re not too worried about losing that demographic as readers.

This show got eight seasons.  EIGHT.  Yet Arrested Development got cancelled after three.  This message was sponsored by whiskey.  “Whiskey:  Drink me to forget.”

Alcohol is as American as drinking Alcohol, which, for those who have never read AFFotD, is incredibly American.  And that’s why we choose to salute one of the best moments in American Alcohol consumption.  The Vice-Presidential inauguration of Abraham Lincoln’s Vice President, Andrew Johnson.

Now, we all have had instances where we were “piss ourselves drunk” at a time where it might not be considered “socially acceptable to be stumbling drunk.”  Funerals, Best Man Speeches, job interviews, we all occasionally will find ourselves extremely inappropriately drunk on any given situation.  And we at AFFotD say there’s no harm in that, and we’d even take it a step further.  Everyone should get drunk at horribly unacceptable times.

Drunk at a Funeral?  That’s called having Irish heritage.  Drunk for a Best Man Speech?  Hello, dude in youtube video that gets one million views before people forget about it.  Job interviews?  We only hire people who show up totally trashed.  One guy (we’re not ashamed to admit it was one Robert Duvall) threw up on Johnny Roosevelt’s shoes for his damn interview, and now he’s in charge of our Southern branch.

And how did he snag his smoking hot wife who is LITERALLY half his age?  Alcohol.  Well, money too probably.  Mostly the money, actually.

And it’s with that in mind that we salute Andrew Johnson, a man whose name sounds like Andrew Jackson, but is in no other way even remotely similar.  Except for two things.  An appreciation for booze, and a hatred of rich people.

He also looks suspiciously like Tommy Lee Jones

Andrew Johnson was the accidental President of the United States, being the first president to take office as a Vice President after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and he didn’t really do much to make a good name for himself.  In fact, between the establishing of Jim Crow, and having everyone aggressively (and one vote shy of being successful) trying to kick him out of office, he’s widely considered to be the worst president of all time.  But if there’s one thing he did right, it was give us the drunkest, most entertaining vice-presidential inauguration of this nation’s history.

No one particularly cares about Vice-Presidential inaugurations.  How unimportant are they?  We could tell you, “Joe Biden had his Vice-Presidential inauguration from a hot tub” and you would have to pause and think, “…No, he didn’t really…did he?”  So it’s impressive when not only does a Vice-President have his own inauguration that is memorable, but it’s so memorable it is one of the “Trivia” tidbits to appear on a website about the dude’s grave.

It even gets mention on a site listing “10 Scandalous Facts about Historical Figures” (though we have to admit, we were a little concerned to see that the “Scandal” about Adolph Hitler was that he committed Tax Fraud.)

You see, America, Andrew Johnson performed his oath of office while filthy, stinking drunk.

Andrew Johnson, who worked his way up from humble conditions to become a prominent political figure, hated the aristocracy.  His body also apparently hated typhoid fever, and he was rocking a bad case of it.  Adhering to a very American idea of Health Care, an ill Andrew Johnson decided to treat his typhoid by chugging three glasses of “medicinal” whisky, prescribed to him by, like, just the best doctor ever, you guys.  A drunken Andrew Johnson than took the stage and rambled off a speech that was basically comprised of equal parts “YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME?” and “EHHHHHHHH.”  You know, like a dismissive old man.

“Ehhhhhhhhh.”

So, Andrew Johnson rambled drunkenly for seventeen minutes, before sloppily kissing the bible, and placing himself in a position where he would be able to become president only a month later.

So, despite any of Andrew Johnson’s shortcomings, we at AFFotD at least take proud note of the fact that, of all the Vice-Presidents out there, only one decided to get ridiculously sloshed before his inauguration.