After Johnson had given a rambling and slurred speech attacking privilege, he melodramatically waved the Bible in the air and passionately kissed it. Douglass thought Johnson looked drunk, but did not know what a fool the Tennessean had made of himself after taking the oath.

He pointed him out to Andrew Johnson, who had just been sworn in as Vice President in the Senate chamber. After the parade had arrived at the Capitol's east portico and the presidential company had come out, Lincoln recognized the civil-rights leader from Douglass's earlier visits to the White House. It was otherwise with Frederick Douglass. Though Whitman was a close observer of the President, and would shadow him throughout this day, there was no way for Lincoln to recognize him in the crowd. He thought Lincoln might have preceded the tacky parade in order to avoid association with a muslin Temple of Liberty or a pasteboard model of the ironclad Monitor.

Walt Whitman saw Lincoln's carriage dash through the rain 'on sharp trot' from the White House to the Capitol, scene of the swearing-in. MARCH 4, 1865, the day of Lincoln's second inauguration as President, began in a driving rain that raddled Washington's famously muddy thoroughfares - women would wear the mud caked to their long dresses throughout the day's ceremonies.

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